Oakland Co-op To Be Shut Friday
by Bob Egelko: Associated Press

October 14, 1998 - San Francisco Examiner - letters@examiner.com

A federal judge has taken another step toward closing medical marijuana clubs, ruling they cannot fight off a federal shutdown by claiming the drug is essential to relieve patients' pain or save their lives.

Unless an appeal is successful, Tuesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer will allow federal marshals to close the 2,000-member Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative on Friday, said Rachel Swain, a spokeswoman for the clubs sued by the federal government.

Jeff Jones, the club's director, said he hadn't been able to review the ruling delivered late Tuesday afternoon and would not comment on the club's future.

"We don't really know what to do," Jones said. "We don't have plans solidified as of yet."

A second club, the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, was not ordered to close immediately, said its lawyer, William Panzer. He said Breyer allowed a trial on the narrow question of whether the club actually distributed marijuana on the day that it was under a federal agent's surveillance.

But Panzer said Breyer rejected the defenses that would allow the club to operate, including the claim that enforcing the ban on marijuana violates patients' constitutional right to relieve excruciating pain. Panzer said he planned to appeal.

The clubs sprang up around California after passage of Proposition 215, the November 1996 initiative that allows seriously ill patients to grow and use marijuana for pain relief, with a doctor's recommendation, without being prosecuted under state law.

Advocates, backed by medical testimony, say only marijuana can make certain treatments for AIDS and cancer bearable, and ease pain from glaucoma and other conditions. Federal law declares, however, that marijuana has no medical use and cannot be administered safely under medical supervision.

Many of the marijuana clubs have been shut down through the efforts of Attorney General Dan Lungren, who obtained state court rulings limiting the scope of Prop. 215, and the Clinton administration's Justice Department.

The Justice Department originally sued six Northern California clubs, including the Cannabis Cultivators Club in San Francisco, to enforce federal laws against marijuana distribution.

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