Since the passage of Proposition 215, The Compassionate Use Act, California has been in a state of constructive chaos. This is a great experiment in tolerance and democracy, and the laboratory contains hundreds of activist-filled petri dishes, each organization growing within its peculiar, restrictive environment.

The Many Shades of Compassion

    Few of California's elected "leaders" are courageous enough to lead, and state and federal opponents of medical marijuana, who ought to be implementing the new law, are dragging their feet and worse. Most Californians are just plain confused.
    But hard-core activists haven't come this far to watch the new Compassionate Use Act languish: some are determined to triumph in memory of loved ones lost to painful deaths; others say their medical conditions will kill them anyway, so they are "just doing it."
    In one county a patient's plants are returned by law enforcement, while in another county a patient who grew a few plants has been dragged through the court system since November. The latter case is being fought in Sonoma County by patient Alan Martinez and his lawyer William Panzer. Panzer helped write the Compassionate Use Act, and hopes the case will ensure that the new law law will stop patients from being charged, instead of just giving them a defence during trial.
    Too many types of cannabis centres and cooperatives have opened to describe here. Among them are clubs which rival fine coffee houses, spartan dispensaries which prohibit ingestion of the herb on or around the premises, centres that grow cannabis for members, centres that contract with growers, and some that do not dispense but help patients and caregivers to grow their own. Some organizations provide delivery only, and there are informal associations that give away donated cannabis to only the most desperate patients. Personal style, available resources, and the local political climate contribute to differences in approach.
 
 

Below : Medical marijuana user Alan Martinez (left) and his attorney William Panzer. Dragged through the court system since November, their case could establish that the Compassionate Use Act comes into play long before trial.

City Councils Waiting for Godot

    While city permits have been issued to a small number of cannabis centres, more cautious cities are postponing approval of the centres until California's Attorney General Dan Lungren provides clarification of the law. Unfortunately, he is the same attorney general who ordered the armed raid on the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers' Club shortly before the election.
    Since the law passed it has been Lungren's duty to enforce it. But those city councils waiting for his clarification and support may be performing what Marin County writer Steve McNamara calls "the New Age version of Waiting for Godot."
    Then of course there's the vapourize-the-envelope style that is San Francisco. Despite what could be described as terrorist raids by state narcs before the election, and again by the feds this spring, San Francisco is probably the nearest thing in the US to Amsterdam. In fact, an Oregon man, arrested for "manufacturing" marijuana for medicine, has been sentenced to San Francisco, where he will complete his probation while growing and using his medicine legally.

On the Medical Front

    Also in San Francisco, US District Court Judge Fern Smith ruled in late April that the US Justice Department must not continue to threaten doctors who recommend cannabis to patients. Judge Smith clarified her ruling by saying that although doctors must not actively assist in obtaining cannabis, they may speak frankly with their patients. The feds are expected to appeal, but Graham Boyd, a lead attorney for doctors and patients who filed the suit, is confident that the government will not prevail.
    "They want to muzzle doctors," said Boyd, "and that runs directly into the First Amendment [of the US Constitution]."
    Also on the medical front, the California Medical Association passed a resolution early this year which urges that "carefully designed, controlled clinical trials of the effectiveness of inhaled marijuana for medical indications be allowed immediately" and asks the American Medical Association to help make such studies possible.
    Dr Todd Mikuriya, known for editing Marijuana: Medical Papers, has served as medical coordinator from the inception of the California Compassionate Use Initiative, and continues now that the Compassionate Use Act is law. Now Dr Mikuriya is fine-tuning a system for patient data collection, a crucial step toward studying the nature and effects of medical marijuana.
    The professional and comprehensive protocols which Dr Mikuriya has helped some of the cannabis centres produce, along with his current work on a system for data collection, points toward future standardization which should increase the efficiency and effectiveness of those working to implement the law and gather information.

Government Tantrums

    While the movement becomes stronger and better organized, the federal government continues to throw expensive and destructive tantrums. Apparently the feds cannot challenge the new law on constitutional grounds, or they would have done so immediately after the November 5 election. Since their hands have been slapped in US district court for attempting to strip physicians of their protection under the First Amendment (the right to free speech), they are resorting to actions that are unlikely to further endear them to voters, and will simply make them look downright silly.
    In San Francisco, as the last of hundreds of happy revelers were hitting their pillows after enjoying a gigantic April 20 "4/20 Hemp Extravaganja", the US Drug Enforcement Administration raided San Francisco's "Flower Therapy", which provides medical marijuana to carefully screened patients under state, county and city law. About three pounds of cannabis were taken, all in the form of plants, and packaged marijuana was left behind. It almost seems as if the feds are out to provide support for the black market.
    If the feds' strong-arm tactics are as galvanizing as the California Attorney General's pre-election raid on the SF Buyer's Club, medical marijuana should be decriminalized nationally soon.

Democracy in Action

    Democracy is not neat and tidy, but damn, it's exciting! California has a case of democracy-in-action, and Washington is afraid that it might be contagious.
    It looks like they have good reason to worry. Californians show no signs of backing down, and the national spotlight is trained on the state. Since the feds raided Flower Therapy, medical cannabis centres have continued to sprout from Arcata to Santa Cruz, San Francisco's Sheriff Hennessey has acknowledged that gravely ill inmates with a doctor's recommendation will be allowed to smoke marijuana in jail, and growers have come out of the woods to announce that they will grow for clubs at reduced prices.
    This country's founding moms and dads would be proud of these Californians who are committing democracy. It isn't orderly or predictable, but then a democratic form of government isn't supposed to be.
¥ By Rose Ann Fuhrmann

For More Info
Contact Americans for Medical Rights, 626 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 4, Santa Monica, CA 90401-2538; tel (310) 394-2952, fax (310) 451-7494.
Or contact Dale Gieringer, State Coordinator NORML, 2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco, CA 94114,
tel: (415) 563-5858.