Pubdate: Thu, 08 Nov 2001
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.uniontrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Author: Ray Huard

PANEL PITCHES CITY ID CARDS FOR MEDICAL POT USERS

Sick people who use marijuana to relieve symptoms on their doctors' advice 
could get city identification cards to protect them from arrest by San 
Diego police under a plan recommended by a City Council committee yesterday.

The proposal endorsed on a 4-1 vote by the Public Safety & Neighborhood 
Services Committee runs contrary to advice from police Chief David 
Bejarano, who said the city should first determine if there is a need for a 
city ID card.

"I am convinced that there is need," said Councilwoman Toni Atkins, 
chairwoman of the committee.

If there wasn't a need, Atkins said, California voters would not have 
approved Proposition 215, the 1996 measure allowing the medical use of 
marijuana.

Atkins said her goal is to bring the proposal to the full council for a 
vote by the end of the year.

Bejarano, in a memo to the committee, said he "generally supports the 
concept of a medical marijuana identification card system." But he 
questioned the need for a city program.

Over the past two years, he wrote, the police have encountered only 12 
cases in which people found with marijuana said they used it for medicinal 
purposes. Of those, he said, five were found to be legitimate medical 
marijuana users.

The chief said any ID card program should be run by the San Diego County 
Health Department rather than by the city.

But Councilman Ralph Inzunza Jr. said a city ID card program is needed 
because county officials have declined to start one.

"We, as a city, have to step forward," Inzunza said.

Proposed state legislation would establish a statewide ID card program.

But Dale Kelly Bankhead, a member of the city's Medical Marijuana Task 
Force, said the city shouldn't wait for the state to act.

"We cannot predict what will happen in Sacramento," Bankhead said. "In the 
meantime, folks in San Diego don't have the mechanism to prevent 
unnecessary arrests."

In establishing the ID card program, Inzunza said, the city also must amend 
local ordinances to make it a crime to copy, sell, counterfeit or otherwise 
abuse the cards.  He said the city also must establish limits on how much 
marijuana a cardholder could have.

Atkins said the city also must make it clear that a city ID card wouldn't 
protect medical marijuana users from arrest by federal, state or county law 
enforcement agencies, nor would it be valid beyond city limits.

Under the committee proposal, which was developed by the citizens task 
force, the ID card program would be administered by a nonprofit medical 
agency. The task force was created by the council in May to develop 
guidelines on implementing Proposition 215.

Councilman Brian Maienschein, who voted against the proposal, said the city 
should wait until the courts resolve a conflict between state law, which 
allows medical marijuana use, and federal law, which prohibits it.

"There's still some issues that need to be worked out by the courts, and 
for us to get ahead of these I don't think is wise," Maienschein said.

Atkins and Inzunza said San Francisco and several other California cities 
and counties have ID card programs.
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