THE NEW O'SHAUGHNESSY'S

The Spring 2004 O'Shaughnessy's -the journal of the California Cannabis
Research Medical Group-is out. It's aimed at doctors who are open-minded
about the clinical applications of cannabis and want to stay abreast of the
relevant studies and legal developments. The editor (your correspondent)
hopes the material will be of interest to patients, caregivers and
concerned citizens, too.

The 16 doctors associated with the CCRMG are studying the safety, efficacy
and applicability of using cannabis to treat a wide range of conditions.
Collectively they have written almost half the letters of approval
authorizing Californians to medicate with cannabis. (O'Shaughnessy's
estimates that about 100,000 Californians have obtained physician approval
to do so since Prop 215 passed in 1996. The figure is based on an
extrapolation from the number of physician approvals issued in Oregon,
which maintains a registry of medical cannabis users.) The lead article in
the Spring '04 issue is a detailed and insightful description of Dr. Frank
Lucido's practice, written by Lucido with Mariavittoria Mangini, PhD, FNP.
There's also:

* A "poster session" on the regulatory role of endocannabinoids.
(Investigators have found endocannabinoids -neurotransmitters that activate
the same receptors as plant cannabinoids-in each of these bodily systems:
cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, extretory, immunological, nervous,
reproductive, and respiratory.)

* A compendium of conditions that GW Pharmaceuticals expects its
cannabis-based medicines to ameliorate (citing all the studies that
substantiate their optimism).

* A thorough review of the significant court rulings to date (with
references and with additional commentary by the Medical Marijuana Patients
Union).

* A feature story about the amazing "Volcano" vaporizer. And, as they say,
much, much more. The CCRMG mailing address is p.o. box 9143 Berkeley CA
94709. Subscriptions are $12 for four issues. Single issues by mail are $4.

Hospitals Into Condos

"The Presidio Trust chose a Cleveland-based developer Monday to convert the
Presidio's historic Public Health Service Hospital into an apartment
complex with as many as 350 units..." So began a story by Katia Hetter in
the S.F. Chronicle April 13. "The trust expects Forest City to pay at
least $1 million a year under a long-term lease to renovate the hospital
building and run the residential development."

The director of the Presidio Trust, Craig Middleton, is assuring the
neighbors that the chosen developers are committed to "historic
preservation" -as if the big looming danger, as our public health
infrastructure gets slid into private hands, is architectural. What a slick
misdirection play.

The Presidio's Public Health Service Hospital, which closed as a hospital
in 1981 and has stood vacant since 1988, is a U-shaped 7-story complex with
a central structure built in the 1930s and two wings built in the
'50s. The driveway to the main entrance is at 15th Ave., west of Lake
Street (a classy neighborhood).

When the AIDS epidemic was escalating in the early 1980s, some sensible
citizens suggested that the USPHS Hospital should be used to care for AIDS
patients and to conduct related research. The classy neighbors opposed the
idea and -conveniently-the building was found to be seismically unsound.
Decision-makers at UCSF also ruled out AIDS wards at the two hospitals on
Parnassus Heights, and so the dying gay men were shuttled off to General
Hospital in the Mission, a working class neighborhood, where the weather
happens to be better.

The Presidio USPHS Hospital was a factor in my one serious confrontation
with Mayor Willie Brown, which took place in late 2001. At the time some
powerful figures in the city, including Brown, had it in for my boss,
District Attorney Terence Hallinan. After KRON-TV ran a highly publicized
hit piece in which SFPD narcotics officers accused Hallinan of failing to
prosecute crack-dealing on Sixth Street, Brown called a meeting of all city
department heads to review the tape and discuss the implications (which
Brown hoped would be a drive to recall Hallinan). Hallinan sensed a trap
and sent me and his chief assistant, Paul Cummins, to represent the office.

The meeting was held in the mayor's spacious, high-ceilinged conference
room. The mayor himself was all smiles, having just come from a meeting
with the son of the President of China. Reporter Vic Lee and producer
Robbie Peele were there to show their slanted footage and to film the
response of the department heads, about 20 of whom were seated around a
magnificent oak table.

The KRON tape rolled, the lights came back on, and the denunciations of
Hallinan began. Public Defender Jeff Brown (of all people), Presiding
Superior Court Judge Alfred Chiantelli, and a politico whom I can't recall,
each expressed variations on the theme: if only the DA would charge crack
sales more harshly, life on Sixth Street would soon be civilized.

Then I said something like: "If you think all you're seeing when you look
at those desperate people on Sixth Street is the effects of crack cocaine,
you're kidding yourselves. You're looking at mental illness, poverty,
alcoholism, malnutrition, unemployment, homelessness, HIV, hepatitis C... "

It was enough to break the momentum of the attack. To my surprise, the
mayor looked at me earnestly and said, "What would you do?" I said that for
openers there needed to be an accurate census of who was on the street and
why. Obviously there would be two broad categories: people who could care
for themselves and needed housing and work, and those who couldn't and
needed residential treatment. Then I said, "There's a US Public Health
Service hospital standing unused in the Presidio, off 15th and Lake..." As
soon as I mentioned the location, the Mayor lost interest. I could see it
in his eyes.

Willie Brown knows that God doesn't like to see people dying on the streets
while the public hospital stands empty -but He doesn't have as much clout
as the Presidio Heights bourgeoisie.

After the USPHS Hospital withstood the 1989 earthquake, I figured the
"seismically unsound" label was a shuck. (I'd seen UCSF administrators use
it to red-tag solid old buildings they wanted to remove or replace.) And
sure enough, in due course I heard from another Presido Trust tenant -a
master printer and publisher of fine editions-that the engineer in charge
of the hospital had confided to him that it was very solid, in need of only
minor structural repairs.

And they shall turn their hospitals into condos for a lousy $1 million a
year... As if there's never going to be another earthquake or epidemic or
unexpected catastrophe in San Francisco!

The Future of Hunters Point

The transfer of the decommissioned military bases to real estate developers
in our time is comparable to the giveaway of public lands to the railroad
barons in the 19th century. The developers already control the Presidio
(Nancy Pelosi brokered the deal), and Treasure Island (thanks to Willie
Brown). They will get the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, too, unless the
community makes an 11th-hour demand to control its development -starting
with the clean-up. ("Toxic waste" serves the same purpose as "seismic
problems" when the elites don't want working people or students to use a
given piece of real property.)

African Americans were drawn to San Francisco in large numbers because the
shipyard provided decent jobs. Ever since it closed, the economic and
social well-being of the community has deteriorated. At the start of the
1960s, 17 percent of San Francisco voters were African-American. By 2001 it
was nine percent and falling. Urban renewal in the Fillmore turned out to
be "Negro removal," just like the radical city planners said.

Now that the yard is being transferred by the Navy to the city, its
development should be controlled by the community. A community-based
corporation should be formed to evaluate the pollution problem and the
various clean-up technologies, including bio-remediation (using plants to
leach out the toxins). By taking control of the clean-up, the residents of
Hunters Point would guarantee (1) that the job gets done thoroughly and
correctly; and (2) that their company gets the experience, the credit, and
the money (which the feds acknowledge they owe).

This week a 29-year old SFPD officer -working undercover in the Bayview
district for the gang task force-was shot to death as he began to question
a 21-year-old black man. Mayor Newsom promptly vowed to send more cops into
the community "to show how much we care." No way is the presence of more
cops going to change the murderous dynamic. Only by recognizing and
starting to pursue their common interests will the so-called gangs -"Big
Block" and "Westmob-make peace. The leadership has to come from within the
black community, it can't be imposed by an occupying force, no matter how
humanely they're trying to operate. The unifying demand has to be: Hunters
Point is ours to develop.

The cops and DAs used to say that the ongoing conflict between Big Block
and Westmob was over drug-sale revenues, which both factions used to
purchase recording-studio time. If the lads got it together to take control
of the shipyard, they could have a state-of-the-art studio that would be
the envy of the whole HipHop world.

Another useful business appropriate for Hunters Point would be a farm.
There are several acres with deep topsoil, and the climate is the warmest
and sunniest in the city... But you know, dear reader, and even I know,
that it's only a matter of time before the Stewart Group or the Shorenstein
Group or some other developer seals the deal to pave it over.