N. California County Wants To Be First With Government Pot

SAN FRANCISCO (November 22, 1997 7:23 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net) -- From the evidence room to the living room. That's how officials in one northern California county envision a government-run program to distribute confiscated marijuana to the sick.

In response to Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative California voters approved last year, San Mateo County's first-of-its-kind program would give pot seized in criminal cases to the sick -- under tightly controlled conditions.

The marijuana first would be photographed and cataloged for use in trials. Then it would be shipped to public health clinics, where it would be tested for freshness and contamination.

If the pot meets quality standards, it would be doled out at clinics to patients or others authorized to pick it up. Users would need a prescription and would have to register with the sheriff's department.

"We're trying to make it available to those who need it most, and be sensitive to the people's intent in the spirit of Proposition 215," said San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin, the former San Francisco police detective who suggested the idea.

He hasn't calculated the cost of such a program. The County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to develop a plan to present to the state Attorney General's office. Nevin hopes to have the plan completed by Jan. 1.

Then, he'll take it to the state Legislature and ask for an emergency bill allowing the county to conduct a yearlong pilot program.

Attorney General Dan Lungren, who opposed the November 1996 initiative, hasn't said he supports the idea but has assigned a staff lawyer to take a look at San Mateo's proposal.

The county has as much as $200,000 worth of marijuana in its evidence rooms on any given day and between 500 and 1,500 people who could be eligible to use it, Nevin said. Right now, the pot ends up being destroyed.

"The stuff is going to waste," said Maia Powers, 35, who smokes marijuana for an anxiety disorder she says is fallout from abuse suffered as a child. She gets her pot now from the Cannabis Cultivators Club in San Francisco.

"I think it's a marvelous idea, especially if they expect people to get the medicine without major growing programs," she said.

If the program is successful, other counties would follow, Nevin said.

That wouldn't sit well with the White House, said a representative of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"I would say that the Office of National Drug Control Policy has serious reservations about any program such as this," said Brian Morton. "As far as we're concerned, marijuana still hasn't proven its case as a legitimate medicine."

Proposition 215 made it legal for seriously ill people to use marijuana, with a doctor's permission, for the relief of pain and other symptoms. But the measure is unclear on who can grow and distribute the drug.

Backers say it decreases pain without the nausea associated with many prescription pain killers and increases appetite, allowing AIDS and cancer patients who frequently waste away to eat and keep their strength up.

By KARYN HUNT, The Associated Press