MIXED VIEWS ON MARIJUANA

The founder of Oaksterdam University has faith
California voters will legalize marijuana this November and expects to
raise $20 million from supporters across the United States to help
pass the initiative.

Oaksterdam is the brainchild of Richard Lee, the man who helped
qualify "The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010" by
spending more than $1 million of his own money to gather the 433,971
signatures needed to qualify.

The California Secretary of State certified the measure for the ballot
last week possibly making California the first state to legalize the
recreational use of the drug for persons 21 and older depending on
November's vote.

The California Police Chiefs Association is opposed to the ballot
initiative and has stated only about 2 percent of those using crude
marijuana for medicine are critically ill. San Mateo Police Chief
Susan Manheimer is the president of the statewide police group and
adamantly opposes legalizing the drug for recreational use.

The group does support compassionate use for people with real medical
need, Manheimer said, but the ballot initiative would only strengthen
illegal drug cartels, which controls marijuana distribution in the
state.

A grassroots group has formed a political action committee, with
members from across the state, to defeat the ballot measure. Citizens
Against Legalizing Marijuana is led in part by a former school teacher
with a degree in criminology from Sacramento named Carla Lowe.

Lowe has been battling the drug since she first joined a
parent-teacher association in 1978 just after then Gov. Jerry Brown
signed a law reducing tough marijuana penalties. Possession of an
ounce or less of marijuana has been a misdemeanor with a $100 fine
since 1975, when Brown signed the law. Before that, judges had
discretion to impose 10-year sentences.

But Lowe has watched the drug slowly become more prevalent in the
state since the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996 that allows for
medical use.

"The plan was to get it accepted as a medicine first," Lowe said.
"They have succeeded at that. But this is a dangerous proposition that
puts health, safety and the state's economic well-being at stake. The
medical defense is a joke."

She doesn't expect to be able to raise $20 million to battle the
ballot initiative's flashy television ads and sound bites, already
starting to air.

Lowe is hoping like-minded people will put a solid effort into
educating the public on the danger of the drug.

But medical marijuana users, themselves, are split on the idea of
recreational use of the drug for adults, at least for the large group
of volunteers that run a collective in Santa Clara County called Green
Access Corp.

Green Access Corp. is a membership-only alternative medicine
collective operating under California Prop. 215 and Senate Bill 420
that provides marijuana in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Farsh Fallah is a volunteer at Green Access, a medical marijuana user
and father.

"Well, we have been talking about it a lot. All the volunteers here
are split down the middle," Fallah said.

One member of the collective, a 73-year-old woman with Parkinson's
disease, says she continually gets harassed by police despite being
protected by the state for medical use.

She, therefore, supports the ballot initiative for recreational use so
police will no longer have to enforce the current law, Fallah said.

Fallah is more interested in providing medical marijuana for patients
who have a hard time accessing the drug. Green Access delivers medical
marijuana to patients in the counties it serves.

Since not a single city, nor the county has approved a cannabis
dispensary, patients in San Mateo County are forced to go to San
Francisco, Oakland or San Jose to access medicine or grow it themselves.

"The only way we exist is to provide medical users in San Mateo County
with medicine," Fallah said.

Oaksterdam's Lee has visions of legalization beyond California's
borders, though.

"Taxing and regulating it here is a first step toward changing federal
law," Lee said.

He also laughs when people try to say how dangerous marijuana is
considering how rampant alcohol use is in the country.

"Alcohol is more dangerous. It has overdose potential. Frat boys drop
dead every year from overdosing on alcohol. You can't OD on cannabis,"
Lee told the Daily Journal.

The possession and sale of marijuana remain a federal
crime.

And it should be, CALM's Lowe contends.

Marijuana is a controlled substance, a schedule 1 drug, she
said.

"Probably only 2 percent of so-called medical marijuana users have an
actual need. It's a hoax," Lowe said.

Legalizing it would create about 100,000 jobs in the state, said Lee,
who also oversees a cannabis-themed gift shop in Oakland.

"It will pass," Lee said.

If it does not pass, however, a state lawmaker intends on
reintroducing a similar bill that passed out of committee earlier this
year with the help of a vote by state Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San
Mateo.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, was the author of Assembly
Bill 390 and chairs the public safety committee.

AB 390 would have allowed adults 21 and older to legally possess, grow
and sell marijuana. The legislation called for a $50-per-ounce fee and
a 9 percent tax on retail sales. The bill passed out of committee but
the Assembly never voted on it.

"It is unconscionable that the state would try to balance its budget
by approving the use of mind-altering substances," Manheimer said
after Ammiano's bill passed out of committee.