75A - PH - MEDICAL MARIJUANA - PROHIBIT

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As for Ellis' objection to the liberal distribution of Demerol in the E.R., compared with the paucity of marijuana prescriptions in the doctor's office, Joseph. says an E.R. deserves its own standards. "It's a much different situation," he says. "There's little time to make the diagnosis [in the E.R.]. This is not the case in an office visit where the patient has the opportunity to explain his medical history." If a patient is able to obtain a physician's recommenda#i.on, he or she must next join a buyer's club. The Oak and Cannabis Buyer's Club is a mile from my house, so I swing by on a Saturday. Like Ellis' office, the OCBC is also low-rent, but it makes up for it in atmosphere. if Ellis' operation was film noir, the Co-op is Cheech & Chong plus "Beaches." The store mixes earnest compassion for the ~~ ill. with a healthy appreciation for fat, leafy weed. Inside, past the pipes and bongs and vaguely pornographic poster of a luscious green. bud, a woman at a counter sorts membership files. (The club has roughly 4,000 members, executive director Jeffrey Jones tells me later, but it's hard to count. Why? I ask. "We don't know h.ow many are dead," he replies.) The woman at the counter gives me paperwork and takes my physician recommendation, acopy of which I`d already faxed in for approval. I do the paperwork and pose for my photo and pay the fee. My $21.95 entitles me to a list of active dispensaries, support in the event of police trouble, free massages and regular cultivation seminars. Cultivation? I ask. I can grow up to 48 plants, they say --beyond that it's risky. My new member I.D. is my "shield." If a cop stops me for possession, I need only flash the card. If that doesn't work, the officer is to call the 24-h.our phone number on the back, and the club will vouch forme. "But this is legal, right?" I ask. "Weil," they reply, "yes. But call if there's a problem." I'm out in 10 minutes, but still. without pot. This is because an injunction keeps the club from. selling it. When the government went after buyer's clubs in 1948, it went after the six biggest. No attempt has been made to close the others that sprang up subsequently, Jones tells tne. And nothing keeps the OCBC from. directing the to an active dispensary two blocks away. "Wh.y did the government pick on some pot clubs and not others?" 1 ask Jones. Surely it knows about the other dispensaries. "Vdho knows?" he says. "Maybe they wanted a martyr." "But nobody's going to respond to martyrdom when it comes to getting marijuana," I say. "Then maybe we were doing too good a job helping people," he says. The unmarked dispensary two blocks away is to pharmacy as Bates Motel is to Ritz-Carlton. Metal gratings cover the windows of the ol.d building, which begs for a paint job or some dynamite work. A guard stands out front and thoroughly inspects my paperwork before sending me inside to the next guard, who also thoroughly inspects my paperwork.. Then I'm sent to a desk, where I fill out more paperwork, show my OCBC card, put a dollar in a jar and gain access to the next room. The next room is un-American. It's how Amsterdam is described among teenagers, a perversely legal assortment of illegal things: pot plants, pot brownies, pot cookies, pot seeds and, of course, pot. fLalf a mile from the Oakland. Police Department, two glass counters full of dope and a promising back raom await anyone with an OCBC card and some cash. There is no catch. I experience the brief heartbreak of poorly timed access -- this kind of opportunity would've been great back when I liked pot -- but mainly I'm glad people who need it can get it. I buy an eighth of an ounce of the good stuff, not the great stuff. It's $45. The guy behind the counter is nice like a nurse. The place isn't a neighborhood drugstore -- no matter how medicinal your marijuana, it's still pot, and pot culture is irrepressible -- but there's no Pink Floyd or opium-den decadence, either. 36 75A-45