Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 22:55:17 -0700
Subject:US: Hemp Fight Up TOC

Newshawk: Jane Marcus
Pubdate: Fri,  2 Aug 2002
Source: ABC News (US Web)
Copyright: 2002 ABC News
Contact: http://www.abcnews.go.com/service/help/abccontact.html
Website: http://www.www.abcnews.go.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2105
Author: Oliver Libaw
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (Hemp)

HEMP FIGHT

Canadian Company Sues United States Over Hemp Imports

The drug war is boiling over into a trade dispute along America's northern
border.

A small Canadian company is using the 1994 NAFTA treaty to sue the U.S.
government, claiming restrictions on hemp-containing foods have devastated
their business.

"Under international law they actually have the obligation to compensate
the people whose business they're taking," said Todd Weiler, the lawyer
representing Kenex, the company bringing the suit.

In 1999, U.S. Customs agents impounded a shipment of Kenex hemp birdseed
and issued recalls on other shipments by the company.

Kenex expected to file papers today under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA treaty,
claiming the United States had illegally undermined its ability to do
business in the country.

The company is seeking at least $20 million in compensation. The next step
in the dispute is the appointment of outside arbitrators to decide the case.

U.S. State Department officials said they could not comment on the matter
until they had seen the allegations filed by Kenex.

Seeking a 'Zero Tolerance' Policy on THC

The dispute stems from the Drug Enforcement Agency's decision to consider
foods containing even trace amounts of THC, the psychoactive chemical in
marijuana, controlled substances. The DEA announced its policy in February
2001, saying it was simply clarifying its longstanding position on THC and
marijuana.

Proponents of hemp - which is made from the stalks of low-THC, high-fiber
breeds of the marijuana plant - tout it as an extraordinarily versatile and
environmentally friendly product that has little to do with marijuana smoking.

Health food producers sell hemp products including granola, ice cream,
burgers, cheese, chips and chocolate bars. Hemp fiber is also used to make
clothing, backpacks, and paper goods, and advocates praise the plant's oil
for its nutritious qualities.

Kenex and other hemp companies say - and the Justice Department agrees -
the products contain far too little THC to produce any psychoactive effects.

"Our stand is that DEA's regulations and policies are ridiculous," said
David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, some of which
contain hemp oil.

"This is really just a kind of a knee jerk drug war action."

DEA officials said in February that the new enforcement was an attempt to
give the public a clearer interpretation of the Controlled Substance Act.
Products derived from hemp that contain no traces of THC are still permitted.

At least one hemp food company said it was in compliance with the DEA's
mandate, and had tests showing its products were THC-free. Most in the hemp
industry insisted it was impossible to remove absolutely all the THC from
hemp products.

"There is no zero," said Bronner. "At some point they're going to see
[trace amounts of THC]. You can never get it completely out of there."

Hemp food companies went to court to challenge the government's
restriction. In March, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the ban
on foods with trace THC levels, pending its decision, expected in the next
few months.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 23:21:06 -0700
Subject:HI: Medical Marijuana Raids Amount To Harassment Up TOC

Newshawk: Rev. Dennis Shields
Pubdate: Fri, 02 Aug 2002
Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI)
Copyright: 2002 Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Contact: letters@starbulletin.com
Website: http://www.starbulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/196
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MEDICAL MARIJUANA RAIDS AMOUNT TO HARASSMENT

The Issue

Big Island police have seized marijuana plants from patients using
marijuana for medical purposes.

Police on the Big Island apparently don't care much for a new state law
allowing the cultivation and use of marijuana for medical use. Patients
have been subjected to raids in the past month resulting in confiscation of
plants and dried marijuana on the basis that they exceeded, if only
slightly, the law's limits. Police should lighten up and grasp the spirit
of the law.

On July 8, police seized 20 marijuana plants and 1.5 ounces of processed
marijuana from the North Kona home of two people who suffer from leukemia
and a third who has muscular dystrophy. All three had received permission
from the state to use marijuana to alleviate their ailments. Later in the
month, police arrived by helicopter at a Hilo area patient's home, seizing
two of seven plants and destroying a third.

More than 80 patients have registered with the state to use marijuana as
medicine since the law took effect seven months ago. The rules allow a
patient to possess seven marijuana plants, three of which are mature, and
an ounce of processed marijuana. Police said the plants at North Kona were
not labeled to indicate the owner of each; the processed marijuana was
returned to the owners. Officers claimed that too many of the Hilo man's
plants were mature, defined by state rules as having flowered and showing buds.

The four patients complain that the presence of buds doesn't mean a plant
is mature enough to be usable as medicine. After the raids, Big Island
Mayor Harry Kim signed county rules that cite the state definitions and
appeared to endorse the heavy-handed tactics of police in dealing with
technical violations of the law, if that.

County authorities on the Big Island and in other counties need to accept
the idea that patients registered with the state to use marijuana are not
criminals. At most, police should have issued warnings to the North Kona
and Hilo area patients and advised them about how to comply with the state
- -- and now county -- rules.

Marijuana can legally be used for medical purposes in Hawaii and eight
other states. The California Supreme Court ruled two weeks ago that medical
reasons not only can be used as a defense at trial but can be cited in
asking a judge to dismiss the charges without trial. Such dismissals, along
with the civil lawsuit filed last week by the North Kona trio, may be
needed to dampen the zeal of Big Island officers.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 11:37:34 -0700
Subject:UK: Cannabis Culture Arrives In Britain By The Back Door Up TOC

Newshawk: Free the Weed
Pubdate: Sat, 03 Aug 2002
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact: letters@independent.co.uk
Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Matthew Beard

CANNABIS CULTURE ARRIVES IN BRITAIN BY THE BACK DOOR

While inner-city cafes that allow covert smoking of cannabis escape
prosecution, confrontational tactics attract police attention

The secluded lounge area is beginning to thicken with the sweet smell
of sinsemilla at Cafe Cairo in Brixton, south London. Reclined among
the Egyptian cushions soon after 7pm, a dozen or so people chat,
listen to the soft vibes emanating from the DJ booth or craft a fresh
joint on the low-slung tables.

To a passer-by the cafe appears little more than a thriving business
selling coffee, juice and vegetarian snacks to a young crowd in this
mainly working-class area of Lambeth. But it has become the archetype
for a growing number of cannabis-tolerant cafes, bars and clubs in
metropolitan areas across Britain.

While the debate continues to rage over the Government's
reclassification of cannabis and the Lambeth experiment to cease
arrests for possession, the patrons and owners of cannabis-tolerant
cafes are wondering what all the fuss is about.

David Lodge, who opened Cafe Cairo five years ago, said: "I suppose I
could be busted at anytime, but somehow it never happens. I can only
think that the police have an order from on high that we should stay
open. I think they probably view us as a kind of experiment." Although
there are no drugs for sale on the premises, Cafe Cairo risks being
shut on the basis of a 16th-century anti-prostitution law that
prohibits a "house of ill-repute". But in common with the policing of
brothels nationwide, the authorities in Lambeth appear to have turned
a blind eye.

The cafe's customers appreciate the convenience of the adjacent
Greenleaf "grocery store", which Mr Lodge estimates makes UKP 20,000 a
week selling grass from a back room to a mainly white, middle-class
clientele. A man aged 32 with a stake in the business said they were
tolerated by police provided they kept Landor Road, a mainly
residential area, free of dealers.

Constantly watching for rival dealers, the man said: "If the
neighbours don't complain then the police are not interested. They
bust us occasionally but I think that is because of the political
pressure building up. The next bust is going to be big."

The alcohol-free cafe opens from 4pm to 1am and is frequented by a
mixture of people of Arab origin, drawn by the traditional drinks and
food menu and Arabic television, and career people including doctors,
barristers and not a few police officers. Mr Lodge claims it has been
the local of choice of several MPs' sons.

Mr Lodge does not advertise the cafe and the discreet, black-painted
shopfront is free of the cannabis leaves or rastafarian colours that
typically adorn Dutch-style coffee shops. In a further sop to the
authorities, Mr Lodge felt obliged towards the end of the one-year
Lambeth experiment to stick up a few token "No Drugs" posters near the
entrance - but that rule is instantly revealed to be defied. The
owners of such establishments appreciate that they are unlikely to win
explicit approval from police forces so they simply open a cafe and
insist to newcomers they do not permit smoking, while allowing the
regulars to do exactly that.

One cannabis entrepreneur who recently met Michael Fuller, a Deputy
Assistant Commissioner and the head of the Metropolitan Police's drugs
directorate, and Derek Benson, the divisional police chief for
Hackney, was told that, while stopping cannabis offences was not a
priority, he would be arrested for opening a coffee shop. Others have
learnt that the way to success is through subtlety and steering clear
of selling drugs.

For example Cafe 1001 in Brick Lane, east London, introduced a
separate smokers' room two years ago without a bat of an eyelid from
the local authorities. Leonor, the night-time manager, said: "When
people come in and ask if they can smoke we say 'no' but it has been
allowed for about two years now." Asked whether the cafe had attracted
the attention of either the Metropolitan Police or Tower Hamlets
council, she shrugged and said: "Nothing". Such low-profile tactics
have ensured the survival of up to 30 cannabis-friendly cafes and
bars in London, the majority in liberal Lambeth but others in
Lewisham, Camden, Tower Hamlets and Hackney. Although many caf=C3 and
bar owners prefer not to publicise their enterprises, there is no
shortage of places to smoke in Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester and
Liverpool =E2=80=93 to name a few.

David Crane, a cannabis campaigner planning to open an upmarket coffee
shop in north London, said: "Reclassification is a fact of life in
most metropolitan areas of Britain. The reason I want to set up a
coffee shop is to meet new people and make cannabis smoking more
sociable. It's as harmless as that." The subtle approach could hardly
be more different to the Dutch-style "coffee shops" in Stockport and
Bournemouth that have been closed and their owners arrested. Earlier
this week the controversy surrounding Britain's first coffee shop, the
Dutch Experience in Stockport, deepened with the arrest for alleged
perjury of the elderly father of the campaigner Colin Davies, who is
in prison for drug offences.

The same confrontational approach by cannabis campaigners, possibly
carried away by the pace of change in the past 12 months, has seen
plans falter for openings in north Wales, Edinburgh and Leeds. Many of
those who attended a course in Haarlem, the Netherlands, this year on
opening a coffee shop have returned to stiff resistance.

Getting high - the law in Europe

Amsterdam

The Netherlands has been in the vanguard of change in drug policy in
Europe. In 1972 the first coffee shop selling cannabis opened in
Amsterdam and there are now about 120 such establishments. Owners risk
losing their licence if they sell to under-18s or keep more than 500g
(18oz) of the drug on the premises. Cannabis is illegal although, in
effect, decriminalised.

Copenhagen

Tens of thousands of tourists flock each year to buy and smoke
cannabis in the quasi-autonomous city of Christiania, which was set up
in 1971. Hard drugs have been banned but there is a lucrative cannabis
trade, mainly from Swedish teenagers who visit to smoke in the
notorious Pushers Street.

Berlin

Smoking cannabis in bars, cafes and even on the streets is tolerated
and in most cases is ignored by the police. There are several
"headshops", but no obvious coffee shops selling the drug. In northern
Germany, courts have been dismissing charges against people carrying
small quantities of soft drugs.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Derek
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 11:43:55 -0700
Subject:Canada: Weed Permits Growing Up TOC

Newshawk: http://www.themarijuanamission.com/
Pubdate: Sat, 03 Aug 2002
Source: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB)
Copyright: 2002 The Calgary Sun
Contact: callet@sunpub.com
Website: http://www.fyicalgary.com/calsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/67
Author: Michael Wood, Calgary Sun
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada)

WEED PERMITS GROWING

More sick and terminally-ill Canadians are blowing off traditional
treatments, instead growing their own government-sanctioned medicine
through new marijuana laws.

Since July 30, 2001, when Health Canada introduced new access regulations
allowing ailing Canadians to smoke dope, 315 new patients have been granted
authorization.

That's almost one permit issued per day.

"(The numbers) keep going up every month," said Health Canada spokesman
Andrew Swift.

In June, 15 Canadians were granted permits to smoke weed, while 44 new
patients signed on in May.

Prior to the new laws, Canadians had to apply for exemption from criminal
prosecution under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Some 472 people
still remain permitted to toke under those laws, bringing the total number
of permitted pot users to 786.

Of those, 208 are plying their own weed-green thumbs with personal
production licences.

Swift credited the new regulations for allowing more Canadians faster
access to medicinal marijuana than was possible under the old regime.

"It's a system that's working very well," Swift said.

Meanwhile, Prairie Plant Systems, the Saskatchewan-based outfit growing
marijuana crops for federal research, is cultivating several strains of weed.

What is cultivated from those will be shipped to scientists hunting for the
best suitable strain for public consumption, but Swift said that could
still take months.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Tom
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 11:45:59 -0700
Subject:CA: When Pot Clubs Go Bad Up TOC

Newshawk: Keith Sanders
Pubdate: Wed, 24 Jul 2002
Source: East Bay Express (CA)
Copyright: 2002 New Times
Contact: letters@eastbayexpress.com
Website: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1131
Author: Chris Thompson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

WHEN POT CLUBS GO BAD


Ken Estes Just Wants To Share The Miracle Of Medical Marijuana. Everyone
Else Just Wants Him To Go Away.

Neighborhood lore has it that before Ken Estes set up his medical-marijuana
club, the property used to be a whorehouse. The neighbors wish it still
was. Back then, the customers walked in, took care of business, and got
out. Bad shit never went down at central Berkeley's local brothel --
certainly nothing like what happened on the afternoon of June 5.

At 2:37 p.m., roughly ninety minutes before closing time, a gray Honda
pulled to the curb and two Latino men got out the car and stepped up to the
guard. One topped out at 250 pounds and wore a plaid button-down shirt; the
other was a skinny kid in a T-shirt. The guard walked back to the door, and
shouted for Estes' brother that there were two guys at the door to see Ken.
His brother cracked open the door, took a look, and leaned back to yell for
Estes. At that point, the guard noticed the two men creeping up to the
door. "No no, you can't come in here!" he reportedly shouted.

Then he saw the gun.

Mr. Plaid jammed a black pistol into the guard's back, and the T-shirt
pulled out a kitchen knife with a four-inch blade.

According to the police report, they forced the guard through the door,
rushed into the club, and screamed at everyone to lie face down on the floor.

Everyone did except for one man, a wheelchair-bound patient who had come to
get his legally prescribed dose of reefer and now had a gun in his face.
The two men trashed the place and finally found the stash after prying open
a locked file cabinet. As terrified neighbors called the cops, the thieves
ran out of the club, jumped in the car, and floored it.

It was the third armed robbery at 1672 University Avenue in ten months.

You get into a lot of creepy stuff when you hang out with Ken Estes. You
get burglaries, armed robberies, police raids, and felony charges.

You also get allegations of cocaine dealing, tax fraud, and spousal abuse.

The thing is, Ken's a really nice guy. With a tanned face defined by a
sandy goatee, long blond hair, and a disarming air of candor and
vulnerability, he seems the very picture of California easy living.

It's only when you notice the wheelchair supporting his shriveled legs, or
the limp handshake born of two decades of nerve damage, that you catch a
glimpse of the tragedy that has been his companion since 1976. Shortly
after a motorcycle accident left Estes paralyzed below his chest, he became
a devoted advocate of medical marijuana. He carefully organized his club to
offer every possible comfort to the sick or dying.

Berkeley Medical Herbs, which didn't exactly traffic in St.-John's-wort,
operated out of a cute little cottage that neighbors call the "hobbit
warren." A modest wooden fence fronts the street and a path leads through a
mulch lawn to a white security door. Beneath the rich, sloping redwood
ceiling, a spacious brick fireplace keeps patients toasty-warm in the
winter. Once a week a woman comes in and provides free massages on a table
in the corner.

And unlike other East Bay pot clubs, most of which stress a clinical
pharmacy's atmosphere, patients can sit down and light up right there,
beneath rustic paintings of Jimi, Janis, and Jerry. If it weren't for the
crime that has plagued his club's operation, Estes might be the patron
saint of Berkeley stoners. "We have the best prices and the best medicine."
he boasts. "If you know buds, we have the bomb."

But ever since Estes first got involved in the medical-marijuana movement,
men with drugs, guns, and evil intent have followed him everywhere he goes.
They have robbed him, exploited his generosity, and endangered the lives of
everyone around him -- even his three children.

But "Compassionate Ken," as his friends call him, doesn't seem to learn.

He always picks the wrong friends.

At least that's Ken's side of the story.

His estranged lover, Stacey Trainor, told a darker version to the Contra
Costa district attorney's office. She alleged that Estes is a former coke
dealer who lied to secure his club's lease, that he has a Berkeley doctor
in his pocket who will sell pot prescriptions for $215 a pop, and that up
to thirty percent of his customers buy his product without any medical
notes at all. Police and University Avenue merchants, meanwhile, claim that
high-school kids used to line up for a taste outside Estes' club, and that
his security guards scared away neighborhood shoppers and even got involved
in fights on the street. His fellow cannabis-club operators even tried to
drive Estes out of town.

Whether Estes is a character out of The French Connection or one out of The
Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, he couldn't exist without the peculiar
politics of Proposition 215, which decriminalized medical marijuana in
California. In the six years since its passage, mayors, district attorneys,
and state officials have been so focused on protecting patients from
federal prosecution that they've neglected to implement any sort of
regulations about how pot should be distributed. No state or local agency
or mainstream medical group has offered any comprehensive guidelines on who
should hand out pot in what manner.

As a result, medical pot is not just legal, but superlegal, perhaps
California's least-regulated ingestible substance.

And yet marijuana remains a powerful intoxicant with a vast underground
market, one whose dealers inhabit a shadowy criminal world populated by
dangerous men.

In the absence of official regulation, it has fallen to pot-club operators
themselves to craft some sort of system.

Over the last six years, groups like the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative and the Alliance of Berkeley Patients have, through a series of
trials and sometimes embarrassing errors, arrived at a protocol for
verifying medical ailments, providing security from criminals, and
operating safely in quiet residential and commercial neighborhoods. But
however sensible their rules may be, they have no means of forcing club
operators to abide by them. All they have is a gentlemen's agreement.

Ken Estes broke that agreement, whether by design or neglect.

And no one may have the legal power to make him stop.

Estes is that rare breed of Bay Area native who spent his teenage years
here in the '70s and didn't smoke pot. Born in Martinez, he moved to
Concord and became a star athlete at Ygnacio Valley High. He excelled at
soccer and was offered a scholarship to Santa Clara University, but that
all changed one day in 1976, a month after he graduated from high school.

Estes was riding his motorcycle back from a Walnut Creek McDonald's, where
he worked as a manager, when a car swerved into his lane and hit him head
on. Estes flew over the car and broke his neck. The damage was so extensive
that for the next two years, he couldn't even move his arms. He struggled
through physical therapy hoping to regain just enough mobility to kill himself.

Estes was wracked with chronic pain, living in a rehab center and dependent
on others to bathe and clothe him. The morphine and the pills didn't help,
and he began to waste away. "I probably got down to a hundred pounds, and
I'm six feet," he says. "I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, the physical
pain was horrible, a nightmare.

But about six or eight months into it, a group of Vietnam vets I was in
rehab with were smoking marijuana.

They said, 'Look, man, we know you're not eating or sleeping, why don't you
come over here with us?' I said no, 'cause I was still thinking about
keeping my body clean. But they said, 'Man, they're popping pills in you
and morphine.

This is a lot less than that.' So I said, 'Alright, lemme smoke.' That
night, I slept all night.

When I woke up, I ate. They brought the doctors in, they said, 'Lookit,
he's eating!' My doctor wrote it on the chart, he wrote that this marijuana
is doing what you want the pills to do."

After that first toke, Estes put his life back together.

He regained limited use of his arms, enrolled in junior college, and by the
early '80s was offered another scholarship, this time to UC Santa Cruz.
Estes decided instead to open a string of tanning, hair, and nail salons in
Concord and Davis. He met his future girlfriend Stacey Trainor while she
was working at a mini mart next to one of his salons. "I kept coming over
there, and she would always have the banana drink ready for me, get the
burrito ready," he says. Within a month of their first date, Trainor left
her husband and moved in with Estes. Together they would raise three children.

But something always bothered Estes. Before he began growing his own, he
typically took his business to Haight Street or Telegraph Avenue. It was a
dangerous pastime; just because he wanted to relieve his discomfort, he was
mugged three times and occasionally suffered the indignity of being dumped
out of his chair.

In the '80s, as AIDS swept through the country, Estes began clipping press
accounts of "Brownie Mary," the elderly woman who used to walk the halls of
San Francisco General Hospital, handing out marijuana-laced treats to the
terminally ill. Slowly, he began to think that this wasn't just a drug, but
a cause.

In 1992, he signed over his share of the salons to his business partner and
started distributing pot, going to demonstrations, and working to
decriminalize medical cannabis. "Everyone thought I was crazy, but I said I
wanted to pursue this," he recalls, "I'm tired of being looked at as a
doper, as a pothead, as somebody less than somebody else because I used
marijuana."

Yet as Estes became a fixture in the medical cannabis scene, his life
became increasingly chaotic and dangerous.

At the very time that Proposition 215 liberated thousands of
medical-marijuana smokers from prosecution, Estes began a long, almost
farcical slide into crime.

Even scoring on street corners didn't compare to what was to come. "No guns
in the face at that point," he says of his early years. "That came later,
with the medical-marijuana movement."

Estes began his cannabis activism by volunteering at the Oakland Cannabis
Buyers Cooperative. From the beginning, the co-op has been at the cutting
edge of the movement; where San Francisco clubs have a looser, anarchic
spirit, it's all business at the Oakland Co-op, whose members have
pioneered security and medical protocols with a determined air of
professionalism. Jeff Jones, the co-op's executive director, doesn't even
smoke pot. Growing up in South Dakota, Jones watched his father waste away
and die from a terrible illness and vowed to find a way to bring medical
marijuana to the terminally ill. Jones first joined the co-op in 1995 and
soon found himself making home deliveries of dope to AIDS and cancer patients.

If Estes is a creative but befuddled libertine, Jones is rigid and dogmatic.

  From 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 single 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 Lockyer. "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.

I think everyone recognizes that Proposition 215 was not the best-written
initiative. 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 215. 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 no 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
determine 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 medical 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 law," he says. "I never though that five
or ten years later, we'd still be operating in a vacuum." Others worry that
if the state takes a firmer hand, a conservative governor or attorney
general might interpret the law so narrowly as to effectively recriminalize
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. "Even cancer and AIDS patients had to renew the
note every year. They were a little mad about this, but we had to confirm
that their medical status hadn't changed, and they still needed our services."

Once Oakland officials were assured that, unlike at San Francisco clubs,
patients would never smoke dope at the site, relations between the co-op
and the city have generally been cordial.

The city council contracted with the co-op to distribute pot to seven
thousand patients on its behalf, and the co-op's membership cards became
the definitive means of identifying medical pot patients throughout the
East Bay. Jones even teaches classes on medical marijuana to recruits at
the Oakland police academy. "We've never given them a reason to question
what we're doing here," he says, "The local police like us because we give
them an alternative to going out on the street.

Our group have never done anything that has been deemed illegal, and we've
never gotten complaints from anyone -- except the federal government."
Berkeley's three clubs went through the same process, experimenting with
various security and patient-verification protocols.

In the beginning of 2001, the Berkeley Patients Group on San Pablo Avenue,
the Cannabis Buyers Cooperative on Shattuck, and the Patients Care
Collective on Telegraph formed the Alliance of Berkeley Patients and agreed
upon a ten-point platform.

This included organizing as a collective or nonprofit, contacting
physicians to confirm a patient's medical condition, scrupulously keeping
patient records, hiring security guards, and maintaining good relations
with their neighbors. "We agreed to police ourselves, so we don't have to
have any outside regulators that might not have the patient's best
interests in mind," says Berkeley Patients Group member Don Duncan.

There was just one problem: none of these regulations had the force of law
behind them. Even the police, hamstrung by a city council cognizant of the
overwhelming public support for medical pot, can do virtually nothing to
crack down on rogue clubs.

If someone wanted to hand out pot like candy, no one could stop him. His
neighbors along University Avenue soon figured this out.

Accounts differ as to what Estes did when he first showed up at the Oakland
co-op's door in 1995. Some say he taught the co-op's pot cultivation
classes; others claim he weighed out the baggies and sampled the wares to
categorize their potency.

Estes says he did both. But one thing seems clear: he and Jeff Jones didn't
get along. "Jeff always thought Ken should cut his hair -- look more
appropriate for you guys, the media," says one co-op member who asked not
to be named. "Ken was like, 'You know, I don't have to look right for the
press.

I'm a patient.'" Jones won't say much about what he thought of Estes, but
Estes recalls, "Jeff said, 'Look, if you cut your hair, you'll go places
around here.' I said, 'C'mon, you're sounding like the people on the
streets I've been dealing with for years.

You're sounding like the conservative white guy who doesn't like anyone
lookin' different from himself.' So yeah, we had a lot of trouble.

I told him one time, 'I wanna get out of my chair and beat your ass.'"

Whether the Oakland co-op itself was entirely above-board is a matter of
some dispute.

According to Trainor's statement to the Contra Costa DA, the co-op paid
Estes in pot and unreported cash. "Part of the marijuana he received as
payment from the club he would sell to other people, including persons who
had no medical prescription for marijuana," her statement reads.

Jones denies paying Estes in under-the-table cash, but refuses to comment
on whether he paid Estes with dope. Estes claims he received a paycheck,
not cash. But he acknowledges the pot-for-labor arrangement. "I got herb
for working," he says. "They gave me herb, that was the trade-off. I worked
there till it closed, and then I went out and opened my new shop."

In October 1998, the feds managed to get an injunction prohibiting the
Oakland co-op from dispensing marijuana.

The co-op fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, where it eventually
lost. Jones and his lawyers are preparing a new challenge, but except for a
one-month period during which the injunction was lifted, the co-op has not
handed out a dime bag since 1998. Seven thousand patients needed another
supplier, and Estes jumped in to fill the void.

But he needed customers, so Trainor says Estes called a friend who worked
there. This employee gave Estes the names, addresses, and phone numbers of
five hundred patients, and Estes soon started drumming up customers.

No one at the co-op knew the two had done this; certainly the patients had
no idea that their confidential information was being bandied about like
just another mailing list. Estes concedes he made no effort to call their
doctors and confirm their medical condition -- he just started making
deliveries to anyone with a card from the Oakland club.

By the time that Estes went into business for himself, he, Trainor, and
their three children had moved to a house in Concord, where he began
growing pot to supply his growing army of patients.

On September 20, Concord police officer David Savage took a call: Estes'
neighbor claimed that she could see a bumper crop of pot plants growing in
his backyard.

Savage stopped by and peeked over the fence.

Later that afternoon, he returned with a search warrant. Savage's police
report indicates that he found pot everywhere. He found roughly fifty
plants in a makeshift greenhouse in the backyard.

He found an elaborate hydroponic system in the garage; behind sheets of
dark plastic, dozens of plants were growing on plastic trays and in
children's swimming pools; grow lights wheeled back and forth on a track
hanging from the ceiling. He found baggies of weed stuffed in desk drawers
and scattered along the floor, and plants hanging in the closets.

In the master bedroom, underneath a crib where one of the children slept,
Savage found two garbage bags with dried marijuana in them. "None of the
growing and dried marijuana was in a secure place," Savage wrote in his
report. "Most of the marijuana was accessible to the children in the residence.

Estes told [me] he was not concerned with the children having access to the
marijuana because 'They know it is for daddy.'" Estes denies leaving bags
of dope near his children's cribs. But Savage didn't know what to do with
Estes. Estes had an Oakland co-op card certifying him as a patient, as well
as patient records indicating he was a legally valid caregiver.

How much dope did Proposition 215 allow him to have? "They got a judge on
the phone, and I talked to the judge," Estes says. "I said, 'Please don't
make me pull these plants out. These are good strains with medical
benefits.'" In the end, the cops confiscated the plants and the growing
system, and ratted him out to Child Protective Services. In deference to
Proposition 215, they left Estes with three plants and an ounce for his own
use. But Estes complains Savage took all the kind buds, and left him just a
bag of leafy shit. Fifteen months later, the cops would be back. By then,
Estes had bought some property near Clear Lake, and Trainor had moved up
north with the kids, growing more dope in a shed behind the house.

Meanwhile, Estes' cousin Tim Crew had moved into the house to help him grow
a crop that dwarfed his prior stash. This period marks the beginning of one
of Estes' most foolish habits: keeping massive amounts of drugs and money
lying around. "People told me, 'Don't put more than a certain amount in the
bank, or you could get in trouble,'" he says. "We had a lot of money, and I
kept it with me. I'd hide it in my closet, hide it in my suitcase.

I just didn't want to put it in a bank." As more and more people got hip to
Estes' stash, his cavalier attitude would provoke a spate of armed
robberies that left his University Avenue neighbors terrified.

The first robbery happened in Concord on January 1, 2000. Neighbors called
the cops and reported that several men had burst out of Estes' house and
raced down the street, leaving the door ajar. When Concord officers arrived
at the scene, they found that the front door had been forced open. They
also found no fewer than 1,780 marijuana plants in various stages of
cultivation, even after the break-in. This time, the cops wouldn't be
satisfied with confiscating his stash.

The DA charged Estes with four felony counts of possession and cultivation
of marijuana for sale, and will probably argue that the volume of pot on
hand proved that he was an outright dealer, not a medicinal caregiver.

His trial is set to begin on August 5.

With the heat coming down in Concord, Estes eyed Berkeley. Taking out a
business license and a zoning permit to sell "herbs and other homeopathic
remedies," Estes set up shop at 1672 University Avenue. From the very
beginning, Berkeley Medical Herbs was characterized by his permissive
business style.

Michael "Rocky" Grunner showed up at Estes' door just months into his new
operation and handed him a bag of quality product.

Estes says Grunner told him there was more where that came from, and he was
certainly happy to buy it. Grunner began hanging out at the club, and Estes
thought everything was working just fine. The massage table was up and
running, patients were streaming through the door, the smoke was flowing
freely.

But over time, a tense, nervous atmosphere infected the club. Finally,
Estes claims, a friend came to him and broke the bad news: Grunner was
dealing crank out of the back room. Estes says he promptly threw Grunner
out of the club.

But the club's neighbors were beginning to worry about the sketchy new
element. Machinist Richard Graham is a longtime area resident and has been
known to take a hit upon occasion.

But he even he draws the line at Estes' way of doing business.

A few months after Estes opened the club, Graham dropped off a package
mistakenly delivered to the wrong address.

When Graham asked the man behind the counter how business was holding up,
he offered to set him up with a physician for $200. "I asked them how their
operation works, and they told me you just need a note from the doctor, and
we have a doctor, and you can get a note for just about anything," Graham
says. "Then he told me the prices, the registration fee to get the note,
$200 per year. I got what I thought was an aggressive sales pitch.

He said their doctor will help me get it. He looked at me and profiled me,
said 'You're 51, you've got arthritis, we can help you.'... I just got the
impression that these are people in it to sell marijuana as a business.

I didn't feel that these were people motivated to help sick people, which I
think other people are. It was a decidedly unclinical atmosphere, let's put
it that way."

In fact, Estes' operation was so unclinical that it even advertised in the
Berkeley Daily Planet. Superimposed over the image of a big fat bud, the
club announced that it had plenty of pot for sale, listing killer strains
such as "Jack Frost, Mad Max, Romulin, G-Spot, and more." Other club
operators groaned in dismay when they read the notice: "One-source shopping
for all your medicinal needs!

First visit, first gram free with mention of this ad!"

Soon, kids were lining up outside, neighbors and police report, and the
club's busiest hour was between three and four in the afternoon, when
Berkeley High students got out of class. "The biggest complaint was the
kids going in and out of there," says Lieutenant Al Yuen, head of the
Berkeley Police Department's Special Enforcement Unit, which handles
narcotics investigations. "We looked into that and watched kids going in
and out. We never caught him selling to kids without a card. He claims that
the kids had medicinal cards, but he doesn't keep records on who he sells
to. ... He was advertising in the papers, he allowed tons of kids going
though his place. He didn't have a screening process, didn't have security."

In fact, Trainor told the DA's office that Estes sold his product to anyone
with the cash. She estimated that seventy percent of the club's buyers were
patients from the Oakland co-op, and that the other thirty percent were
recreational users.

And Trainor alleged that even many of the so-called patients may have had
fraudulent doctor's notes.

She claimed that Estes referred everyone without a card to Dr. Frank
Lucido, a Berkeley family practitioner who allegedly charged a fee for
every note. "Estes would tell his buyers to go to Lucido, give him $215,
and he would give the person a prescription. ... Trainor said that
regardless of whether a buyer told Estes they had a medical problem or not,
Estes would refer the buyer to Lucido to get the prescription."

Trainor said she knew how Lucido operated because she went through the
process herself.

During her interview, she meticulously described her visit from start to
finish. "Trainor went to the doctor's office, where she met a nurse who
collected $215 from her. She was brought into an exam room, where she
waited until Lucido came in and asked her what she wanted.

She told him she had a bad back and wanted a prescription for marijuana.

Trainor said the doctor performed a mini physical, checked her blood
pressure, and had her bend over backward to check the condition of her
back. ... Lucido then wrote her a prescription for marijuana.

Lucido did not ask her questions about treatment or diagnosis from any
other physician.

Lucido gave her no advice on the amount of marijuana to use and did not
advise her of any other therapy or medication that might treat back problems.

Lucido did not tell her to come back for a follow-up exam."

For a while, Estes says, he even accepted photocopies of Lucido's notes,
and neighbors used to find them littering the sidewalk in front of his
club. One neighbor, who asked not to be named, still has a copy of one such
note from Lucido's office.

The patient is a mere 21 years old and suffers from back pain.

Lucido says he used to write such notes and rely on patients to provide
verification later.

But he says he discontinued that practice two years ago, and now requires
independent verification of his patients' ailments from another physician.

Lucido says Estes has been a headache for his medical practice. Two years
ago, the doctor says, Estes printed business cards that claimed he was
working in conjunction with Lucido. The physician says that as soon as he
found out, he had a lawyer call Estes and tell him to stop making that
claim immediately. "I'm not connected with the clubs, and I don't refer
people to the clubs," he says. "I'm sure people mention my name, but it's
never the case that we work in conjunction with each other." Lucido said he
couldn't remember Stacey Trainor.

Why is Trainor telling so many tales out of school?

It all began two years ago, when she began an affair with Rocky Grunner.
The feud culminated on August 31, 2000, when Trainor swore out a temporary
restraining order against Estes, claiming that Estes threatened to kill
her. When the Lafayette cops arrived at his house to serve it, they found
more plants growing in the basement.

Back went Estes into the pokey, and the cops even raided the club and
seized product and financial records.

Two months later, Lafayette narcotics agents raided Grunner's own house and
seized seventeen pounds of marijuana.

Trainor eventually broke off her affair.

Grunner could not be reached for comment.

Six months ago, as Estes became the subject of a Contra Costa district
attorney investigation, Trainor met with assistant district attorney
Phyllis Franks and county investigator Tony Arcado. Over the course of
several hours, she told the story of their life together.

According to her statement, Estes didn't start his new career dealing
medical pot -- but cocaine. "After selling the tanning salon, Estes earned
income by selling cocaine," Arcado wrote in his summary of Trainor's
interview. "Trainer [sic] said the income from the cocaine business ran out
in 1993, and Estes switched to selling marijuana."

Estes vehemently denies the charge and claims that Trainor, who declined to
comment for this story, is lying as part of a child-custody dispute.
"That's false, not true at all," he says. "No, I didn't sell the salons, I
didn't sell cocaine.

She was lying because she thought she was moving to Canada with the kids,
and she thought that before she left, she could throw a bunch of stuff in
the mix to mess me up in court.

Because she downright hates me for dumping her." It was bad enough when
neighbors watched police raid the club and kids line up for weed -- then
the robberies began.

On the evening of Friday, October 12, 2001, the club was winding down after
a long day when someone knocked on the door. An employee pulled the door
open and stared straight down the barrel of a silver handgun. "We opened up
the door, same as for everybody: 'Hey, what's up?'" Estes says. "The guys
came in. They put everybody on the ground and took everything."

Time was running out for Estes. The kids and the police raids were bad
enough, but now men were waving guns around and racing off with drugs.

At the time, Estes had no security guards, no iron gate on the door, just a
lot of cash and pot. Soon, the other pot-club operators came a-callin'. The
robbery put new heat on all of them as City Councilmember Linda Maio
started making noises.

If Estes is convicted, he will pay a terrible price for this lack of
precision; the charges carry a possible prison sentence of three years and
eight months.

But his complex reputation also could be laundered overnight. When Estes
turned himself in, forty demonstrators accompanied him to the station, and
his image -- the martyr of medical marijuana, persecuted by vindictive
prosecutors -- was flashed across the nightly news throughout the Bay Area.

Stacey Trainor's allegations aside, Ken Estes seems a kind, generous man,
ready to take you into his company at a moment's notice.

But nothing out there can protect us from his tendency to trust the wrong
people, of whom there are still plenty in the shadowy, twilight world of
marijuana.

Estes admits he's made some mistakes, and vows to improve his operation.
"We began something here, and we didn't know where it would go," he says.
"I've made mistakes in retrospect, but we tried to work it out. Stacey and
all that stuff was a big problem -- I had no problems before that. I
believe I know who's behind this, the robberies.

All this stuff that's gone on has happened since Stacey went to the police,
and the police believed her. They told me that many times women turn on
their drug-dealing boyfriends, and this seems like a case of that. I wish I
could have hired better people, but I can't say that I would have done
anything different.

I really didn't foresee the criminal element making its presence like it
did. But I can only do so much."

And should Estes revert to his old, seat-of-his-pants ways, we may have no
choice but to put up with him.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Ariel
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 15:36:12 -0700
Subject: US: Going To Pot

Newshawk: Plylar - Colorado Congress (http://www.plylar.org)
Pubdate: Wed, 31 Jul 2002
Source: ABC News (US Web)
Webpage: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/marijuana020731.html
Copyright: 2002 ABC News
Contact: http://www.abcnews.go.com/service/help/abccontact.html
Website: http://www.www.abcnews.go.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2105
Author: Francine Vida
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?162 (Nevadans for Responsible Law
Enforcement)

GOING TO POT

San Francisco Voters To Decide If City Should Grow Marijuana

July 31 - Wayne Justmann already smokes marijuana daily to ease the pain of
neuropathy. But now he wants to get it from a new supplier - the city of
San Francisco.

Voters in one of the nation's most progressive cities will confront a
unique ballot question in November. Should the city of San Francisco grow
marijuana? The ballot measure is not the brain child of fringe radicals. It
comes directly from the city's Board of Supervisors.

The San Francisco initiative is the latest skirmish in a growing fight
between the federal government, which opposes allowing for medical uses of
marijuana, and some states and cities, which want to carve out new ways of
dealing with marijuana.

"If the federal government insists on standing in our way locally, we must
take matters into our own hands and protect the lives of our community
members and protect their right to access life-saving medicine," said city
supervisor Mark Leno, the initiative's author.

'A Legitimate Concern'

One of those who Leno wants to protect is Justmann, 57, and an HIV-
positive patient. Justmann smokes marijuana from a pipe to ease severe pain
caused by neuropathy, a degenerative condition of the nervous system.

"I think it's a legitimate concern since we have a state law that says we
have a right to use medical cannabis in California," said Justman, who has
been active in San Francisco politics, especially with medical cannabis
issues. "I'm a patient that's at the right place at the right time."

California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana use in 1996,
but like other states that have permitted such use, it has had difficulty
finding a way to distribute the drug to patients without the federal
government's interference. After the Compassionate Use Act became law, many
individuals opened up private distribution centers.

To buy marijuana legally, a person needs to have a doctor's permission and
must obtain a card from the San Francisco Department of Health. So far,
since the identification program was established in July 2000, 37,000 cards
have been issued.

No Other Way?

Justmann is the founder and director of a marijuana center, the San
Francisco Patients Cooperative. It's one of 72 medical cannabis clubs in
California that sells the drug to patients who have their doctor's
permission to use it.

"There are many people who are relying on centers to distribute cannabis.
We don't know any other way to do it," he said.

But, because the sale and use of marijuana remains a crime in the eyes of
the federal government, the Drug Enforcement Agency is taking action
against many of the clubs throughout California.

"The problem is they are engaging in illegal activity. They are committing
a crime," said Richard Meyer, public information officer for the San
Francisco division of the DEA.

Federal law still prohibits cultivation, possession, and distribution of
marijuana. The Supreme Court reiterated this position in a 2001 ruling.
According to federal officials, state laws on medical marijuana use do not
supercede federal drug laws.

'We Are Not Criminals'

The California State Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the
possession and cultivation of marijuana is considered no more criminal than
the possession and acquisition of a prescription drug. However, Leno said
the problem now becomes finding ways to allow the patients access to the
drug, and he hopes that if the legislation is passed the city can use some
of its available land to grow the drug.

Justmann said he doesn't think it's right that he and the other patients
are being treated as if they have done something wrong.

"We are not criminals, we are patients," he said.

Leno said he realizes that the establishment of the marijuana planting
business could directly challenge the federal law, but he will continue to
fight for it.

Still, the DEA plans to fight back.

"We'll take appropriate action when necessary," said Meyer.

Other States Fighting the Battle

July 31 - San Francisco is not alone in its pot struggle.

In Nevada, voters will decide on a system of legally distributing marijuana
to patients for medical use at a lower-cost. Although terminally ill
patients now have the right to use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation
under the state's law, they are still having problems obtaining the drug.

The patients are either growing it themselves or turning to drug dealers on
the streets, said Billy Rogers, a spokesperson from Nevadans for
Responsible Law Enforcement.

"Right now, the way the law is, it's difficult for seriously ill people to
get their medicine. We want to assure that those who need medical marijuana
are able to get it."

As part of the Nevada marijuana initiative, Rogers said they also hope to
make the state law less harsh by allowing adults to possess up to three
ounces of marijuana as long as they keep it in their homes. The initiative
would ban the drug in public places, and enforces the illegal distribution
to minors.

"Most people think that's a colossal waste of tax dollars, more importantly
that's a waste of law enforcement's time," said Rogers.

In Arizona, a medical marijuana initiative would create a registry card
system for authorized marijuana users. If approved by voters, it also would
establish a system for distribution of marijuana to these patients. Plus,
the initiative would increase drug offender maximum sentences for crimes
committed while on drugs by 50 percent.

And voters in Washington, D.C, may also get the chance to weigh in on
medical marijuana use.

- - ABCNEWS.com's Francine Vida
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

CRRH is working to regulate and tax the sale of cannabis to adults like 
alcohol, allow doctors to recommend cannabis through pharmacies and restore 
the unregulated production of industrial hemp.

*Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp*
mail:     CRRH ; P.O. Box 86741 ; Portland, OR 97286 USA
email:   crrh@crrh.org
phone:  (503) 235-4606
fax:       (503) 235-0120
web:     http://www.crrh.org/

------------------------------
End of Restore-Digest V2002 #155
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