Pubdate: Sat, 21 Oct 2000
Source: Record, The (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Record
Contact:  P.O. Box 900, Stockton, CA 95201
Fax: (209) 547-8186
Website: http://www.recordnet.com/
Author: Francis P. Garland, Lode Bureau Chief,  http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1323/a01.html

CALAVERAS RECONSIDERS POT USE

Medical-Marijuana Task Force Sets Limits On Possession

SAN ANDREAS -- A set of medical marijuana-use guidelines that Calaveras 
County supervisors rejected last month will be reconsidered when the board 
meets Monday.

A board-appointed task force developed the guidelines during the course of 
four meetings over six months and made its recommendation more than six 
weeks ago.

But the board rejected the so-called interagency protocol, designed to help 
law enforcement officials determine which cases of marijuana possession 
would be considered for personal medical use and which would be considered 
illegal possession and/or cultivation.

The passage of Proposition 215 in 1996 legalized the use of marijuana to 
treat certain illnesses. But since the state never developed guidelines to 
implement the law, some counties and cities have created their own.

The local task force, which included doctors, pharmacists, law enforcement 
officials and one medical-marijuana user, developed a protocol recommending 
that those with a legal right to marijuana for medicinal purposes could 
possess six plants and 1.3 pounds of processed marijuana at any one time.

Those numbers represented a significant reduction from suggestions at a 
previous task-force meeting, at which the group had recommended 30 plants 
and 4 pounds of processed marijuana would be considered legitimate amounts 
for bona fide medical-marijuana patients.

Supervisors Merita Callaway and Lucy Thein voted to support the protocol 
when it was presented Sept. 5, but board Chairman Tom Tryon and Supervisors 
Paul Stein and Terri Bailey voted against it.

Tryon turned it down because he said the protocol would have been more 
restrictive on medical-marijuana users than no guidelines at all.

Tryon and Callaway asked to have the guidelines come back for 
reconsideration at Monday's 10 a.m. meeting at the Government Center.

"I'd like to do something," Tryon said, referring to the guidelines, "but 
I'd like it to be meaningful. The question is, can we find enough middle 
ground for three of us to vote on something?"

Callaway said she's willing to support guidelines that allow for more than 
six plants and 1.3 pounds of processed marijuana.

"There are people out there close to dying who could use something," she 
said, referring to the guidelines. "But what that magic number is, I don't 
know."

In addition to setting limits on the amount of marijuana a legitimate 
medical user could possess, the proposed protocol would require patients to 
secure a doctor's recommendation that includes the date of the 
recommendation, the patient's illness, a prescribed or recommended dosage, 
quantity and frequency of usage and duration of the recommendation, 
complete with a semiannual review for medical necessity.

David Jack, an Angels Camp medical-marijuana user and a task-force member, 
said the protocol represented a violation of a patient's civil rights.

"My feeling has always been, this is a medical issue, not a law enforcement 
issue," he said. "It's between the patient and the physician. When law 
enforcement comes in, you lose that patient/ physician privilege."

To reach Lode Bureau Chief Francis P. Garland, phone 736-9554 or e-mail  ---
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