DON'T OK POT BUYERS CLUB, SCULLY TO URGE CITY COUNCIL by Oscar Hidalgo,
Bee Staff Writer Copyright (c) 1997, McClatchy Newspapers, Inc.

District Attorney Jan Scully announced Monday that she
will ask the Sacramento City Council not to approve,
sanction or help create a local marijuana buyers club.

AIDS patient Ryan Landers plans to ask the City Council
this week to help his group form the Capitol City Cannabis
Buyers Club so that ill people with doctors' permission can
obtain medicinal marijuana. Landers, 25, who has smoked
marijuana for two years and calls it a lifesaver, wants to
create better access to marijuana for ill people in
Sacramento, especially AIDS sufferers.

Landers and his group of about 10, some of whom use
marijuana to moderate their illnesses, plan to ask the
council during public comments on Thursday to fashion an
ordinance to allow such a club.

But Scully suggests the City Council not give its
blessing to cannabis clubs and allow law enforcement
agencies to deal with medicinal use of marijuana on a
casebycase basis.

"While no one wishes to deny seriously ill patients
medication which eases their suffering, it is equally
important that no one be allowed to usurp controlling
federal law or expand the very limited provisions of
Proposition 215," she said.

Proposition 215, passed in November, allows doctors to
recommend marijuana and allows patients to grow, possess
and use it. The initiative lists AIDS, cancer and glaucoma
as medically appropriate for marijuana use. But the
measure did not legalize cultivation or transportation of
marijuana for the purpose of sale. And provisions of the
new state law may violate federal law, according to Scully.

Dale Kitching, head of the Sacramento County district
attorney's narcotics unit, said the new law basically
envisioned patients growing grow two or three plants for
themselves not the creation of marijuana drug stores.

In recent months, there have been numerous meetings of
federal and local law enforcement agencies, the city
manager's office and proponents of the initiative in an
"attempt to unravel ambiguities and inconsistencies arising
from" the proposition, Scully said.

Issues surrounding medicinal marijuana use already
overlap state and federal jurisdictions, and the city would
add an unproductive, "third layer of regulation" by
permitting cannabis clubs, Scully said.

Councilman Robbie Waters strongly opposes creation of
cannabis clubs in Sacramento and said he would "do
everything I can to keep them from opening up here."
Michael Picker, Mayor Joe Serna Jr.'s chief of staff, said
it's difficult to comment on Landers' suggestion because,
at this point, there's "no real action for the council to
take."