IT'S not easy being a trailblazer, as San Jose discovered last week when
a glitch surfaced in its medical marijuana policy.

``There are all kinds of problems that even the proponents of
Proposition 215 didn't anticipate,'' said Kevin Pursglove, a spokesman
for Mayor Susan Hammer. He was talking about legislation that legalized
the sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

One of the loopholes that Proposition 215 didn't address was the
transportation of marijuana, which is illegal under state law. Last
week, San Jose police mandated that the Santa Clara Medical Cannabis
Center stop transporting cannabis from San Francisco and grow its own on
the premises. Since that isn't possible, the center would have had to
close.

The organizers threatened a hunger strike. But as city officials
trickled back from July vacations, a crisis was averted. The police
chief talked with the center's operators, and they came up with what
amounts to a don't ask, don't tell policy. The cops have agreed to allow
the center to grow cannabis at a discrete location in San Jose.

It's the right thing to do.

Proposition 215 is indeed flawed. But Californians saw it as the only
way to make marijuana available to people who seem to benefit from it in
fighting the symptoms of terrible diseases. It would be easy to block
the initiative, but that would only increase the suffering of AIDS and
cancer patients. San Jose officials, including Police Chief Lou
Cobarruviaz, continue to be reasonable in allowing medical marijuana
centers while exercising prudent controls on their operations.

Published Wednesday, August 6, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News