COUNTY STUDYING RELAXATION OF MEDICAL POT POLICY

Riverside County is moving closer to allowing dispensaries that would
sell marijuana for medicinal use, as county officials consider
details for an ordinance to regulate such shops.

Some elected officials who had opposed permitting dispensaries now
embrace it, albeit reluctantly and with caveats. And land-use planners
are beginning to study what areas might be appropriate for
dispensaries, following a March 28 order from the five-member county
Board of Supervisors. The shift follows years of debate over the
medical legitimacy of the drug and questions over counties' roles in a
conflict between state and federal law. Proposition 215, approved by
California voters in 1996, exempts seriously ill patients from state
laws prohibiting marijuana and directs counties to regulate the drug's
medical use. But all uses remain illegal under federal law. The
supervisors agreed at a recent meeting that the county government is
an arm of the state government. The move to allow dispensaries is a
reluctant embrace of the state proposition.

"I don't believe in them, but the voters said they should exist," 3rd
District Supervisor Jeff Stone said Monday.

Two weeks ago, Stone was the lone dissenter when a majority of the
board told its planning staff to research acceptable areas for the
shops.

Three California counties and 23 cities allow facilities that sell pot
to qualified patients. Dozens have banned such dispensaries.

Riverside County's health department issues cards identifying patients
who use the drug to ease pain or nausea as allowed under Proposition
215. Under state and city laws, patients can legally buy the drug at
dispensaries in Palm Springs and Palm Desert, and can grow for their
own use.

Several groups of users grow plants collectively in the western half
of the county, and at least two mobile services deliver the drug to
patients, undisturbed by state law-enforcement officers.

No dispensaries exist between Palm Springs and coastal cities. The
county government and several cities in the area have blocked them.
Murrieta has banned them and Lake Elsinore has blocked them
indefinitely, while Temecula has a temporary ban that city leaders
could soon make permanent.

That's why the March 28 vote was significant, medical marijuana
advocates said. While approving a six-month extension on an expiring
moratorium on dispensaries, the supervisors asked county planners for
recommendations on where to allow them in the future in unincorporated
areas.

The county probably would restrict them to high-traffic commercial
zones as a deterrent to theft and other crimes that might happen in
secluded areas, said Mark Balys, the county planning department's
point man on the issue.

Stone, a pharmacist, had been the board's most outspoken member in
questioning the medical value of marijuana. He earlier urged the board
to join San Diego and San Bernardino counties in suing the state over
the issue. Citing federal law, the two counties argue that they should
not be forced to issue identification cards to medical-marijuana users.

On Monday, Stone said he had refined his views after a conference last
weekend in Santa Barbara, where nurses, patient advocates, a
pharmacologist and physicians spoke on the issue. Stone said he's now
open to the possibility that the unrefined plant could have advantages
over legal alternatives such as Marinol, a commercially produced drug.

If Riverside County does allow the dispensaries, Stone said, they
should have to keep records to deter the drug from ending up in a pipe
at a party down the street. He suggested a record-keeping system
similar to what pharmacies use for controlled drugs such as morphine.

Bob Buster and Roy Wilson, the two county supervisors most sympathetic
to the medicinal use of marijuana, have argued that county
governments, as arms of California's state government, are first
responsible for carrying out state law.

"The federal government shouldn't be meddling in state and local
governments," said Wilson, who represents parts of the Coachella
Valley and eastern Riverside County. "If (the county Planning
Department) comes up with a reasonable approach, I'm hopeful some sort
of ordinance will move forward."

The shift in county policy matters especially to users who don't
belong to growing collectives, said Martin Victor, a Temecula resident
whose wife uses the drug to treat symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

"If you don't have the land to do it, and you don't have the time, you
have to get someone else to do it for you," Victor said.

For many users, Victor said, that someone is affiliated with a
dispensary in West Hollywood or Palm Springs.

Riverside County would still have to approve its planners'
recommendations as an amendment to its general land-use plan before
allowing any dispensaries on unincorporated land. Individual
dispensaries would then have to obtain permits, Balys said.

The apparent move toward allowing dispensaries is good news to Dave
Johnson, a Temecula user who said he delivers to a dozen others in
Hemet, Temecula and surrounding areas. With Temecula, Murrieta and
Lake Elsinore shutting out distribution facilities, one in an
unincorporated area such as Wildomar or Sun City could make his life a
lot easier, he said.