Despite Prop. 215, Medicinal Pot Use Still Smoked Out by Courts

Ryan Landers didn’t plan on being a farmer. Then again, he never planned on getting AIDS and needing marijuana to stay hungry enough to keep him from wasting away.

He used to buy pot at the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club. But that club, like many that opened after a 1996 medical marijuana initiative passed, has been shut down by federal court order.

Now many club members like Landers are increasingly forced to seek out small, low-profile groups and buy from street dealers. Dozens have been arrested for having plants. Short of a federal change of heart allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana, co-ops that grow pot to give or sell to patients may be their best hope.

For Landers, that means traveling 100 miles to this tiny, rural town in the wine country, 150 miles northwest of San Francisco, to buy the pot that will ease his nausea. Here, Proposition 215 author Dennis Peron and members of his two defunct San Francisco pot clubs grow marijuana. This summer, Peron plans to begin delivering plants to thousands of San Francisco patients who will pay for them at cost.

“This was really horrible when the clubs shut down,” Landers said. “[People] don’t know where to get plants and seeds.

“It’s been more than two years. People should be growing pot. They shouldn’t be scared to.”

Lungren Responsible for Closing Clubs

After the medical marijuana law passed, the number of clubs in California peaked around 30, said Dave Fratello, one of the authors of the bill. Similar medical marijuana measures later passed in five other states and the District of Columbia.

But in California, then-Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren oversaw a series of state-initiated efforts that closed about two-thirds of the clubs, most in Northern California. Federal raids and court rulings also contributed to the shutdowns, although some advocates say that for every club that has closed, at least another has opened--albeit quietly--in its place.

State officials and medical marijuana advocates say that a national Institutes of Medicine review scheduled for release this month will be critical in getting federal officials to consider reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug or allowing doctors to prescribe pot. The 18-month review of the health effects and medical treatment benefits of marijuana was ordered by drug czar Barry McCaffrey.

“The cannabis clubs were a great stopgap measure . . . but it wasn’t a solution,” said Scott Imler, director of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center in West Hollywood. The center is one of two well-known pot clubs in Southern California and has 1,100 members from Bakersfield to Palm Springs.

Imler and others are optimistic that things will change with a new governor and attorney general in office and new district attorneys and sheriffs in communities that have been hostile to distribution efforts.

“The main problem we’ve had is lack of guidance to law enforcement,” said Jason Browne, a trustee of the Humboldt Cannabis Center in Arcata. “Everyone is waiting for someone else to do something and, meanwhile, the patients are at risk.”

Brian Steel, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, would not comment on why smaller co-ops have survived while the larger groups were shut down.

“The Department of Justice is committed to following the law that Congress has passed and, to that end, Congress has said the use or distribution of marijuana is illegal,” he said. “Consistent with that, that’s what we’re going to do.”

Advocates say the clubs were safe and convenient.

“I like the clubs better. There’s no hassle, no pressure. You get what you need and leave,” said Chris Ward, 39, who bought pot at the Oakland club to ease the effects of chemotherapy. Now he plans to go to a new Berkeley co-op, about 200 miles south of his home in Oak Run.

Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, hasn’t said whether he will support proposed legislation to authorize $1 million annually to study medical marijuana or a plan to specify or standardize the enforcement of Proposition 215. “I believe good science should resolve this issue,” Davis has said.

Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, also a Democrat, said he voted for the medical marijuana law and agreed that more guidance is needed. His mother and sister both died of leukemia.

“There are omissions and gaps and ambiguities in the initial statute that would benefit from clarification,” Lockyer said. “It’s unclear exactly who can be a caretaker and exactly what the system is for setting up a dispensary and clinic.”

Patients can still get pot at operations in San Francisco, West Hollywood, San Diego, Fairfax, Sonoma County, Ukiah, Arcata, Berkeley and Hayward. Peron’s farm was twice raided by Drug Enforcement Administration officials, who confiscated hundreds of plants but made no arrests.

“Unless the federal government changes its policy or adopts a noninvasive role, the California statute scheme can never be legally implemented,” Lockyer said.

“If our law were tighter and there was more of a clinic, that might be partially persuasive to the federal government if they see there is a tight regulatory system.”