GOVERNMENT MARIJUANA

By Karyn Hunt, Associated Press Writer

San Francisco (AP) From the evidence room to the living room. That's how
officials in one northern California county envision a governmentrun
program to distribute confiscated marijuana to the sick. In response to
Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative California voters
approved last year, San Mateo County's firstofitskind program would give
pot seized in criminal cases to the sick under tightly controlled
conditions. The marijuana first would be photographed and cataloged for use
in trials. Then it would be shipped to public health clinics, where it
would be tested for freshness and contamination. If the pot meets quality
standards, it would be doled out at clinics to patients or others
authorized to pick it up. Users would need a prescription and would have to
register with the sheriff's department. "We're trying to make it available
to those who need it most, and be sensitive to the people's intent in the
spirit of Proposition 215," said San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin,
the former San Francisco police detective who suggested the idea. He hasn't
calculated the cost of such a program. The County Board of Supervisors
voted unanimously Tuesday to develop a plan to present to the state
Attorney General's office. Nevin hopes to have the plan completed by Jan.
1. Then, he'll take it to the state Legislature and ask for an emergency
bill allowing the county to conduct a yearlong pilot program. Attorney
General Dan Lungren, who opposed the November 1996 initiative, hasn't said
he supports the idea but has assigned a staff lawyer to take a look at San
Mateo's proposal. The county has as much as $200,000 worth of marijuana in
its evidence rooms on any given day and between 500 and 1,500 people who
could be eligible to use it, Nevin said. Right now, the pot ends up being
destroyed. "The stuff is going to waste," said Maia Powers, 35, who smokes
marijuana for an anxiety disorder she says is fallout from abuse suffered
as a child. She gets her pot now from the Cannabis Cultivators Club in San
Francisco. "I think it's a marvelous idea, especially if they expect people
to get the medicine without major growing programs," she said. If the
program is successful, other counties would follow, Nevin said. That
wouldn't sit well with the White House, said a representative of the Office
of National Drug Control Policy. "I would say that the Office of National
Drug Control Policy has serious reservations about any program such as
this," said Brian Morton. "As far as we're concerned, marijuana still
hasn't proven its case as a legitimate medicine." Proposition 215 made it
legal for seriously ill people to use marijuana, with a doctor's
permission, for the relief of pain and other symptoms. But the measure is
unclear on who can grow and distribute the drug. Backers say it decreases
pain without the nausea associated with many prescription pain killers and
increases appetite, allowing AIDS and cancer patients who frequently waste
away to eat and keep their strength up.