Source: San Francisco Chronicle Author: Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writer Page: A1, Front Page Contact: Pubdate: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 S.F. CLUB'S STYLE RANKLES MEDICAL POT ADVOCATES Founder Peron Blamed For Eroding Support At the close of a long interview at his Cannabis Cultivators Club in San Francisco, the affable Dennis Peron offered to roll a reporter a joint. The offer was politely declined, and the proffered buds of a substance that might have been marijuana were drawn back to the desk of club founder Peron, who has recently declared himself a Republican candidate for governor of California. It was a typical, and not wholly unexpected gesture from the bad boy of pot politics, but it underscored a tendency that is making Peron's colleagues in the medical marijuana business very nervous -- he bends the rules, and sometimes, they break. Peron's antics and incessant activism have fractured the coalition that in November 1996 engineered a decisive victory for Proposition 215, which made legal the personal use of marijuana in California for medical purposes with a doctor's prescription. Operators of medical pot centers around California, while lauding him as a visionary, are now afraid of the heat Dennis Peron is generating -- particularly Attorney General Dan Lungren's threat to shut down all clubs on January 12. For them, Peron's 1960s dance of liberation is out of step with the tightly managed 1990s. ``If you don't distance yourself from Dennis Peron, you are almost accused of being a `Dennis Peron,' said Peter Baez, executive director of the Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center in San Jose. ``How can you support somebody who doesn't play by the rules?'' The four-story Cannabis Cultivators Club on Market Street has become a lightning rod for opponents of any use of marijuana. It not only distributes pot but celebrates it and allows its 8,000 members to smoke it on the premises. Although provocative to opponents of marijuana use, smoking pot at medical marijuana clubs is not illegal under Proposition 215. However, only patients with doctor's prescriptions -- not healthy reporters, for example -- may take the drug legally. Critics say Peron's medical record-keeping is not thorough enough to weed out purely recreational users. With thousands of paper cranes dangling from its ceilings, wall-size murals of cannabis leaves, and political posters proclaiming Peron for governor, the pot club is as much a shrine to Peron himself as it is to marijuana. Peron's uncompromising advocacy of full legalization of marijuana now irks some of his former allies. One of the Proposition 215 co- authors with Peron, Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center director Scott Imler, has publicly chastised the San Francisco club as a ``circus'' that threatens the existence of every medical marijuana provider in California. ``We're sick and tired of spending 90 percent of our time explaining away the excesses of Dennis Peron and 1444 Market Street,'' said Imler. ``We assured the voters over and over and over that we were talking about medical marijuana,'' he added. ``The minute the election passed, it was `Let's smoke a fatty,' and `All use is medical.' Basically, that's a betrayal of everything the voters did for patients.'' Scanning the polished bar, which serves up pot brownies and capsules of marijuana tincture to AIDS patients, Peron smiled and said, ``It does kind of look like a circus, now that I think of it.'' Peron said he follows the rules assiduously and believes there is nothing wrong with his patients having a little fun. ``I have people with 10 T-cells laughing for maybe the last time in their life,'' said Peron. ``I will never let people not have a good time. ``I could run this place as just a dispensary,'' he added. ``But then I wouldn't want to do it, because I want to treat the whole body.'' Although the dispute between Peron and other advocates of medical marijuana has been brewing for years, the issue has come to a head because of recent setbacks in his court battle to keep his club open, and his public baiting of Lungren -- also a Republican candidate for California governor. The court strategy relies on a novel interpretation of Proposition 215 that Peron says allows patients to designate a pot club as a "primary caregiver." The approach initially worked: A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled one year ago that the club, which had been shuttered since an August 1996 raid by DEA agents, could reopen. But on December 12, a state appeals court tossed out the ruling, and Lungren promptly declared that every medical marijuana club in the state will be shut down on January 12. An expected Supreme Court appeal by Peron could delay the shutdown, and it is unclear how successful Lungren will be in garnering local law enforcement support for a statewide shutdown. But pot club operators are angry. "It's incredibly frustrating," said Imler, who fears that Peron is setting dangerous court precedents that could sink all medical pot clubs. "He risks ruining everything we've worked so hard for these last four years." Peron has rejected Imler's attempts to establish a code of conduct for medical marijuana centers. He did not attend an October meeting of "Medical Cannabis Providers" that attempted to set standards for "legal ethical distribution" of medical marijuana. "I'm glad I didn't go,'' said Peron. "They are trying to rewrite Proposition 215 to be stricter than it was." Ken Hayes, general manager of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, said he is saddened by the infighting. "Dennis has chosen to separate himself from the rest of the community," he said. Peron does have defenders. "Dennis has been grandstanding from Day One, and that's why we've gotten as far as we are today, said Jeff Jones, executive director of the Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative in Oakland. "I would never turn my back on Dennis, unless he did something blatant." Jones said the recent legal setback for Peron is just part of the process. He said most of Peron's legal troubles have occurred because he has chosen to take the heat. "When you are being entrapped by the government, there is not much you can do about it," he said. Peron, too, chalks up the rancor as the price of being a pioneer. "No matter how we run this place, Lungren will hate us," he said. "He is not used to losing, so he will carry this out to its illogical end." A reporter pointed out the blank space on his desk calendar for January 12. Peron took up a pen, and wrote in the space "Get busted."