Source: The Recorder, the daily legal newspaper of California
Contact: pscheer@ricochet.net

© The Recorder, Monday, August 11, 1997

Stressed Out? Get Hip to Proposition 215, Man

By Robert Ablon

For San Francisco criminal defense attorney J. Tony Serra, getting high
ain't what it used to be. In at least one respect, it's better.

Serra claims he's been getting stoned nightly for more than 30 years,
smoking about three joints a day to stave off the symptoms of his
"highstress lifestyle" and to stir his creative energies. But Serra says
he's been forced to smoke behind closed doors, clandestinely engaging in an
illegal activity.

Not anymore. Emboldened by the passage last year of Proposition 215, which
legalized marijuana for medical uses, Serra says he has come out of the
closet to "join the thousands who have used marijuana both
epistemologically and medicinally."

Serra, an attorney at Serra, Lichter, Daar, Bustamante, Michael & Wilson,
says that about three months ago he obtained a doctor's recommendation
the prerequisite for legal usage of pot which has enabled him to get
high on the up and up.

"My doctor sat me down for three hours and went over my full history and
lifestyle," says Serra, who declined to name the doctor. "And it was
derived from that that I'm in a highstress category."

San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Vernon Grigg, head of the
narcotics division, says the office will not investigate whether stress is
a legitimate medical condition.

"This is a medical matter between Mr. Serra and his doctor," Grigg
says.

Serra maintains that trial lawyers in particular are plagued by alcoholism,
sleeplessness, high blood pressure, ulcers, heart attacks and "in general
uptight, preoccupied" personality traits.

"When I was in law school, they said we'd have the lowest life span of any
professional," says the 58yearold attorney. "And they were right; I've
watched my contemporaries fall like flies."

Serra, a member of San Francisco's Cannabis Cultivators Club, says he's
been spared any major physical illnesses, and he attributes his good health
to daily doses of dope.

Moreover, in a press release sent out on Aug. 4, Serra urges other
professionals to follow his lead.

"Stockbrokers, bankers, real estate marketeers, politicians, doctors and
lawyers should all seek a doctor's recommendation to avoid the
psychological and physiological consequences of stress," Serra wrote. "It
is time to come off the booze and get on the cannabis!"

As a selfdescribed marijuana activist, Serra dismisses the notion that the
drug impairs mental processes. At the same time, Serra says he limits his
intake to offhours occasions.

"You can't practice law stoned so I don't smoke during the day," Serra
says. "But I work 6080 hours a week, I'm a workaholic, and pot has never
affected my ability to concentrate. I want other people to know that."