PRESSURE SMOKES OUT POT CLUBS

Free love has gone to pot in the medical marijuana community.

Suspicion and infighting are raging through groups that run the City's pot
dispensaries, after the recent closure of two local marijuana clubs and
reports that one man arrested in a February DEA pot raid is talking to the
feds.

CHAMP -- Californians Helping Alleviate Medical Problems -- closed its
doors at 194 Church St. earlier this month, and the Sunset Medical Resource
Center recently announced it would no longer provide marijuana to sick
patients.

Fellow pot club proprietors say the clubs got out of the marijuana business
because of increased pressure from the federal government.

But reports that James Halloran, who was arrested in a February raid of the
Harm Reduction Center on Sixth Street, talked to federal agents, is fueling
community paranoia and pitting some in the community against one another.

Dale Gieringer, spokesman for the California chapter of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, downplayed Halloran's
federal chat. Gieringer said it is understandable that the 61-year-old, who
has hepatitis C and faces at least 10 years in prison on charges he grew
thousands of plants, would want to cooperate.

"He wouldn't have said anything incriminating other than that people were
selling marijuana to sick people, and everyone knows that anyhow,"
Gieringer said.

Dennis Roberts, Hollaran's attorney, was not available for comment.

Jim Green, who runs the Market Street Club and is regarded as a renegade
among the cannabis club community, sneered at the latest informant debacle.
"It doesn't surprise me at all," he said. "You're going to be looking at an
escalating mess. What kind of honor do you have among street drug dealers?
This sort of thing happens with the mob."

The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco, which is prosecuting Halloran
along with Edward Rosenthal, Kenneth Hayes and Richard Watts, declined to
discuss information gathered in the aftermath of the pre-dawn February raid.

Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Richard Meyer also declined
comment. It is not the first time informants have taken a toll on San
Francisco's pot clubs. A priest connected to the Harm Reduction Center
wrote at least two letters to the DEA, claiming the medical marijuana
movement was moving toward greed and profiteering.

A few days later, the club on Sixth Street was raided. Court documents
dealing with the raid show DEA agents had been watching operations at the
nearby CHAMP club.

Pressure on pot clubs has also been increased in the courtroom.

On May 3, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the federal
administration is allowed to regulate drug activity, even those activities
that take place entirely within a state's borders. California legalized
medical marijuana with Proposition 215 in 1996.

The federal ruling, and the February raid, was enough to persuade CHAMP to
close, said Wayne Justmann, a longtime medicinal marijuana activist who
runs the San Francisco Patients' Cooperative pot club.

"We regret to inform you that CHAMP is now closed," stated the club's
answering machine. No other information was given, and representatives of
the club did not return repeated phone calls.

The club decided to shutter operations after meetings with its lawyer,
Oakland attorney Bill Panzer. Panzer, while saying he could not describe
the meetings because of attorney-client privilege, acknowledged CHAMP would
most likely be a target of a criminal raid if it remained open.

District Attorney Terence Hallinan, a longtime supporter of medical
marijuana, said he was saddened by CHAMP's closure.

He said the cannabis clubs have greatly reduced street marijuana dealing,
and fears the illegal commerce will increase if the feds continue their
crackdown on the clubs.