Source: Contra Costa Times (CA)
Contact:  Wed, 25 Mar 1998
Author: Mary Curtius - LA Times
Editor note:  This article also appeared in the Wed, 25 Mar Los Angeles
Times under the title "Medical Marijuana Backers March in San Fransisco"

MARIJUANA CLUB'S FATE MOTIVATES RALLY IN DOWNTOWN S.F.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Medical marijuana advocates prayed, marched and rallied
downtown Tuesday in support of the state's cannabis clubs as the federal
government asked a U.S. district court judge to shut them down.

Nearly 200 people marched down Market Street to the federal building where
they were cheered by San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, who
has vowed that the city will supply medical marijuana to patients if its
cannabis clubs are shuttered.

Medical marijuana supporters rolled and lighted joints and sold
marijuana-laced cookies on the steps of the building as police stood by.

"If they close down the clubs, we'll go underground," vowed Somayah
Moore-Kamhui, who was selling what she said were organic marijuana cookies.
Moore-Kamhui said she is a member of the Crescent Alliance Self-Help group
for sickle cell anemia victims.

"We will just go back to doing what we did before Prop. 215," said
Moore-Kamhui, who said she suffers from the disease herself. "We will sneak
into hospitals to get these to patients, if we have to. This is a
revolution, and we are not going to stop."

Inside the building, Judge Charles Breyer heard arguments from a battery of
lawyers defending the clubs and from Justice Department attorneys who were
asking him to issue an injunction against six Northern California marijuana
centers. He did not rule.

"This case is not about Proposition 215," said Mark Quinlivan, arguing for
the Department of Justice. "What this case is about is the upholding of
federal law."

But William Panzer, arguing for the Oakland Cannabis Club, said the federal
government for years "has arbitrarily and capriciously," suppressed or
ignored studies that showed marijuana to be a safe drug with medicinal
uses.

Attorneys for other clubs argued that federal law may be violated to
prevent a greater harm, such as the death of some patients deprived of
marijuana; that privacy rights allow seriously ill patients access to drugs
that will relieve their pain and possibly sustain their lives; that if the
marijuana is grown and distributed solely within the state, the federal
government has no jurisdiction over it.

California voters in November 1996 approved Prop. 215, which said
chronically ill patients with a doctor's recommendation could grow and use
marijuana for medicinal purposes. The law also says a primary caregiver may
provide the drug to ill patients.

Club operators say they act as primary caregivers in providing the drug to
thousands of patients who otherwise have no safe way of buying it. But in
separate cases in state and federal courts, the Justice Department and
State Attorney General Dan Lungren have argued that Prop. 215 did not
legalize the clubs and that the clubs are not the primary caregivers for
their clients.

In January, the federal government filed its civil suit against six
cannabis clubs -- four in the Bay Area, one in Eureka and one in Santa Cruz
- -- seeking to close them for allegedly violating the federal Controlled
Substances Act, which prohibits the sale of marijuana.

Undercover agents allegedly bought marijuana in each of the six clubs. The
Eureka club and the Flower Therapy club in San Francisco closed, and the
cases against the other four were consolidated into the case heard Tuesday
by Judge Breyer.

In February, the California Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision
in a case Lungren had brought against the Cannabis Buyers Club in San
Francisco that Prop. 215 did not provide the right to sell the drug and did
not allow a commercial enterprise to supply marijuana as a primary
caregiver.

The mayors of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz and West Hollywood wrote a
joint letter to President Clinton last week, protesting the federal
government's efforts to close the club and complaining that patients would
be forced to buy marijuana on the streets if the government's effort
succeeded.

Patients who say they need to smoke or eat marijuana to relieve chronic
pain, control glaucoma or maintain their appetites packed Breyer's
courtroom Tuesday. Some were in wheelchairs. Others hobbled in aided by
canes.