A PUBLIC POLICY PREVIEW - AT ISSUE IN '98: "THE DOPE ON BUYERS"

By passing prop.215 in 1996,Californians declared that they want marijuana
for medical patients under the supervision of a doctor to be removed from
the criminal arena. Last year saw the federal government first threaten to
arrest doctors, then by year-end back off the threat and sponsor new
studies on the medical efficacy of marijuana. Meanwhile, California
localities - seldom helped by inconsistent signals from Attorney General
Dan Lungren - struggled with little success to design policies to permit
ill people to use marijuana while keeping the substance illicit for
"recreational" use.

This year opened with new assaults by the federal government on
California's voter-endorsed preference. Federal officials announced that
they plan to close down several Northern California cannabis "buyers'
clubs" on grounds that they are illegally selling marijuana. Garden Grove,
among other cities, has also opened a legal assault on a buyers' club. The
result - probably unintended - will be to force medical patients to rely
even more heavily on the already large black market for the drug.

Officials - with a dew honorable exceptions - seem to have forgotten that
one of the purposes of Prop. 215 was "to encourage the federal and state
governments to implement a plan to provide for the safe and affordable
distribution of marijuana to all patients in medical need." That means
authorizing a "white market" with appropriate safeguards against its use by
people with no medical need. Since the state and federal governments seem
determined to create roadblocks instead, local government might have to
pick up the ball.