POT MAY BE POPULAR, BUT IS IT SAFE?

City Councilman Doug Wilson uses an opened magazine as a makeshift
table as he stuffs his marijuana pipe. He leaves his stash on the
passenger seat and inhales. This pot, he says, is "primo."

So begins the first season of the cable television comedy "Weeds,"
where drug dealing has replaced cookie baking as a fundraiser in a
fictional Los Angeles suburb.

The show is just one of countless examples of how prevalent marijuana
is in popular culture. From the lyrics of popular songs to the
recognizable leaf patterns emblazoned on T-shirts, marijuana is
everywhere, and acceptance of it seems to keep growing.

Years ago, presidential candidates might duck the question and deny
inhaling, but now they're admitting to smoking pot, often with an air
of nonchalance.

Acceptance also spawns backlash. The federal government insists
marijuana is a dangerous, highly addictive substance, a "gateway
drug" that exposes experimenters to other illicit substances.

That distinction, coupled locally with a wave of city moratoria and
police crackdowns on medical-marijuana dispensaries and grow
operations, reveal a deep division created by the leafy plant:

Is it a recreational drug and pain reliever, or a dangerously
addictive starter substance?

"Because we've been desensitized to it doesn't make it right," said
Ed Hills, a Rancho Cucamonga resident pushing for repeal of the state
medical-marijuana initiative.

Hills, 42, is pressuring his city, which has temporarily banned
medical-marijuana dispensaries, to make the ban permanent.

He got involved when he and his neighbors grew wary of suspected drug
activity on their street. Hills said he and his neighbors witnessed
drug exchanges made on the street, as well as an increase in the
number of people coming and going. Hills believes the state's
marijuana laws are to blame, though the activity has subsided since
the Sheriff's Department helped start a Neighborhood Watch program.

Hills considers marijuana a harmful drug and says Proposition 215,
the voter initiative that legalized medicinal marijuana in the state,
sends mixed messages to children, including his 12-year-old son.

"We've now taken marijuana - something I've spent his childhood
telling him to stay away from - and brought it down to the equivalent
of Advil," Hills said.

In 1998, Hills' father died of lung cancer. Hills is skeptical
marijuana would have helped ease his suffering.

"When he passed, there was nothing left unsaid, not one word, not one
feeling. I wonder how that relationship would have manifested if we
spent every afternoon for those six months stoned," he said. "I don't
think we would have nearly as healthy a relationship.

"Smoking marijuana is not the miracle drug that it's made out to be.
If it is the miracle drug of the 21st century, are we advocating that
cancer patients in children's hospitals in Orange County join in bong
sessions in the afternoon to deal with chemotherapy?"

Access Diminishing

The stoner stereotypes are what make people oppose pot so adamantly,
said George Agatep, a medical-marijuana patient from Mira Loma.

Agatep, 36, likes to dress smart, perhaps in an attempt to change
public opinion of smokers.

"When you think of marijuana, you think of some counterculture hippie
who burns the flag," said Agatep. "When you think of someone who's
conservative, or clean-cut, your attitude sort of changes."

Agatep, a fitness trainer, is a self-described conservative who as a
student was president of his college Republican group. He campaigned
for both Proposition 215 and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole.

In 1996, Agatep suffered patellar tendonitis on both knees. The
surgery left two long, dark scars that slice through the front of his
knees and are the source of regular cramping and spasticity.
Marijuana, which he said doesn't give him symptoms of withdrawal, is
his medicine of choice.

"I tried it, and I was impressed. I didn't even know it was going to
help me out that much," said Agatep.

But his access to the drug continues to be threatened as more and
more cities block establishment of dispensaries. Norco, Ontario,
Rancho Cucamonga and many other cities have either temporarily or
permanently banned such operations.

Margaret Dooley, acting director of the Southern California Drug
Policy Alliance, sees these bans as city leaders' way of turning a
blind eye to pot.

"It's a continuation of the fallacy that prohibiting sale makes
something go away," said Dooley. "Marijuana is extremely available in
the black market. The only people who have trouble getting access to
it are those who are supposed to have it in California - sick and
dying patients."

Dispensary moratoria push marijuana patients into a thriving black
market, said Dooley.

"We have not removed it. It is all around us," she said.

A Question of Addiction

At Rancho Cucamonga's Matrix Institute, where methamphetamine and
heroin users seek treatment, director Deborah Service said most of
the clients who are strictly marijuana users are young - between 12
and 18 years old.

"Some start out with friends," said Service. "And it's a generational
thing. They see parents use, grandparents use. And they use with
their parents, too."

Josie Ramirez-Herndon is all too familiar with young people and drug
abuse. The Beaumont resident heads a company of call centers that
place people in drug treatment. She has heard the stories of families
in peril when dealing with drug abuse.

Those stories hit home when she found out her teenage son, now 19 and
no longer living with her, had been smoking marijuana since he was 12.

One major source of frustration for Ramirez-Herndon is acceptance of
the drug as harmless and not habit-forming.

"When people say it's not a problem, it's not addictive, I don't
believe it," she said. "I've seen the difference."

When her son isn't using drugs, she thinks of a happy, lively young
man. But "when he's smoking marijuana, he doesn't have motivation, he
lies, he's manipulative," she said. "It's the same thing as any other
addiction."

When her son was 17, Ramirez-Herndon sent him to rehab and then to a
sober-living facility, where he stayed clean for a year. But two
months after he got out, he started smoking again. Ramirez-Herndon
said he also has tried meth.

Nevertheless, she is optimistic about his future.

"I have to keep that hope," she said. "Otherwise, the only thing that
could happen is he'd die from addiction, and I can't think of that."