MEDICAL-MARIJUANA ID CARD SOUGHT

SANTA CRUZ - A county supervisor wants to protect county residents who use
marijuana as medicine by issuing them ID cards that would let sheriff's
deputies know they are an approved user.

Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt on Tuesday will ask her colleagues to give a
conceptual OK to the program, which would mirror one pioneered by San
Francisco County three years ago. Alameda, Marin and Mendocino counties
also offer the cards.

Under the program, ill residents would be issued photo ID cards after
presenting a signed statement from a doctor saying they need marijuana for
medical reasons. The cards would legitimize medicinal pot use to sheriff's
deputies challenging someone's possession, Wormhoudt said.

"The cards are not a panacea, but they can offer people who are often very
ill or dying some slight measure of security," she said.

Sheriff Mark Tracy supports the program, which would be run by the county
Health Department: "It can be difficult at times to determine if someone is
using (marijuana) for medical or illegal purposes. If the cards can help
clarify that, it would be a good thing."

The cards also would prohibit officers from confiscating marijuana from
someone when they think a resident possesses more than is needed to ease
his or her symptoms.

"That's not a determination a deputy should be making," said Valerie
Corral, director of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

Corral said she's received hundreds of requests for ID cards from ill
residents. While WAMM issues its own cards, the organization can only give
them to members, limited to a pool of about 250 at any given time due to
available resources.

The program would be a boon to not only patients but doctors, Corral said.
Physicians sometimes fear putting their medical recommendations on
marijuana in writing because of possible reprisals by the federal
government, which maintains that all pot use is illegal. Under the proposed
program, doctor statements would be destroyed after verification to protect
a physician's identity.

The program would also get the county a step closer to complying with a
long-overdue mandate approved by county voters in 1992, Corral said.
Measure A required the county Health Department to help promote medicinal
pot use through education, research and other programs, she said.

The new program would cost the county nothing because of fees charged to
each user. San Francisco County charges residents $25 to register. That
county has issued more than 4,400 cards, said Joshua Bamberger, program
director.

"The program has worked very well here," he said. "All (pot) clubs in San
Francisco require our card now."

Wormhoudt is asking the board to OK looking into an ID program, with the
health director reporting back on the issue May 20.

Proposition 215, passed in 1996, gave California residents or their
caretakers the right to possess pot for medical reasons.

The ID cards would not protect residents from federal raids, such as the
one that took place in September at WAMM's Davenport garden. Drug
Enforcement Administration agents seized 167 plants.