Medical marijuana laws still hazy in Sacramento
By Tom Phup
ScrippsMcClatchy News Service

SACRAMENTO As efforts have slowed to launch a local medicinal marijuana
buyer's club, Jackie Mahone is among those trying to fill the gap.

The 41yearold Oak Park resident, blind from glaucoma since childhood,
has launched a limited operation, distributing marijuana to a halfdozen
patients she trusts, patients who have the paperwork necessary under
Proposition 215 to qualify for the drug.

"This is not an activity I'm ashamed to do," she said.

Mahone is part of a looseknit underground network of medicinal
marijuana advocates who are supplying patients with marijuana while
efforts to establish a formal local operation remain unresolved.

Whether Mahone is walking on thin legal ice remains to be seen.
Proposition 215 legalized possession and cultivation of medicinal
marijuana under state law. But the measure said nothing about selling
marijuana.

Under federal law, both possession and cultivation remain illegal.

"We have not been referred this situation," said Pat Marlette, a
spokesman for the Sacramento County's District Attorney's office.

"Our natural inclination is to say that distributing marijuana will not
be tolerated. On the other hand, we very much believe in the people's
right to make law by initiative."

Since January a handful of medicinal marijuana advocates have been
trying to raise funds and settle ground rules with local government
officials

Initially hoping to open a club within weeks, the matter has dragged on
for months. Fund raising has been slow, said Ryan Landers, a 25year old
Sacramento resident with AIDS who has been spearheading a buyer's club
effort.

As for finding common ground with local law enforcement, "the District
Attorney's Office won't give us any ground at all," he said.

So the medicinal marijuana world remains in the underground, with
patients calling various numbers to leave voicemail messages in their
quest for marijuana.

"We're trying to distribute it," said Edward, operator of the Sacramento
Cannabis CoOp, formerly known as the Bulldog Cannabis Buyers Club Edward
spoke on the condition a different name be used.

The unresolved legal status of medicinal marijuana "is keeping a lot of
people quiet," he said.