Source: Associated Press Pubdate: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 Editors note: Sad news, indeed, in this item provided by these three newshawks. Please be alert for the newspaper stories and editorials which are sure to follow, and send them to - Thank you. Richard Lake, Sr. Editor COURT CLEARS WAY FOR CLOSURE OF MARIJUANA CLUBS SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The state Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for possible closure of all medical marijuana clubs in California, leaving intact a lower-court ruling that the clubs can't sell the drug despite a 1996 voter initiative. The court unanimously denied review of an appellate decision, issued last December, that said Proposition 215 did not allow anyone to sell marijuana and did not allow a commercial enterprise to furnish marijuana as a ``primary caregiver.'' The appellate ruling is now binding on trial courts statewide. Dennis Peron, author of Proposition 215 and founder of the San Francisco enterprise now called the Cannabis Cultivators Club, insisted Wednesday that the club was no longer selling marijuana but was merely being reimbursed for cultivation costs, and was in compliance with the ruling. But if courts disagree and order a shutdown, ``we're going to stay here until the tanks come,'' he said. The state's lawyer in the case said he would ask a San Francisco judge on Thursday to order Peron's club closed, and expected closure of all such operations in California as a result of the ruling. ``Voters did not intend to allow commercial enterprises to sell narcotics, like Mr. Peron's doing,'' said John Gordnier, a senior assistant attorney general. Federal prosecutors have also asked a federal judge to shut down Peron's club and five others, saying they are violating federal law against the possession and sale of marijuana, regardless of Proposition 215. Proposition 215, passed in November 1996, allows possession and cultivation of marijuana upon a doctor's recommendation to ease the pain and nausea of AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and other conditions. Peron's club, then called the Cannabis Buyers' Club, had been raided three months earlier by Lungren's agents, who said marijuana was being sold to people without doctors' prescriptions. They got a judge to shut it down, but it was reopened in January 1997 by Superior Court Judge David Garcia, who said Proposition 215 allowed a nonprofit organization to sell marijuana to patients who had named the club as their ``primary caregiver.'' But the 1st District Court of Appeal overruled Garcia last December and said state law prohibits anyone, including a nonprofit organization, from selling marijuana or possessing it for sale. ``The intent of the initiative was to allow persons to cultivate and possess a sufficient amount of marijuana for their own approved medical purposes, and to allow `primary caregivers' the same authority to act on behalf of those patients too ill or bedridden to do so,'' said the opinion by Presiding Justice J. Clinton Peterson. He said the only way a patient can obtain marijuana legally is to grow it or obtain it from a primary caregiver who has grown it. A primary caregiver -- defined by the initiative as an individual, designated by the patient, ``who has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health, or safety of that person'' -- cannot be a commercial enterprise like the Cannabis Buyers' Club, Peterson said. The vote was 3-0 to reinstate the closure order. But one appellate justice, J. Anthony Kline, said the ruling was written too broadly and might make it impossible for many seriously ill patients to obtain marijuana. Peron said Wednesday the club had changed its operations because of a statement in Peterson's ruling that a caregiver, while barred from selling marijuana, could be reimbursed for the cost of cultivation. ``We're being reimbursed for the marijuana we cultivate legally as caregivers for these people who have letters from their doctors,'' he said. ``It may be against the law to sell marijuana but it's morally wrong to let someone die, and we are saving lives here,'' Peron added. Gordnier, the state's lawyer, said the club is ineligible to be a primary caregiver and therefore cannot operate legally under the court's ruling. The case is People vs. Peron, S067387.