Pubdate: Thu, 08 Jan 1998
Date: January 8, 1998
Source: The San Francisco Examiner
Author:   Kay Ebeling

Lungren's Put-down Of Gop Rival Dennis Peron Fails Test
Attorney General Dan Lungren makes fun of Dennis Peron running
for governor as a Republican, saying Peron "has smoked more
marijuana than even I thought."

The truth is Lungren is abandoning Republican principles with his
threat to close once again the cannabis buyers clubs. Marijuana
is a product. Peron and the buyers clubs are meeting a market
demand. Lungren is using the power of the state to prevent an
industry from developing and to keep California capitalists from
developing a product that is in high demand.

What kind of a Republican would do that?

Peron is running against Lungren in the June Republican primary.
Anyone can cross over [party lines] to vote for him. Lungren
feels threatened, and so lashes out with invective and innuendo.
Lungren needs to take another look at the potential in the
marijuana business. The entire region of Northern California
would boom if the state allowed its residents to develop this
cash crop that is in high demand all over the world. We have the
Wine Country in Napa / Sonoma. Why can't we have the Marijuana
Country in Humboldt / Mendocino?

I thought Republicans believed in capitalism.

To twist Lungren's own invective back on him: He must be drinking
too much liquor. He's not alert enough to see a thriving industry
that would bring the equivalent of a gold rush to a depressed
region in his own state.

He's reacting with resentment against his own delusion that
people using medical marijuana are just "getting stoned" like
hippies 20 years ago - just the way alcoholics hold onto old
resentments.

Peron is the real Republican running in the June primary for
governor. Lungren wants to call out a militia-like police force
to keep sick people from getting their medicine at Peron's club.
Sounds more like a Nazi - or at least a Communist - than a Republican.

Kay Ebeling
San Francisco, CA