Pubdate: Sun, 09 Feb 2003
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.uniontrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Author: Jeff McDonald
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

BATTLE LINES BLURRED IN WAR OVER MARIJUANA

Until now, the fight to decriminalize marijuana and make it available to 
cancer, AIDS and other patients has taken root in famously liberal venues 
such as Santa Cruz, Mendocino County and the San Francisco Bay Area.

That changed when the San Diego City Council, on a 6-3 vote that followed 
hours of emotional testimony with protests on both sides, acquiesced to 
dozens of people who pleaded for safe access to a drug they say eases 
painful side effects of chronic diseases.

The unlikely vote came during the same week that jurors in a Bay Area 
illegal cultivation case complained they were duped by a federal court and 
a San Diego marijuana activist pleaded guilty to a felony rather than risk 
years in prison.

All three developments have blurred the battle lines in the war on drugs.

Although more than a dozen California cities and counties have adopted 
medicinal marijuana provisions, San Diego is one of the nation's largest 
and most influential local governments yet to reject federal marijuana 
policy and enact standards of its own.

"San Diego is solid middle America, with a lot of military and a lot of 
conservative politics," said R. Keith Stroup, a public-interest attorney 
who founded the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. 
"This is very significant."

The council members were acting on a proposition approved by California 
voters in 1996 that permits seriously ill patients to grow and use 
marijuana with the recommendation of a physician.

The state law, however, is deliberately vague on issues such as how many 
plants and how much dried marijuana is acceptable, in part because the law 
clearly clashes with federal drug rules. The U.S. government considers 
marijuana to be as dangerous as heroin.

Activists on both sides of the debate see the San Diego case as something 
of a turning point in the cause.

People who want to loosen the federal position on marijuana hope to 
capitalize on the vote, figuring that if conservative-leaning San Diego can 
accept marijuana use by sick patients, other cities are likely to follow.

Those active in drug abuse prevention see it as a call to arms; they feel 
they lost the fight in a city like San Diego by taking their competition 
too lightly or not paying close enough attention.

"Nobody believed it would happen," said John Redman of the San Diego 
Prevention Coalition, an alliance of drug counselors and others that 
lobbied furiously against the local marijuana guidelines. "It's illegal."

Marijuana activists were too practiced and organized for the 
anti-drug-abuse coalition to have dissuaded San Diego lawmakers, Redman 
said. "We came on board way too late in the game," he said.

A council-appointed citizens committee spent nearly two years debating 
whether and how the state law allowing medicinal use of marijuana should be 
dealt with in San Diego.

Task force members decided patients should be able to grow plants outdoors 
and smoke anywhere cigarettes are permitted. They also said medicinal users 
should be able to possess three pounds of marijuana and cultivate up to 72 
plants.

Those recommendations were pared to one pound and 20 plants - grown indoors 
or inside a greenhouse only. Less-lenient restrictions also were added to 
prevent minors and convicts from taking advantage of the guidelines.

One AIDS patient from Ocean Beach who tends a small marijuana garden in his 
yard welcomed the city law but said that conditions imposed by the council 
present serious challenges.

The back yard "is the only place I really have to grow," said the man, who 
did not want his name published out of fear that he would be arrested. 
"Growing indoors involves lots of lights and, with the electricity bills, I 
couldn't afford that."

The ordinance, which went into effect immediately, was strongly opposed by 
San Diego police, and by U.S. drug officials, who pledged to continue 
enforcing all laws.

Law professor Gerald Uelmen of Santa Clara University has been pushing 
federal courts to render a decisive ruling on the legality of Proposition 
215, the 1996 initiative that spawned California's medicinal marijuana 
position.

According to Uelmen, who represents the operators of a cooperative 
marijuana garden in Santa Cruz raided by federal drug agents last 
September, the U.S. government has no business interfering with a state's 
right to develop a marijuana policy of its own choosing.

The respected constitutional law expert has made only limited headway so 
far - a fact he partly attributes to his whereabouts.

"When we approve (medicinal marijuana laws) up here in the Bay Area, they 
just shrug it off as more lunacy from the lunatic fringe," Uelmen said. 
"But I don't think they can say that with San Diego."

The top law enforcement official in California also endorsed the San Diego 
action. Attorney General Bill Lockyer has been feuding with his federal 
counterpart, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, over his state's 
authority to regulate marijuana.

Lockyer earlier took the unusual step of recommending that locally elected 
officials develop their own standards on medicinal marijuana use.

"We think it's very good that local communities are making decisions on how 
to implement something the voters of California believe is very important," 
said Hallye Jordan, a spokeswoman for Lockyer.

Eight states in addition to California have enacted allowances for 
medicinal marijuana. Several others are weighing similar measures in 
upcoming legislative sessions.

Federal officials, however, remain unmoved by the mounting number of 
cities, counties and states allowing seriously ill patients to grow and 
smoke the banned substance, even though the policy contradicts President 
Bush's oft-repeated support for states' rights.

"We don't do science and medicine in this country by plebiscite," said Tom 
Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control 
Policy. "We have well-regulated, well-run, science-based processes for 
determining and distributing medicines."

The Justice Department also dismissed the concerns of jurors in Northern 
California who last week convicted a popular marijuana advocate of illegal 
cultivation.

When told after their verdict that defendant Ed Rosenthal had been growing 
the plants for sick patients on behalf of the city of Oakland - information 
that was excluded by the federal judge - several jurors complained publicly 
that they were misled by the government.

At the same time, San Diego activist Steven McWilliams pleaded guilty to a 
felony Friday rather than risk five years in federal prison for growing 25 
marijuana plants at his Normal Heights home.

Under that deal, McWilliams could receive six months in jail and spend 
three years on federal probation. However, in a highly unusual stipulation, 
prosecutors agreed to allow McWilliams to argue the constitutionality of 
his case before a federal appeals court.

With more town halls and statehouses considering medicinal marijuana laws 
that conflict with federal drug policy, U.S. lawmakers might soon have 
little choice but to weigh a measure of their own, advocates say.

So far, however, efforts in Congress to reclassify marijuana as a less 
dangerous substance have gone nowhere, largely because many politicians 
fear being painted as soft on drugs.

"They are not afraid of the voters," said Eric E. Sterling, president of 
the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in suburban Washington, D.C. "They 
are afraid of the conventional wisdom and afraid of being ridiculed."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager