CURB PROLIFERATION OF POT OUTLETS IN S.F.

Editors -- Mayor Gavin Newsom's call for a moratorium on medical
marijuana facilities in San Francisco is long overdue ("Newsom wants
rules on pot clubs," March 22).

After watching the untenable proliferation and subsequent restrictions
on medical marijuana in Oakland, it is shocking to me that San
Francisco chose not to prepare for what seemed to be an obvious
course: The marijuana industry would set its sights on San Francisco.

While I wholeheartedly support medical marijuana, the industry has
asked for more suspension of disbelief than I can muster. San
Francisco currently has fewer than 200 legitimate pharmacies providing
more than 750,000 residents and more than a million tourists and
downtown workers with thousands of medications ranging from children's
cough syrup to Alzheimer's medication.

In contrast, we also have several dozen medical marijuana facilities
allegedly serving a mere 7,000 "patients" with a single, unregulated,
unstandardized and untaxed herbal remedy.

Few if any of these marijuana facilities are located within walking
distance of a hospital or hospice. Nearly every facility is in one of
San Francisco's poorer neighborhoods or a neighborhood already
struggling with a drug problem.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out who the real target
market is.

Perhaps with a little regulation we will be able to return medical
marijuana to the actual patients and allow neighborhoods a say in the
planning process.

Laura Weil

San Francisco