75A - PH - MEDICAL MARIJUANA - PROHIBIT

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If Estes is a creative but befuddled libertine, Jones is rigid and dogmatic. Frorn the start, the two rubbed one another the wrong way. After passage of Proposition 215, the co-op emerged. from the shadows and began distributing pot out in the open. But no one had any idea how to go about it. There were simply no rules; one day medical pot was illegal, the next day it wasn't. Proposition 215 is one in a long series of brief, poorly conceived initiatives whose implementation has proven to be a giant headache. The "Compassionate Use Act of 1996" offers no guidance on how pot should be distributed.; indeed, the initiative is a si;lgle page in length and merely encourages the federal and state governments to "implement a plan. to provide for the safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all patients." Six years later, no one in Sacramento has figured out what this means. No state agency has ever issued. binding directives on how to distribute pot, or to whom. Until the California legislature passes a law to govern distribution, neither the attorney general nor the state health department. has the legal authority to innovate any such protocols. "Proposition. 215 did not address prescriptions,'" says Hallye Jordan, spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Loclcyer. "The initiative did not authorize or spell out any specific scheme for dispensing marijuana. Nor did it say who is entitled. to it, or how much marijuana is required for which ailment. 1 think everyone recognizes that Proposition 215 was not the best-written u~i.tiative. But the voters passed it." With the state paralyzed, it has fallen to local governments to regulate medical marijuana. But most localities have adopted a strictly laissez-faire approach and done virtually nothing to ensure that the distribution of pot adheres to the spirit of Proposition 21.5. The portion of the Berkeley municipal code governing medical pot, for example, is so ridiculously lax that it plays right into the city's worst stereotypes, and yet it's as strict as virtually any other Bay Area city. Although the code limits the amount of pot a club can have on hand, there are n.o provisions limiting how close a pot club can be to a school, or requiring doctors to conduct an actual evaluation of patients, or requiring background checks for pot distributors -- which is standard practice for anyone who wants to run a liquor store. Yet the code does encourage pot clubs to use their best efforts to deternlu~e whether or not cannabis is organically grown.." City Councilmembers Linda Maio and Dona Spring say the city can't even write up a specific-use permit for cannabis clubs, because doing so would violate federal law. The end result is that medicat pot is actually less regulated than candy bars, which must at least have their ingredients printed on the wrapper. Anyone can distribute medical pot anywhere, in any fashion they please, and. virtually no one is watching them. Club operators disagree on whether this is good or bad. Jeff Jones wants the government to step in and bring some common sense to pot's distribution. "We thought the government would get involved in distributing medical marijuana as per the state Iaw," he says. "I never though that f ve or ten years Later, we'd still be operating in a vacuum." Others worry that i.f the state takes a firmer hand, a conservative governor or attorney general might interpret the law so narrowly as to effectively recriminali.ze medical cannabis. But everyone agrees that since the government hasn't set up rules, club operators must police themselves. The Oakland Cannabis Buyers Collective was at the forefront of this effort, keeping and verifying patient records, hiring security guards, and establishing a rigorous dual-identification system, in which patients had to pass through multiple checkpoints. "To be a member, they had to turn in a note from a licensed physician that we could verify," Jones says. 44 75A-53