COURT: CLUBS CAN'T SELL MARIJUANA

SAN FRANCISCO Marijuana clubs cannot sell the drug legally to patients
despite California's medicalmarijuana initiative, a state appeals court
ruled Friday.

The 1st District Court of Appeal ordered the reinstatement of an injunction
that shut down the Cannabis Buyers' Club in San Francisco after a raid by
Attorney General Dan Lungren's agents in August 1996.

The club had been allowed to operate by San Francisco authorities. But
Lungren's agents said marijuana was being sold to people without doctors'
prescriptions and was resold on the street, and children were on the
premises.

The club's founder, Dennis Peron, who was also the author of the
Proposition 215 initiative, called the ruling "a slap in the face of the
voters" and said he would appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Peron and five others face charges of sale and transportation of marijuana.

Lungren said the decision was "welcome news because it gives some certainty
to the law with respect to Proposition 215.

"We believe it gives proper guidance throughout California and we will so
advise the law enforcement," Lungren said.

Prop. 215, approved in November 1996, allows possession and cultivation of
marijuana upon a doctor's recommendation to ease the pain and nausea of
AIDS, cancer and other conditions.

But state law still prohibits anyone, including a nonprofit organization,
from selling marijuana or possessing it for sale, said the opinion by
Presiding Justice J. Clinton Peterson.

The only way a patient can obtain marijuana legally is to grow it or obtain
it from a primary caregiver who has grown it, Peterson said.