JOINT VENTURE

When Pot's Prescribed, The High Way Leads To The Compassion Flower Inn

At the Compassion Flower Inn in Santa Cruz., Calif., there are smokers--and
there are smokers. Cigarette smokers are banished to the front porch.
Smokers, on the other hand, may feel they've died and gone to pot.
Cannabis-themed tiles adorn the sidewalk outside. Curtains, linens and
towels are made of hemp. And... say, what is that funny smell, anyway.

The five-bedroom bed-and-breakfast, just a stoner's throw from the beach,
exists as a safe--and perfectly legal--haven for people who smoke marijuana
for medical reasons. "Motel 6 guests probably smoke it quietly in their
rooms," says Andrea Tischler, 57, who with her partner, Maria
Mallek-Tischler, 46, opened the inn in a restored Victorian in April. "This
is more out of the closet."

Guests who show up hoping to be provided with marijuana go away
disappointed; the Compassion Flower is strictly BYOP. And, as required by
California law, a doctor's note is also necessary. Tischler, who grew up in
Chicago, and German-born Mallek-Tischler, a couple since 1979, have been
pot-legalization activists since the 1980s in San Francisco. "We had a lot
of friends with AIDS," says Tischler. "They were taking AZT, and marijuana
seemed to bolster their appetite."

Out in the sunshine-soaked "toking area," a new arrival, Scott Byer, 53, of
Clearlake, Calif., who smokes to ease spinal pain, has taken out a small
porcelain pipe and is filling it. He doesn't even have his room key yet.