ARE POT CLUBS LEGAL? IT'S HAZY

Despite feds' right to crack down, medical marijuana in California
seems safe for now

San Francisco -- Four months after the Supreme Court upheld the
right of the federal government to crack down on the sale and use of
medical marijuana, California's estimated 150,000 medical marijuana
patients are still puffing freely.

Nellie, the so-called bud-tender at the Alternative Herbal Health
Services medical marijuana dispensary here, tucked some cannabis into
a pipe recently and lit up. Reaching across a display case holding
marijuana brownies, she passed the pipe to Leather Webb, 51, who took
a hit and handed the pipe to three guys relaxing on a couch.

Leaning against a wall and exhaling a cloud of pungent smoke, Webb
said marijuana eases the residual pain from 15 surgeries on her left
leg, which was damaged by polio.

"I was on 100 milligrams of morphine twice a day," she said. "I was
zombied. I got my cannabis to take me off of it."

As they smoke, the air grows as hazy as the complicated legal saga of
medical marijuana. When California voters passed Proposition 215 in
1996, medical marijuana became legal under state law but remained
illegal under federal law. Federal authorities have always had the
right to arrest and prosecute people using marijuana for medical
reasons in the 10 states that have passed laws allowing such use.
California's law is considered among the most liberal in the nation.

In San Francisco, federal agents largely had stayed away from 34
marijuana dispensaries in the city until this past summer, when the
Drug Enforcement Administration closed three clubs, as some of the
dispensaries are known, and charged 19 people with using the clubs as
drug-trafficking and money-laundering fronts for organized crime.
More than 9,309 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of $5
million were seized from the clubs and associated warehouses.

The DEA said the raids, part of Operation Urban Harvest, were the
culmination of a two-year investigation and were not related to the
Supreme Court decision.

While some in the medical marijuana community here say the raids and
the Supreme Court decision have made them nervous, few expect the DEA
to launch an all-out assault against the dispensaries. For its part,
the San Francisco Police Department has a policy of not entering the clubs.

"The clubs are not being raided, but people are scared," said Hilary
McQuie, a spokeswoman for Americans for Safe Access, an Oakland-based
coalition.

Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy
Alliance, said a ramped-up federal assault on medical marijuana is
unlikely, given that California is a politically powerful state led
by a Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Enforcement Risky

"For the feds to come into a state of a Republican governor who has
explicitly said he supports medical marijuana and start busting
people--to tromp state and local rights and a law that is supported
by 70 percent of the people--would be a particularly defiant thing to
do," Nadelmann said.

At the local DEA office, the talk is of going after major dealers.

"We investigate large traffickers," said Javier Pena, special agent
in charge at the agency's San Francisco office. "We're not after the
users, the sick people, the dying people."

For some law-enforcement officers, medical marijuana has presented a
tricky legal situation. California's law differs from the federal
law, county district attorneys have varying stances about whether
medical marijuana cases should be prosecuted, and each county can set
its own limits about how much marijuana patients and caretakers may
possess, as long as it's no less than the 8 ounces allowed by the state.

A patient may legally possess 3 pounds of medical marijuana in Santa
Cruz County and then travel with the marijuana to Fresno County,
where the limit is 8 ounces. "Clearly, we're frustrated," said Fresno
County Assistant Sheriff Jeff Hollis. "The state attorney general's
office has stated that the medical marijuana law is still in force,
yet we have a Supreme Court decision that says it's illegal.
Law-enforcement officers are walking a tightrope: Whose law do you apply?"

With marijuana dispensaries remaining apparent fixtures in San
Francisco's neighborhoods, the city is for the first time preparing
to regulate the location and licensing of the clubs, which serve
7,500 residents who carry medical marijuana authorization cards
provided by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. A patient
must have a doctor's recommendation to obtain the card. Legislation,
which is expected to be put to a vote next month by the city's Board
of Supervisors, will seek to resolve issues such as loitering,
double-parking, noise, violent crime and the proliferation of clubs.

"I don't think there's anybody who wants to see patients who need
medical marijuana being prevented from getting it," said Supervisor
Sean Elsbernd, whose district includes two of the three clubs that
were closed by the DEA. But, he added, "there's concern that some of
the patients are turning around and selling it to kids."

Capt. Tim Hettrich, head of the narcotics and vice division of the
San Francisco Police Department, said he wouldn't comment on whether
medical marijuana has ended up on the street.

Liberal Definition

California also has the most liberal definition of who qualifies for
treatment, said Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance.

The law calls for "seriously ill Californians" to have access to
marijuana for use in the treatment of "cancer, anorexia, AIDS,
chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other
illness for which marijuana provides relief."

According to a 2000 report from the California chapter of the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 40 percent of
medical marijuana is used to treat chronic pain, 29 percent is for
AIDS or HIV-related treatment, and 15 percent is used to treat mood
disorders, with the remainder in all other categories.

Under California law, doctors have wide discretion in authorizing use
of marijuana. Nadelmann says this is no different from the discretion
doctors have in prescribing traditional pharmaceuticals.

"We're increasingly living in a society where what's medical and
what's not is unclear," Nadelmann said. "What do you call Viagra and
other pharmaceuticals? How does marijuana relate to Ritalin or Prozac?"