SAN FRANCISCO -- The White House disapproves. The federal drug czar threatens a crackdown. But with a letter from your doctor, and without any hassles from police, you can buy a little marijuana here each week for medical treatment.
"There is a real need for it out there medically," said Dean Goodwin, special assistant to San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, whose administration endorses the policy. "The public supports the use of this."
So, for a couple of hours twice a week, staff members from the Healing Alternatives Foundation set up shop in a church and sell quarter-ounce and eighth-ounce bags of pot to patients who have been screened for serious medical problems, including AIDS, glaucoma, cancer and multiple sclerosis.
The foundation is just one of several marijuana buyers' clubs in California.
The sales go on matter-of-factly, though the president's drug policy chief warned last week that doctors who recommend marijuana to their patients could face criminal charges.
Is medical use of marijuana legal in California? Law enforcement officials say the situation is a muddle.
Marijuana use violates federal law. But in November, Californians approved Proposition 215, which decriminalizes the possession and cultivation of marijuana for medical treatment.
"We have never really had a situation like this before," California Attorney General Dan Lungren said last month. "We now have a law in which the state says something is legal that is illegal under federal law."
Steve Telliano, a Lungren spokesman, said that even before the state law, California did not send terminally ill people to jail for possessing marijuana. "What law enforcement in California is looking to do is go after the bad guys. People who are terminally ill are not necessarily the bad guys." He said the state will, however, interpret medical use narrowly and prosecute violators.
Arizona passed a broader measure, allowing the use of marijuana and any other prohibited drug if prescribed by two doctors. Opponents of decriminalization condemned both new laws, calling them part of an orchestrated plan to legalize drugs across the country.
But public officials in San Francisco have for years tolerated, even encouraged, the medical use of marijuana.
"We live in an island of sanity," said Dr. Donald Abrams, assistant director of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome program at San Francisco General Hospital.
In San Francisco, a city struggling with the AIDS epidemic, marijuana buyers' clubs existed even before California passed Proposition 215.
City police didn't pay much notice. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution years ago telling police to make arrests for medical marijuana cases a low priority.
But in August, the Cannabis Buyers Club, an operation founded in 1992 and claiming thousands of members, was raided by state narcotics agents. Even backers of medical marijuana use say that the club was inviting police attention, with lax enforcement of rules and pot smoking on the premises.
The club's closing, however, left many medical marijuana users without a safe place to buy their drugs. The calls poured into City Hall. "In the first week, we got well over 150 calls from people who wanted the city to step in and do something," Goodwin said.
The mayor set up a task force, which approached the Healing Alternatives Foundation, an organization that for years has been selling alternative medicines and therapies to AIDS patients.
Matthew Sharp, the foundation director and an AIDS patient himself, said he "really never liked to smoke pot." But he used it a few years ago when he was diagnosed with wasting syndrome, which caused his weight to plummet. The smoking helped him overcome nausea and eat. "It really opened my eyes to the therapeutic aspects."
When city officials asked the foundation to help, Sharp said the group set up strict guidelines for distributing marijuana. So far, about 250 people have passed the screening.
No club for pot heads
Supporters want to make clear that this is not a frivolous enterprise, not a smoking club for pot heads.
Prospective patients must present photo identification, a letter of diagnosis signed by a doctor and a doctor's letter describing the patient's medical need for marijuana.
The Healing Alternatives Foundation staff calls doctors to verify the patient's documents. Sharp said the diagnoses are reviewed by a board of doctors, and some requests are rejected. "We've had people come in and said they need marijuana for depression. Well, that's not good enough."
The buyers purchase the drugs -- an eighth-ounce costs $60 or $25, depending on the grade -- not at the foundation offices but in a church, and only during designated hours. "We knew that probably the district attorney was not going to come in and bust a church," Sharp said.
Buyers, who must show identification three times as they purchase their drugs, are limited to a quarter-ounce a week. The marijuana comes from growers in California's Humboldt County.
