ACTIVISTS SPLIT OVER POT REGULATIONS

Some hail ID system, explicit possession standards, but others
consider them a drag

The same new state law that tries to distinguish legal, medical
marijuana use from illegal, recreational use also spotlights rifts in
California's marijuana community. SB 420, signed into law by Gov. Gray
Davis last Sunday, creates a voluntary statewide registry for medical
marijuana patients and caregivers, who can obtain photograph
identification cards to protect themselves from arrest by state and
local police.

It also sets the first statewide medical marijuana possession
standards -- 8 ounces dried, six mature plants and 12 immature plants
- -- although cities and counties can set their own, higher limits. Some
see it as long-overdue protection for patients and caregivers.

It is "one of the best things that's happened to our movement," said
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative executive director Jeff Jones,
because it provides "more of a clear guideline for law enforcement to
have to accept this as a legitimate use."

Glenn Backes, health policy director and California legislative point
man for the national drug reform group Drug Policy Alliance, agreed
that the new law is a good thing "in terms of creating a system for
both patients and police" and constitutes progress "far beyond what
any other state has been able to manage."

But others see it as a grievous infringement upon rights granted by
the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, approved by voters as Proposition
215.

"Would you have a group of white supremacists enforcing
anti-discrimination laws? Because that's what we have right here,"
said noted marijuana author and activist Ed Rosenthal of Oakland, the
"Guru of Ganja" convicted of federal cultivation charges this year.

"I don't believe that police, prosecutors or any part of the criminal
justice system are stakeholders in making the policy decisions
regarding people's health," Rosenthal said.

California's 1996 medical marijuana law said possession required a
doctor's note -- it neither limited how much one could have nor
specified where one should get it. People such as Rosenthal and Dennis
Peron, a driving force behind Prop. 215, want to keep the unfettered
freedom that law seemed to grant; some, not all, also favor legalizing
marijuana entirely.

Rosenthal said varying limits in different cities and counties means
"there's no equal protection under the law. Does that mean in counties
allowing only six plants, that people are healthier there and need
less medicine?"

He also said the new law is "fundamentally flawed because it treats
patients who use marijuana as medicine different from other patients"
- -- there is no ID card or registry for people using prescription
painkillers, for instance.

"I think it's flawed constitutionally for that reason," he
said.

Yet Rosenthal does not hope for a day, as some do, when marijuana is
dispensed at pharmacies with a doctor's formal prescription.

"Marijuana should be treated as other herbs are treated -- you don't
need a prescription to buy echinacea," he said, referring to a popular
herbal cold and flu remedy. "Marijuana is not a drug. A drug is
something that's manufactured, an artifact of human intervention.
Marijuana is an herb and should be regulated just for purity the way
other herbs are."

Others welcome the structure the law brings, especially patients and
caregivers in more conservative areas where police, prosecutors and
judges have been less likely to accept medical marijuana use. A photo
ID will be the first tangible legal protection they have had, and many
are willing to abide by the possession limits in order to get it.

"This is really going to help patients in areas like Orange County,
San Bernardino, Palm Springs, Riverside -- areas where judges say
Prop. 215 doesn't exist in their courtrooms, where city councils let
their police continue to harass patients," said Steph Sherer,
executive director of the Berkeley-based medical marijuana group
Americans for Safe Access.

Sherer acknowledged her group was "split down the middle" on SB
420.

Police must not use it as a go-ahead to harass anyone with more than
six plants, she said: "If it's implemented the way that (state Sen.
John) Vasconcellos and (Assemblyman) Mark Leno intended -- for this to
be a baseline, a floor for patients -- then it'll be a positive step."

Leno, D-San Francisco, said possession limits were added to the bill
at the last minute as a political necessity.

"Without it, it would not have passed out of the Legislature," he
said. "The California District Attorneys (Association) would have
opposed the measure, we would have lost a significant number of
Democrats and the bill would've failed."

Patients can exceed the limits with a doctor's explicit say-so, Leno
noted, and "it's a floor, it's not a ceiling -- any local government
can decide to increase that amount." He also said privacy concerns
arose as San Francisco began a similar ID card registry system; three
years later, about 7,000 people have signed up and it is lauded by
patients, physicians and police.

"This is all voluntary, no one has to do any of it, but we wanted to
design it so people will be attracted to it and feel there is safety
and comfort in it," he said. "Sometimes it takes time to prove that
. and you're never going to get complete consensus. This is a
product of hard work and compromise."

Jones' Oakland cooperative has issued ID cards for years, so if the
possession limits had not been added, he said, "I would've been
completely in support of the bill."

The limits make no sense, he complained: Just one well-tended plant
grown outside can yield more than 8 ounces, an instant violation.

Yet "across the board in the state of California, 80 percent of our
membership think this is a good thing ... they're like, 'Oh, now I can
grow!'" he said. "If this list helps patients not to have to get
arrested and have their gardens seized, it's a step forward."

Jones has worked with Rosenthal and supported him in his tangle with
federal law, yet noted Rosenthal "chastised me for months" after Jones
agreed to a 6-pound, 144-plant limit Oakland set in 1998. It was the
state's most liberal policy by far -- later halved by City Council in
2001 -- but Rosenthal opposes any limits.

"He comes from a different mind-set completely," Jones said, but he
respects that mind-set.

Opinions may differ, but ultimately the medical marijuana movement
finds common ground. On Saturday that ground was in San Francisco,
where Jones, Sherer and Leno were among co-hosts of a fundraiser to
benefit Rosenthal's appeal of his federal criminal conviction.