Word: marijuana
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Many of the 20 or so pot clubs that have sprung up around the state in response to the law--places where people in need can get a steady supply of the drug--are strictly monitoring their customers. The Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center dispenses a pound of marijuana a week from its discreet, white-walled suite in a business complex. When one would-be customer proffered a doctor's recommendation that he had allegedly forged, co-founder Peter Baez called the police and later went to court to help press charges...
...other clubs seem closer to head shops than hospitals. Dennis Peron, a pro-pot proselytizer who helped draft Prop 215 and runs the San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators Club, admits he sells pot for everything from premenstrual syndrome to the blues. "All use of marijuana is medical," says Peron. "It makes you smarter. It touches the right brain and allows you to slow down, to smell the flowers. We're living in a very stressful world. It can and should be used for anxiety and depression...
...what to do about clubs like Peron's. A few cities, such as Concord and Palo Alto, have instituted moratoriums on pot clubs. California attorney general Dan Lungren, a law-and-order Republican, is pursuing civil and criminal litigation against Peron's club; he says undercover cops have bought marijuana there without a doctor's recommendation and that videotapes have shown minors on the premises...
Federal officials are in an especially delicate position. Marijuana use, even for medical purposes, is still outlawed by the U.S. government, and Attorney General Janet Reno has vowed to continue enforcing that law. But federal officials have been reluctant to crack down on the pot clubs that were created in response to the will of California voters. In April agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration raided a Bay Area cannabis club called Flower Therapy and seized 331 marijuana plants and growing equipment, charging that the club was distributing pot in quantities larger than what was needed by its ill customers...
...policy. Steve Dnistrian of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America claims that heartrending medical stories are a being used as a smoke screen "by people whose agenda is to radically change drug policy in America." On that point, at least, Peron seems in agreement. "This is not about marijuana as medicine," he says. "This is a cultural...