MEDICAL POT PATIENTS FLOCK TO 'OAKSTERDAM'

The blocky bouncer stands guard outside the Oakland cafe, complete
with a copper espresso machine, fancy chocolates, elegant glass lights
and a European air.

Pedestrians may unknowingly wander in and order coffee, but the
tip-off comes when, sorry, the food options are limited or access to
the downstairs lounge is politely denied. The main thing on the menu
here is medical marijuana.

Suddenly, the bouncer's T-shirt makes more sense: The word stretched
across his broad chest reads "Oaksterdam."

The name "Oaksterdam" is arrived at by mixing the names of
cannabis-tolerant Amsterdam and Oakland, and the downtown district
near the 19th Street BART station is now home to eight medical
marijuana clubs. One such club is a new three-story dispensary on
Telegraph Avenue that owner Ken Estes says will eventually house an
organic food cafe, along with an on-site chiropractor, acupuncturist
and a doctor.

Apparently the first of its kind in the United States, this cannabis
community offers a range of services. Patients can pick up
city-sanctioned patient identification cards, purchase $550
lung-friendly inhalers that allow the medicine to be vaporized rather
than smoked, get marijuana-growing equipment or buy cannabis in any
form, from green buds to lollipops.

"San Francisco and Oakland have Chinatown and Japantown. Now we're
going to have pot town. Better yet, hemp town," said Randy Csongor,
the manager of Best Collateral pawn shop, which sits in the middle of
medical marijuana row.

Club owners are circumspect about where they get their product, which
they sell to patients at prices ranging from $50 an ounce to more than
$400 an ounce for the highest grade.

The dispensary owners -- who acquire the usual business licenses but
no other official permits for cannabis distribution -- are caught in
an uncomfortable legal position. The city and state say they are legal
under Proposition 215, the medical marijuana compassionate use
initiative that California voters passed in 1996.

But the federal government says the clubs are operating illegally.
Federal agents have staged pot club raids and pursued high-profile
activists such as Oakland resident Ed Rosenthal, who was convicted in
a controversial trial earlier this year for cultivating marijuana.

The jury, however, was not allowed to hear evidence related to
Rosenthal's assertion that the city of Oakland had "deputized" him as
part of its medical marijuana program. U.S. District Judge Charles
Breyer sentenced him to one day in jail, which Rosenthal had already
served. But in July, federal prosecutors signaled they would ask an
appeals court to increase Rosenthal's sentence. The government did not
explain on what grounds they intended to appeal.

Greg Underwood, a special agent at the Drug Enforcement
Administration, said, "If we are investigating them, I can't comment
on any open investigations. . . . The only thing I can say is that
marijuana is what we consider a Schedule I drug, which means it's
illegal to use and the federal government does not make any
distinction for medical marijuana."

Estes, whose front-room eatery at the 420 cafe so far consists of an
empty room, a fan and an "Open" sign, says: "Unfortunately, we have
one foot in the illegal world and one foot in the legal world. We're
trying to get both in (the) legal world."

Some of the Oaksterdam clubs do not have phone numbers or even
signage; one is jokingly called "Parking in Rear," a reference to the
only sign posted on the storefront. Others have the appearance of a
sterile nurse's office -- with a few extra television monitors -- and
still others seem like ordinary cafes with umbrellas and dainty tables
out front.

The clubs' shadowy status is also apparent on paper: One proprietor's
business card lists his job title as "coffeeshopkeeper"; another
dispensary's glossy, postcard-size advertisement reads "a different
kind of chocolateria." And though owners are eager to speak about
their concern for patients and show how professional their businesses
are, of those approached, only Estes would speak on the record, an
indication of just how tenuous their situation is.

"I see the people running those clubs as modern-day heroes," said
Keith Stroup, founder and executive director of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a public interest lobby
in Washington, D.C. He's visited the neighborhood and even has his own
Oaksterdam T-shirt.

"It does remind me of Amsterdam. It's certainly the closest thing we
have in this country to what they have in Amsterdam," he said. "I
think there's nothing quite like that in the United States."

The difference here is that only people with doctor's recommendations
and official IDs can get through the door, he said, adding that the
proliferation of the clubs is an expression of the public will and
attitude.

Indeed, the pot district has been cultivated with the help of
reasonable rents, access to public transit and a relatively low-key
attitude of the city government and the Police Department. And mellow
seems to be the reigning mood among shopkeepers and pedestrians here.

To be sure, a couple of people had concerns about the clubs' customers
hogging parking spots or certain clubs getting too loose and easy with
identification cards.

Robert Williams, the deputy director of the Sexual Minority Alliance
of Alameda County (SMAAC), complained that smoke was seeping into
their office, which is wedged between two clubs. Staff members have
been approached by people on the street about buying marijuana, he
said. They're particularly concerned because, "some of our young
people are at risk for substance use."

Joe DeVries, field director to Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley,
said he found SMAAC's complaints disingenuous. City Councilwoman Nancy
Nadel's office "was trying to mediate problems between his program and
the clubs," he said. Matters seemed to be resolved when, he said, "all
of a sudden, you're going to the media."

In fact, the neighborhood reaction to Oaksterdam, by and large, fell
somewhere on a spectrum between indifference (and ignorance) and
downright enthusiasm.

"We love them, we love them!" said Mario Paceppi, the owner of the Fat
Cat Cafe, who has a medical marijuana recommendation for acid reflux
and gastrointestinal problems. With the new crop of clubs joining
long-existing ones -- including the flagship Oakland Cannabis Buyers'
Cooperative, which sells cannabis-related wares and distributes ID
cards but no longer sells marijuana -- the area has been revitalized
and is cleaner and safer, he said.

"Because there are more eyes out. When it was more desolate, there was
all sorts of horrible stuff going on." Plus -- jokes about
marijuana-induced munchies aside -- patients and club employees
regularly stop in for lunch.

"That's the only thing pushing the economy down there," he
said.

"Any kind of business is business," Csongor said at the pawn shop,
dryly noting that "there are more people going in there than McDonald's.

"It hasn't caused any problems. No fights, no riots, no outbreaks.
Nothing like that. It could be dressmakers over there, it wouldn't be
any different," Csongor said.

"These things have just grown up without any great public fanfare, so
obviously, this has to be looked at carefully," said Mayor Jerry
Brown. "Californians are strongly in support of medicinal marijuana;
compassionate aid to people who are truly sick. But the big question
is, what is the proper method of distribution and how should it be
regulated?" One of his inspectors is working on a report for the City
Council, he said.

But other city officials have known about and supported the cannabis
clubs.

Joel Tena, a constituent liaison for Nadel, whose district includes
Oaksterdam, said: "We see the medical marijuana dispensaries as
enhancing the neighborhood. We know here in the city of Oakland that
medical marijuana is literally something that keeps people alive. We
want to make sure it's available if they need it."

If the Oakland Police Department isn't quite so gung-ho, officers
nonetheless have stuck firmly to a laissez-faire policy.

Lt. Edward Poulson, the commander overseeing the Oaksterdam area -- he
laughed when he heard the term for the first time from a reporter --
said he's received some complaints about littering, loitering, smoking
in public, parking and people who buy the medicine legally, then sell
it secondhand on the street.

Also, in a few cases, customers have been robbed leaving the premises,
he said. But he pointed out that leaving a bank with cash is arguably
a similar risk and most of the complaints have centered on a
particular club, which he did not want to name.

"It's like a nightclub or the bar scene," he said. "It's not how many
you have, but how they operate."

Police Chief Richard Word said: "I'm not opposed to medicinal
marijuana, but there needs to be some structure to this. . . . There
has to be some rhyme or reason about where these things are so the
city can say this is OK or this is not OK. That's clear this has to
happen."

But club owners say -- and patients confirm -- that clustering is
helpful to customers because it means they have more choice in quality
and price. Those who don't care to (or can't) inhale, for example, can
shop around to find pot teas or cooking butter; if one dispensary's
wares aren't helping with chronic pain, maybe they'll have better luck
next door.

"It's not like plastic toys, it's fresh produce," said one cannabis
club employee.

Kristen Baumgartner, 22, who just completed chemotherapy treatment for
bone cancer and said cannabis helped reduce nausea and stimulate her
appetite, strolled out of a club on a recent afternoon with a $405
ounce.

"It's great for it to be in one area. . . . It's a community," said
Curtis Thomas, 32, who got a recommendation for marijuana because of a
work-related wrist injury. "If it continues this way, it's going to
be a boon for Oakland."

Thomas said he picks his dispensary of the day largely based on cost,
but "I do sometimes go according to my mood." For an in-and-out job,
he'll head to one spot, but "if I want to go to a nice lounge with
tile floors" and a "speakeasy" atmosphere, he'll head somewhere else.

Some might argue that clubs are spelling their own doom by opening so
close together, but one club employee said it's good for business,
comparing it to Las Vegas and the clump of casinos there. Inevitably,
trash-talking goes on, he said, but mostly the competition is friendly.

"We're all fighting for the same cause," Estes said, "and we all would
like to see each other make it."