SAN MATEO'S PLAN; GIVE SEIZED MARIJUANA TO SICK PEOPLE

Redwood City: The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday in
favor of distributing confiscated marijuana to the sick through public
health clinics.

If put into effect, the plan would create the nation's first governmentrun
marijuana dispensary.

"I'm trying to find a compassionate way of getting this drug, that is now
legal, to the sick and dying people who need it," said Supervisor Mike Nevin.

The supervisors voted 50 to develop a dispensing plan with the cooperation
of the state Attorney General's Office and seek special legislation from
the Legislature to authorize a pilot project.

Attorney General Dan Lungren, who had opposed the November 1996 initiative
that legalized medical marijuana, has assigned a staff lawyer to help
develop a project proposal, Nevin said.

Nevin and other public officials have been trying to figure out how to get
medical marijuana to those who need it without seeing the drug abused.

County clinics would dispense marijuana to seriously ill people whose
doctors prescribe it, guarantee the quality and prevent dealers from
passing themselves off as dogooders, Nevin said.

The supervisor plans to ask state Sen. John Vasconcellos, DSanta Clara, to
put the pilot project in legislation providing for a study on marijuana's
effectiveness as a medicine.