DELLUMS BRINGS ‘HOPE’Poll Finds San Francisco Voters Ready to Legalize, Regulate Cannabis Sales
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Vol 1 # 3 October – December 2005 DELLUMS BRINGS ‘HOPE’Poll finds San Francisco voters ready to legalize, regulate cannabis sales TO CITY MAYORAL RACE By Susan Stephenson City voters overwhelmingly favor An August survey of likely voters in San medical marijuana, with 91 percent saying Former national NORML Francisco found that, despite a wave of they support it when a doctor recommends boardmember is front runner negative publicity around medical mari- it. Fully 75 percent believe patients should juana dispensaries and busts by the DEA, be able to smoke on-site at cannabis clubs, By Chris Conrad most San Francisco voters do not see and 62 percent believe that clubs could be “If Ron Dellums running for mayor gives cannabis dispensaries as a problem. In clustered in certain neighborhoods. you hope, then let’s get on with it,” former fact, 63 percent say they favor legalizing, Eighty percent oppose the War on US Representative Ron Dellums told a taxing and regulating marijuana like alco- Drugs, with 75 percent saying the City bevy of supporters who roared their warm hol for general adult use. should deal with its marijuana policies appreciation on Oct. 7. In a satisfying bit The poll, commissioned by California locally, not hand them over to the DEA. of symmetry, Dellums got his political NORML, was conducted by Evans- A l a rge majority of voters support start by running for office at the municipal McDonough, and its results echo the sen- decriminalization or legalization of mari- level, serving on Berkeley City Council timent shown by Oakland voters, more juana for adult use. Eighty percent oppose from 1967 to 1970. than 65 percent of whom voted for prison for pot offenses, and seventy per- Dellums, 69, represented Berkeley and Measure Z by last year. cent agree that cannabis consumers should Oakland in Congress for 27 years before The San Francisco poll came on the be treated the same as alcohol users. retiring in 1998. He said he is coming out heels of political calls to reduce the num- “The overwhelming message of this of retirement to run for mayor of Oakland ber of dispensaries serving patients in the poll is that, contrary to the hype, San to succeed Mayor Jerry Brown. The news FACE OF HOPE — Oakland’s long-time Congressman Ron Dellums comes back. City. It shows that voters oppose cutting Francisco voters would rather see legal- media promptly declared the local hero to back on the availability of medical mari- ization of marijuana than a crackdown,” be the new front runner. Dellums decision is seen as beneficial juana, with 84 percent agreeing that the said Dale Gieringer, director of California The former boardmember of NORML, for cannabis-friendly Oaksterdam. While number of dispensaries should be deter- NORML. The poll covered 400 likely vot- the National Organization for the Reform Please turn to page 11 mined by patient needs, not politicians. ers and has a 4.9 percent margin of error. of Marijuana Laws, had supported various cannabis reforms during his term in Congress, and his his successor, popular Rep. Barbara Lee, endorsed Oakland’s Bay Area cities and counties license, Measure Z which called for regulation and taxation of adult cannabis sales here. It was passed with 65 percent of the vote. regulate marijuana dispensaries The mayoral election is June 6. Candi- San Francisco debates, Oakland shuffles, dates such as Alameda County Treasurer Don White and Oakland School Board Alameda shifts and patients sue for safe access members Dan Siegel and Greg Hodge said they would withdraw from the race but their campaigns were still active in late October. City Council members Ignacio De La Fuente and Nancy Nadel vowed to stay in the campaign. Supporters had circulated a petition for months asking Dellums to run because they say he can unite Oakland, a diverse city that is 36 percent black, 24 percent white, 22 percent Hispanic and 15 percent Asian. More than 8,000 people signed the petition urging him to run. Nine years later, CHP implements state MMJ laws By Martin Williams The California Highway Patrol (CHP) unveiled its new procedures for handling medical cannabis, thanks to legal action FROM ART DECO TO OCPD NEIGHBOR — Operators of the CARE medical marijuana dispensary had to trade in their Art Deco by a patient advocacy organization. location on 19th Street, with its mural-painted windows, for a new location near the police department after Mayor Brown’s pet charter Americans for Safe Access (ASA) school moved in across the street from the site. Dispensaries are not allowed within 1000 feet of a school, and the fact that the dis- found that one-quarter of all California pensary was there first was not given any weight. Photo by Chris Conrad. medical cannabis arrests and seizures had been by CHP officers. Now a suit filed By Justin Baker Meanwhile CARE moved downtown of this delay remains to be seen. against them by ASA for failure to uphold Since Oakland established the first ordi- to 701 Broadway, by police headquarters, Thousands of cards have been distributed state law has resulted in a fundamental nance condoning and regulating dispen- leaving the SR71 Coffeeshop, at 377 17th throughout the county, from the Oakland change in how officers are ordered to treat saries in early 2004, at least 21 other cities St., as the city’s only open dispensary for Cannabis Buyers Club and elsewhere that patients and caregivers. and counties have followed suit. The road a brief period in October. authorize holders to buy marijuana from The CHP agreed to stop taking has not always been smooth. In Alameda County, as officials pre- dispensaries. “There is a massive number cannabis from qualified patients and pri- R e c e n t l y, with the closure of the pared to shut down several county dispen- to deal with,” said Pam Willow, an analyst mary caregivers in routine traffic stops. Oakland Compassionate Healing Center saries they hesitated, dragged their feet with the county’s Public Health On Aug. 22, CHP instructed its offi- on Grand Avenue and Compassionate and missed their own deadline for Department. There are only a few dispen- cers not to cite motorists with a valid state Caregivers on Broadway, the process of announcing which three dispensaries will saries in unincorporated areas, Berkeley, or local government medical marijuana ID selecting two new dispensary sites and receive permits to operate in the unincor- Oakland and Hayward to supply patrons card or a physician-signed recommenda- permit operators has begun anew for the porated areas. who also come from throughout the Bay tion, nor to seize their cannabis if they city. Compassionate Caregivers cried foul, At the Alameda board meeting, sher- Area and Central Valley. carry up to eight ounces of marijuana and and the minor nature of zoning violations iff’s deputies said they hoped to disclose Across the Bay, San Francisco’s dis- six mature or 12 immature plants. Those involved did make it look suspiciously which clinics will be in within 30 to 70 pensary permit ordinance by Supervisor are the minimum amounts set in state law. like a vendetta by a City Administrator days. As this issue goes to press, the Ross Mirkarimi worked its way through a Please turn to page 3 determined to reduce patient access. process is on hold and the length or effect Please turn to page 6 Page 2. Oaksterdam News. October - December 2005 Shifting relationships evolve between Law enforcement is taking up the themes police and medical cannabis community of anti-prohibition, cannabis tolerance By Martin Williams they were easily cleaned up. Most of the By Chris Conrad A complex relationship has evolved in the dispensaries acted as good neighbors that Norm Stamper, former chief of the Seattle state as police have slowly come to terms fit in with the community. However, when Police Department, is the author of with the roles of medical marijuana dis- regulatory ordinances were proposed, law Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the pensaries in the community. enforcement routinely opposed clubs with Dark Side of American Policing and an After decades of anti-marijuana bias, an unfounded mantra of “crime magnets.” opinion piece in the Oct. 16, 2005 Los law enforcement is coming to grips with Apparently, some social predators got Angeles Times. Stamper said he wants to the fact that a growing number of people the message, and came looking. After a set the record straight. in this state have a legal right to cultivate rash of robberies in the East Bay, police and consume cannabis, and even to buy it. are beginning to take a serious look at how to protect the dispensaries. That relationship has been tested by the “No, I don’t favor development of dispensary ordinances and Police attitude was the problem a recent rash of criminals preying upon the decriminalization. I favor medical marijuana community. When banks, jewelers, gas stations, or even wig stores get robbed, police come to legalization, and not just of Limited immunity for MMJ sales their aid and denounce the perpetrators. pot but of all drugs” Until 2003, medical marijuana dispen- When crooks hit programs that relieve the saries operated in the gray area of legal suffering of the sick and the weak, police Former Police Chief Norm Stamper tolerance. This led to the founding of voice their outrage and firm resolve to scores of cannabis dispensaries around the bring the perpetrators to justice. state, largely unregulated until the City of However, when local medical marijua- “Yes, I was a cop for 34 years, the last SAYING KNOW — Jack Cole, director of LEAP.