MARIJUANA ADVOCATE TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR

The maverick founder of a San Francisco club that supplies marijuana to the
sick Friday formally announced he would be a Republican candidate for
governor in 1998.

``I will take the high road in this campaign,'' Cannabis Buyers Club
founder Dennis Peron told reporters.

``It's about hope, empowerment and compassion. It's also about new
priorities for our state. And it's about, as corny as it may sound, peace
and love too.''

Peron, the gay Vietnam War veteran who led a successful campaign to
legalize medical marijuana use in California, will take on powerful state
Attorney General Dan Lungren in the Republican primary next year.

Lungren, a law and order hardliner who has fought bitterly against Peron
and his marijuana club, has raised millions of dollars for his campaign and
is considered an overwhelming favorite.

The two have been skirmishing in the courts over different interpretations
of Proposition 215, the state measure passed last year making it legal for
people sick AIDS, cancer and other serious ailments to use marijuana when
directed to do so by a doctor.

Peron, who helped to write the bill, has vowed to fight a Dec. 12 appeals
court ruling which said California's estimated 20 marijuana buyer's clubs
were still illegal because they do not qualify as ``primary caregivers.''

Lungren, for his part, has vowed to step up enforcement of antimarijuana
laws.

Peron said in August that he was thinking about running for governor, and
registered as a Republican prompting a dismissive snort from Lungren.

``If Dennis Peron is running for governor on the Republican ticket, he has
smoked more marijuana than even I thought,'' he told the San Francisco
Chronicle at the time.

But Friday the veteran peace activist said he was ready for the fight, and
already had 1,000 of the 10,000 signatures he needed to get on the ballot.

``I knew there would a lot of jokes about me smoking pot, and me being part
of the `60s,'' Peron told KCBS radio.

``But you know, I'll tell you who I am. I'm a man born of war.''