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Volume 2 # 1. February 2004
Welcome to the Safe Access
Now Newsletter List
This is one in a series of newsletters to let you know
the status of the Safe Access Now medical marijuana garden
guidelines campaign. For more information on our project and
the science behind it, please visit our website (link
above).
These newsletters are issued
on an occasional basis. To
subscribe drop a
note with the subject "Subscribe SAN" to
chris@chrisconrad.com to be added to our list for future
issues. To
unsubscribe from
this newsletter send a message with the subject "Unsubscribe
SAN." Feel free to forward to interested people.
Contents:
- Gallegos wins Humboldt
recall
- SB 420: Green light or
reverse?
- New SAN flyer
for SB 420
- Is your
community SB 420
compliant?
- What
happened to the booklet?
- Collectives
as a patient organizing
tool
- Who we
are
- SAN
Guideline basics
- Donate to
SAN
Gallegos wins Humboldt recall
Humboldt County DA Paul Gallegos, who adopted the SAN
guidelines as county policy and surprised everyone by taking
on Maxxam Texas (Pacific Lumber) for fraud in issuing its
environmental reports, has been vindicated. The logging
giant tried to use the SAN guidelines to paint the DA as
being "soft on crime," but voters saw through their scam and
returned him to office by a 69-31 percent vote.
SB 420: Green Light ... or
Reverse?
When Senator Vasconcellos and Assemblyman Leno introduced
SB
420, they sought to make life easier for patients by
creating a state ID card to protect them from arrest. Safe
Access Now called it a "green light" for expanded
guidelines. But whereas for years we've made progress
educating counties to allow patients to harvest 3 pounds of
medicine for the year and grow up to 99 plants as long as
the canopy is 100 square feet or less, HS 11362.77(a) gave
counties an easy out and something to cite in court to
accuse patients of having too much -- without any rational
scientific basis for its numbers.
The amount stipulated in the law was supposed to be 6
pounds of bud plus a 200 square foot garden area, but at the
last minute, a very low "floor" of tolerance was substituted
-- no more than 8 ounces of finished marijuana (bud or
conversion) plus 6 mature or 12 immature plants. We opposed
those numbers as not being scientific, fair or practical for
medical marijuana patients on two grounds:
1) Outdoor gardeners need to harvest more than 8 ounces
in the fall to last the whole year, while an indoor grower
needs to grow more than 6 plants to sustain a garden in a
small area; and
2) Counties and law enforcement agencies tend to regard a
floor as a ceiling.
Sure enough, the ID program is stalled by state agencies
while guideline policy seem to be thrown into reverse by the
new law. Expansive local guidelines are authorized by the
bill, but many community agencies took it as an opportunity
to throw out science and subject patients to arrest and
possible prison. Ventura county reduced its already
meager guidelines and the Humboldt guidelines remain
in place while the County BOS considers whether or not they
will stay. A similar plan was being steamrollered through
the City of Oakland (once known as a city of
compassion), until advocates fought the anti-medical
marijuana move. Now the city has a split plan that allows
patients to have up to 2.5 pounds of bud and 72 plants
within 32 square feet of canopy, but limits coops and
participating patients to 8 ounces per patient and 6 mature
plus 12 immature plants.
SAN Director Chris Conrad met with Vasconcellos aide,
Oanh Ho, who said that after last year's battles, the
Senator is not inclined to increase the guidelines, but he
may submit an amendment that "A qualified patient, a person
with an identification card, or any designated primary
caregiver may cultivate and possess any amount of marijuana
consistent with the medical needs of that qualified patient
or person with an identification card," or words to that
effect. That remains to be seen.
We are asking for two things:
1) Increase the amounts protected by HS 11362.77 or
2) At least change it to "6 mature and 12 immature
plants."
Oanh has asked us to document any rollbacks around the
state to show so as to encourage the Senator to raise the
numbers. We need all SAN reps to help with this process by
sending any information they learn on this to Chris
Conrad so we can lobby for this change.
In the meantime, Vasconcellos' office has offered to send
letters of support for local efforts to win better
guidelines. Contact Chris if you need such a letter.
New flyer explains SB 420
effects
Safe Access Now has a new flyer that gives a general
summary of SB 420 and how it affects patient rights relative
to Prop 215. Click here
to view as a PDF.
Is your community SB
420 compliant?
We need to ensure that patients receive the small amount
of relief that is due them pursuant to SB
420, now effective as Health and Safety Code HS 11362.7
and 11362.8. The Attorney General's office told us it is not
making any effort to inform law enforcement of the new
immunity from arrest, and many prosecutors and agencies that
do know about it are likely to ignore it. Therefore we are
encouraging people to serve notice on their county
supervisors, sheriffs, local police and DAs with a letter
that you can download from our website by clicking
here.
If they continue to fail to comply, civil action may be
required, but you will have to document that you have given
notice and filed complaints in order to gain standing in
court to pursue economic relief and damage awards.
Remember, we are not endorsing those unfair limits. When
you serve notice of SB 420, to also submit the SAN
introductory letter and model ordinance, and ask them to
raise your local guidelines using the 3
pound or 6
pound ordinance. There are plenty of supporting
materials available on the web site, as well.
What happened to the SAN
booklet?
Since the second half of 2003 we have been promising to
make available our booklet on the SAN guidelines, and people
have begun to wonder what happened.
The answer is: "SB 420." We have since found ourselves
tied up with negotiating, lobbying and debating the measure,
debating its implementation and implications, and fighting
the rollbacks mentioned above. Having the booklet out would
be a help with all this, except that we are in a quandary
trying to reconcile the advice we put in the book based on
the Mower Decision (amounts must be reasonably related to
medical need) with the SB 420 guidelines (8 ounces processed
plus 6 mature or 12 immature plants). We don't want
to see patients putting themselves at more risk by following
our advice, but we don't want to undermine the science by
bringing undue attention to the non-binding limits in SB
420.
We are therefore still working to reconcile these
questions and will hopefully have the booklet available
soon.
Medical Marijuana
Collectives
The medical marijuana collective is a new feature of SB
420 that is being embraced by patients around the state. It
is not well defined but seems to offer a way around the
limits placed on patients and coops; cooperatives already
have criteria defined in state law. While caregivers are
limited in their activities by county lines, patient and
caregiver coops are allowed to function "within the state."
So far only the City of Oakland has attempted to redefine
what this means, limiting it at not more than three
patients. It remains to be seen whether other counties will
try this or even if it can stand up in court, since it
appears to unfairly restrict patient rights under state
law.
Who we are
SAN is a non-partisan organization dedicated to the
proper implementation of uniform guidelines in all of
California's counties in compliance with H&S code
11362.5, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. It was
founded by Chris Conrad with Ralph Sherrow and has activists
in about half the counties of California. We are an
educational and activist organization only, and in no way
supply medicine. Our proposal has been to stop the arrests
as well as the prosecution of patients by creating a safe
harbor of presumed compliance with the law.
We work with all levels of government to achieve this
goal.
SAN guideline
basics
Since the federal government's IND program has
established more than six pounds per year of marijuana as a
safe and effective standard, with some patients receiving
even more, SAN proposes that patients should be allowed to
cultivate and consume that amount as a reasonable level of
compliance. However, since many patients use less than that
amount, we offer a compromise of allowing up to 3 pounds of
processed cannabis bud per patient per year, which typically
requires a canopy area of 100 square feet. Any amount of
plants could be grown to fill in this area without exceeding
the yield, but since a 5 year federal sentences is mandatory
for growing 100 or more plants, we advocate 99 plants as the
voluntary ceiling for patients. In addition, our proposals
allow a physician to write a note that will exempt patients
who need more from being bound by these figures. See our
website http://www.safeaccessnow.net/ for more details.
Donate to Safe Access
Now
Safe Access Now does not charge for the time and
materials we expend to advance the safe harbor proposal for
patients, but that does not mean it does not cost money to
run this campaign. If you can help with a donation of any
size, please send it to our financial coordinator, Chris
Conrad, with a note saying it is intended for Safe Access
Now work. If you plan to donate $100 or more and want a tax
deduction, we can arrange a fiscal sponsor. Cash is great,
but something of a mailing risk.
We do not have a bank account in our name, so please make
checks out to either Chris Conrad or Family Council on Drug
Awareness, and mail to:
Safe Access Now, PO Box 1716, El Cerrito CA 94530.
See
all our past SAN newsletters: Visit our archives online!
http://www.safeaccessnow.net/sannews/sannewsarchive.htm
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