'FATHER OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA' SPEAKS

ASHLAND -- The man who opened the nation's first "pot club" for
medical marijuana users will come to town Tuesday to speak in favor
of legalizing marijuana.

Dennis Peron, known as the "father of medical marijuana," supports
across-the-board legalization of marijuana. In a telephone interview,
he said enforcing existing laws costs the criminal justice system a fortune.

Peron is scheduled to speak from 6 to 7:30 p.m., Tuesday in the Meese
Auditorium in the Visual Arts Building at Southern Oregon University,
1250 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland. The free presentation is sponsored by
Ashland Alternative Health, a clinic that helps people obtain medical
marijuana cards.

Peron championed California's 1996 medical marijuana ballot measure
- -- the first in the nation.

His position is at one extreme in the range of opinions on
marijuana's role in society. Law enforcement officials say the
present arrangement, in which some people with a medical condition
can legally possess marijuana, makes enforcement of drug laws difficult.

In Southern Oregon, police have arrested a number of medical
marijuana card holders for exceeding the number of plants they were
allowed to grow and seized hundreds of pounds of illegal pot in
several widely publicized arrests.

Peron said the passage of medical marijuana laws changed the image of
pot from something used by "long-hair, hippie-crazy" people to a drug
of middle-class people.

"It helped make (marijuana use) more benevolent. We changed the
tide," said Peron. He said the thrust of his work now is ballot
measures to normalize distribution, so "you can get it at Walgreens,"
at affordable prices.

Peron, who also is a gay-rights advocate, said he joined the effort
to legalize pot when his lover was dying of AIDS and found that
marijuana helped him when chemotherapy didn't.

"When he died, I decided to dedicate my life to alleviate the
suffering" of users, he said. "I opened the (Cannabis Buyers Club) to
serve the dying. It was in the belly of the beast. The cops and the
mayor supported me."

Alex Rogers, director of the clinic that's bringing Peron to Southern
Oregon, predicted backers of Oregon's proposed ballot measure for a
state-licensed, nonprofit marijuana supply system would get enough
signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

Rogers said he opposes state control of marijuana culture because
"they don't have the ability to provide a multitude of strains" of
the plant, which he said are beneficial to specific ailments. After
the dispensary initiative, he said, advocates will work to end to all
civil and criminal penalties for cannabis possession and use.