Subj: Cannabis Campaign - Frisco fights to sell dope

Date: Mar 29, 1998

Source: Independent on Sunday

Frisco fights to sell dope

From John Carlin in Washington

San Francisco is at war with Washington and the issue,
dramatised in a march through California's fairest city last
week, is cannabis use. The outcome of the war could be San
Francisco becoming the first city in the world officially to
provide cannabis to its citizens.

At stake is the survival of a Californian initiative, approved as
Proposition 215 in a statewide referendum in November 1996,
allowing for the growth and distribution of marijuana when the
purposes are medicinal. US federal law forbids the growth and
distribution of marijuana in all circumstances. Six "cannabis
clubs", shops where the sick can buy marijuana with doctor's
prescriptions, are facing closure on instructions from the
Justice Department in Washington.

In a measure of how uniquely tolerant San Francisco is in a
nation not celebrated for its broad-mindedness, the city's
district attorney took part in Tuesday's march and addressed
a crowd of several hundred. Terence Hallinan, San Francisco's
top law enforcement officer, issued a challenge to the federal
government in Washington.

He said that if Washington enforced the law, San Francisco
would flout it. City health officials and police would combine,
he said, to run marijuana distribution centres for the seriously
ill. The alternative would be not only greater suffering for
people with Aids, glaucoma and cancer, but also increased
crime.

Upon learning of Mr Hallinan's challenge federal government
officials said if he acted on his words he would be jailed. It
would be interesting to see if Washington had the courage to
act on such a threat. For not only do the majority of California
voters approve of Proposition 215, so does San Francisco's
hugely popular mayor, Willie Brown.

He was one of three California mayors who wrote to President
Clinton recently imploring him to stop the Justice Department
from shutting down the marijuana dispensaries.

"At stake is the well-being of 11,000 California residents who
depend on the dispensaries to help them battle the debilitating
effects of Aids, cancer and other serious illnesses," Mayor
Brown wrote. "If the centres are shut, many individuals will be
compelled to search back alleys and street corners for their
medicine. This will not only endanger their lives, but place an
unnecessary burden on our local police department."

The owner of one dispensary, Peter Baez, was arrested on
Monday and released on bail on Tuesday. His cousin, Joan
Baez, denounced the ''farcical charges" against him.