cannabisnews.com: Those Using Medical Pot Left Without a Distributor





Those Using Medical Pot Left Without a Distributor
Posted by FoM on April 23, 2000 at 17:16:19 PT
By Mark Sauer, Union-Tribune Staff Writer 
Source: Union-Tribune
One group started a cooperative garden to provide marijuana to sick people. Police said they had too many plants and shut it down.Another group opened a private center and sold marijuana to sick people. Police said selling pot is illegal and shut it down.
Four years after California voters overwhelmingly passed Prop. 215, San Diego is once again without a distribution point for medical marijuana.The closing last week of the California Alternative Medical Center in Hillcrest left several hundred San Diegans who use marijuana to help cope with diseases such as cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma with no place to get it, short of back-alley transactions or planting seeds."I don't have an answer for those who legitimately need to obtain it, other than to advise them to grow it on their own," said San Diego police Lt. Bob Kanaski of the countywide Narcotics Task Force following a raid last week on the county's remaining distribution center."We've come across a lot of folks who grow marijuana at their apartments or houses who have a doctor's note to use it, and we've walked away. But Prop. 215 never made it legal to sell marijuana, as this center was doing."The Hillcrest center, which sold marijuana for as much as $25 a gram, was closed Tuesday after operating for at least a year with the full knowledge of San Diego police.Though arrests have not yet been made, police will recommend that the district attorney file charges against center owner Carolyn Smith-Konow and others involved in the center, Kanaski said.Neither Smith-Konow nor her attorney returned phone calls last week.The padlocking of the center left clients -- who had doctors' written approval to use marijuana -- scrambling to replace their medicine."Marijuana stimulated my appetite. I was barely eating one decent meal a day with marijuana; without it I'm hardly eating anything," said former center client Henry Ortiz.Ortiz, a Navy veteran, said he had a kidney transplant that failed, and he undergoes dialysis three times a week. He said marijuana not only stimulates his appetite (he is 5 feet 11 and weighs about 130 pounds) but also helps control a seizure disorder."Now I'm left to buy it on the street, not a good prospect for me at all," Ortiz said.This latest closure follows a raid last July of another Hillcrest-based marijuana distribution center, the cooperative Shelter From the Storm, in which several hundred pot plants were confiscated along with growing equipment.But the District Attorney's Office declined to file charges against owner Steve McWilliams, who was already on probation following a previous plea-bargain for cultivating marijuana.That has left McWilliams, who got his growing equipment back, free to lobby City Council members, police officials and City Attorney Casey Gwinn to establish a procedure to legally distribute medical marijuana."We're suggesting the city license medical-marijuana co-ops, which would have to apply for a permit, undergo building inspections and regular review by the police and health and safety people," said McWilliams, who complained loudly that the center was allowed to profit from medical marijuana after he was shut down."All we have ever asked for is a guideline under which we can distribute medical marijuana legally in accordance with Prop. 215," he added. "It seems like such a simple thing. Several communities in Northern California have done it, why can't we do it here?"There is no local task force working on ways to implement Prop. 215 and probably won't be any time soon, according to Gwinn."I don't think this is going to happen at the local level in San Diego. It's not anything I would initiate or be a part of," Gwinn said."I know cities like Santa Cruz and San Francisco have made up their own system to distribute medical marijuana, but I think it's bad public policy and it's not legal," Gwinn added."I spoke at length recently with (state Attorney General) Bill Lockyer on this issue and he agrees this is something the state has got to fix."In fact, Lockyer spent a good part of last year trying to get the state to fix the Prop. 215 problem.Strong Voter Backing:The proposition, endorsed by 60 percent of California voters in 1996, is vague and includes no mechanism for determining those eligible to use the drug, how much they can possess, or how they can legally obtain marijuana.Complicating matters further is that marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and those growing and dispensing it as medicine are subject to federal arrest and prosecution.Lockyer, who supports medical marijuana, convened a task force of police, prosecutors, medical-marijuana advocates and physicians to try to develop a plan to make Prop. 215 work in California. In fact, CAMC's Smith-Konow was a member of Lockyer's task force.The group's plan, announced last July, would have established a registry of marijuana-using patients to be run by the state Department of Health Services.State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, submitted a bill encompassing the attorney general's recommendations, but the Democrat-controlled Legislature declined to take it up, and Gov. Gray Davis vowed a veto.Meanwhile, several Northern California communities have forged ahead without direction from the state. In Santa Cruz, the City Council passed an ordinance last week allowing sick people to grow and use marijuana. At the same time, a bed and breakfast catering to medical-marijuana users opened in the seaside community, an hour south of San Francisco.And for many years there, the WO/MEN's Alliance for Medical Marijuana has dispensed the drug free to several hundred sick people, some of whom are terminally ill.Asks For Help From Sheriff:"When I started working with the sheriff here six years ago, many of his peers laughed. Now they're calling him asking how our system works, how patients can be allowed access to marijuana, and how profiteering can be taken out of the process," said Valerie Corral.Corral, the founder of the alliance, said she has used marijuana for years to ease the effects of epilepsy. She runs a cooperative garden in which patients donate what they can to offset expenses in exchange for their medical marijuana."We require extensive paperwork (from applicants) and insist that physicians are involved in monitoring our members' illnesses and treatment," Corral said. "Our clients come together in weekly meetings and become deeply involved in each other's lives."When someone is seriously ill, one of the most important things beyond getting relief from pain is to come out of the isolation of the illness. Sick people are often displaced socially, they lose their jobs, friends stop calling, they are disconnected from society."Our group works hard to restore those social relationships."Corral, also a member of Lockyer's task force, said she is shocked that San Diego officials have shut down both medical-marijuana distribution centers while offering no alternative."When local government chooses to close organizations that serve people, they are creating more pain in the lives of people who are seriously ill," Corral said. "I'd call that an atrocity and a misuse of power." Published: April 23, 2000© Copyright 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Related Articles & Web Site:WAMMhttp://www.wamm.org/ Medical-Pot Advocates Say Lockyer Has Failedhttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5489.shtmlSanta Cruz Council OKs Cultivation Of Marijuanahttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5476.shtmlPolice Close Down Medical Marijuana Providerhttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5450.shtmlCannabisnews Archives & Articles On Medical Marijuana & Prop 215:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtmlhttp://google.com/search?lc=&num=10&q=cannabisnews+215+site:cannabisnews.comhttp://google.com/search?lc=&num=10&q=cannabisnews+medical+site:cannabisnews.com 
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on April 23, 2000 at 21:27:42 PT
Hi Mark!
Hi Mark,I think you sound like you know what your talking about but it goes over the top of my head because I've never gone into reading about the details of the law. If I knew more about what the arguments are really about I would understand much better. I think there are people who like to find,post and edit news and those who get into the details of the article and that's what makes this site particularly interesting at least to me. You seem to be a detail person and me I don't want to forget to tie the articles together so that others that don't read CannabisNews very often can figure out where a story is, and was, if that makes sense? Thanks for all your posts, comments and hard work!Peace, FoM!
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Comment #1 posted by Mark Tide on April 23, 2000 at 21:04:01 PT:
Help for San Diego
Here's my personal effort to help clean up this huge mess in San Diego. Advocacy that is --- local, like Steve McWilliams I suppose, should be making this precise argument to City Attorney Gwinn, and relevant others. I'm happy to help, if anyone can put us together via email.Here is my email note to news reporter at San Diego Union - Tribune :Dear Mr. Mark Sauer, Staff Writer :I read your story of April 23, on subject of P215 implementation. You write a good news story.S.D. City Attorney, Casey Gwinn is -- wrong -- about absence of legal policy foundation for local government implementation programs (no matter how long he's talked with AG Lockyer, who -- must -- politically defend statewide policymaking on the topic, which is only possible in principle -- not in practice).Here's the short course: Section (b) (1) (c) of P215 provides permissive (not mandatory) authorization for state (includes local) "governments to implement a plan to provide for the safe and affordable distribution . . . [relevant to this situation]." If a local government adopts a formal municipal ordinance, this satisfies relevant exceptions caveats (legal clauses such as, "except as provided by law," etc.) within state health and safety code (see H&S Code, Section 11360, for example). On such a basis, distribution (sales, if "safe and affordable") becomes legal. It's a very simple, logical and elegant policy practice, which interprets P215 in a reasonable manner, allowing it the best opportunity to make sense and succeed as law. This is the perspective courts would be duty bound to take, along the lines of best affording voter-initiative derived law a chance to work.I edit a local ezine in Arcata, which closely covers these issues (- most journalism on this topic has been mired in confusion and sensationalism, as well as in editorial attitude / agenda -), because we're at ground zero here. Arcata is the first community in the U.S. to adopt medicinal cannabis implementation law, effective March of 1998. The more recent ordinances of Oakland and Santa Cruz closely follow (adopt much language directly from) this specific model, wherein relevant policy matters are contained in a series of sections on each particular issue area.I believe the hard fact is that plain --- lack of cultural familiarity --- with cannabis, being much more pervasive in Southern Ca. (also in the Valley), is a primary cause that unreasonable intransigence on implementation finds traction through propaganda generating monopolized political cover. AG Lockyer is reluctant to do anything, except the impossible, which is effective cover for him. But notice that he doesn't interfere with local government efforts to provide proper avenues of reform, as did AG Lungren. Prior to passage of P215, if a local government adopted a medicinal cannabis distribution ordinance, the courts would have struck it down as inconsistent with state law. Since P215, local governments can make such law as long as it is consistent with terms of this new policy.Would the U - T be interested in representing the truth about these policy matters, for your readers and residents of S.D.?If I can help with your capable coverage of this topic, please send a note through reply email.Truly Yours, Mark TideEditor, Arcata Journal - http://www.arcata.org[ So, FoM : Please let me know what you think. ]
Arcata Journal
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