Being Alive; October 1996
Walt Senterfitt

Dan Lungren, California's right wing Republican Attorney General from Orange County, has in the past two months raided the Cannabis Buyers Clubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles over the objections of local elected officials and law enforcement officers. These clubs have made marijuana available to thousands of patients with aids, cancer, glaucoma and other diseases whose doctors have indicated the herb might help their symptoms such as pain, nausea and loss of appetite. The San Francisco club had grown admittedly lax in ensuring distribution only to those with a medical need; the Los Angeles club had not.

Lungren's raids had nothing to do with improving procedures, and everything to do with grandstanding in his campaign for governor in '98-on our backs! Lungren thinks he can be successful by scapegoating and viciously attacking everybody and everything that conservative or frightened white voters are afraid of-PWAs, gays and lesbians, immigrants, people of color, Angelenos and San Franciscans, defenders of abortion rights and all civil rights. It's the Pete Wilson School of Falsification, Demagoguery and Mean Spiritedness. It's time to strike a blow against it and here is an opportunity.

What Proposition 215 Does

The summary of the initiative prepared for the ballot (ironically by Attorney General Lungren's office) says that Prop. 215 "Provides that patients or defined caregivers, who possess or cultivate marijuana for medical treatment recommended by a physician, are exempt from general provisions of law which otherwise prohibit possession or cultivation of marijuana. Provides physicians shall not be punished or denied any right or privilege for recommending marijuana to a patient for medical purposes. Declares that the measure not be construed to supersede prohibitions of conduct endangering others nor to condone diversion of marijuana for nonmedical purposes. It would probably have no significant state or local fiscal impact."

In Other Words, It

protects patients who find marijuana useful in reducing pain or other symptoms;

protects doctors who recommend marijuana when other medicines don't work for their patients;

requires a doctor's approval to use marijuana legally;

protects public safety by, for example, leaving intact current laws against driving or operating heavy machinery while impaired by ingestion of any substance;

sends a message to Sacramento and Washington, D.C. to tell elected leaders to find a safe, inexpensive way for patients to get marijuana if they need it.

Legislation with nearly identical language to Prop. 215 was passed by the California Legislature twice, in 1994 and 1995. Both times, the bills were vetoed by Governor Wilson. The initiative has been endorsed not only by most aids service organizations, but also by several medical associations, church groups and even law enforcement officials and the Orange County Register! This isn't one of those pie-in-the-sky dream initiatives with only a small core of supporters. Every poll shows this one really has a good chance. That's why it is all the more important for us to vote, work for endorsements of others and spread the word among friends and coworkers. The Board of Directors and staff of Being Alive urge you to join us in going all out to pass Prop. 215.

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