"Let Health Workers
Distribute Medical Marijuana"
-- San Francisco D.A. Hallinan Says Again
April 27, 1998By San Francisco Chronicle
chronletters@sfgate.com
http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
By Terence Hallinan
District Attorney of San Francisco.
LET HEALTH WORKERS DISTRIBUTE POT
The recent shutdown of San Francisco’s Cannabis Cultivators Club and its reopening
under new leadership closed a chapter in the continuing debate over medical marijuana.
Broader legal questions about the clubs remain.
State and federal efforts to close six medical marijuana cooperatives in California
have raised the thorny question of who should be responsible for distributing medical
marijuana to sick patients if the clubs are permanently shut down. Recently, when 1
suggested city health workers may be called on to do the job in San Francisco, I did not
make the statement lightly.
See
Have City Health Dept.
Distribute Medical Marijuana If Clubs Close -- San Francisco D.A. Hallinan
Such a plan already has the support of the city Health Commission
and many of our elected officials.
We stand behind the will of California voters, who, in 1996, approved the medicinal use
of marijuana. To make that right effective, patients must have safe access, not criminal
access to marijuana. As the top law enforcement officer for San Francisco, it is my job to
ensure that law is upheld.
I know from my years on the city Board of Supervisors that marijuana provides relief to
many seriously ill people. Unfortunately, the ballot language of Proposition 215 left
vague how local communities should make marijuana accessible for those who need it. So
far, in San Francisco, cannabis cooperatives have been the most viable and safest
distribution system available. These clubs screen applicants to ensure that they are
genuine patients in medical need and work closely with local health and police departments
to guard against abuse.
My office has inspected community based distribution centers in our county and found
them to be in compliance with protocol adopted by the city Health Commission.
The federal government, however, is set on shutting down the San Francisco centers
along with cannabis clubs in Oakland, Ukiah, Santa Cruz and Marin County. The government says the supremacy of federal law is more important than
the suffering of dying patients - and they have a strong ally in state attorney general
Dan Lungren. Lungren, with his eye set on the governor’s seat, has been a staunch
opponent of medical marijuana long before Proposition 215 even came to a vote. Now he is
warning that there will be reprisals against city officials if the city assumes
responsibility for distributing medical marijuana.
See
Medical
Marijuana Advocates Accuse California AG Lungren of Lying About Prop. 215 then Lying to
Cover-up the Lies
The threats are completely misplaced. Community-based patient cooperatives are a
valuable public health service, distributing marijuana to about 11,000 San Franciscans who
suffer from cancer, AIDS and other life-threatening and debilitating illnesses. If the
clubs are shut down - and if cities do not offer an alternative - we risk an outbreak of
unregulated and unregulatable criminal activity by patients, many of whom will be forced
to hit the streets for marijuana. Our parks and neighborhoods will be blighted, our courts
will be needlessly tied up and local law enforcement agencies will be overburdened.
If it were up to me, community-based cooperatives working with
local officials and supervised by the local health department would continue to act as
medical marijuana distribution centers. But if Lungren and the federal government
successfully shut them down, cities must seriously look into developing distribution plans
that will implement the will of the voters. The other alternative flies in the face of
human compassion and good sense.
See
Most Governments
In California Have Flunked The Test Of Implementation Of Prop 215 – Orange County
Register
Supported