PROPS 200& 215

— 1996 —

June 6: California's secretary of state certifies the medical marijuana initiative (to become Proposition 215) for the ballot.

July 3: Arizonans for Drug Policy Reform files signatures qualifying the "Drug Medicalization, Prevention, and Control Act" for the ballot.

Aug. 4: California state narcotics agents raid the five-year-old San Francisco Cannabis Buyers' Club at about 7:45 AM and close it down, but make no arrests. About 10,000 people had used the club.

Aug. 9: Sacramento Superior Court Judge William Ridgeway orders the "No on 215" campaign to revise its campaign literature. The "No" campaign's rebuttal argument described the American Cancer Society as opposing Prop. 215, but an ACS spokesman said the "Society says neither 'no' nor 'yes' on Prop. 215."

Aug. 15: White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey issues his first public comment against Prop. 215: "There is not a shred of scientific evidence that shows that smoked marijuana is useful or needed. This is not science. This is not medicine. This is a cruel hoax that sounds more like something out of a Cheech and Chong show."

Sept. 16: L.A. County sheriffs deputies Doonesbury arrest four people and seize a pound of marijuana in a raid on the West Hollywood Cannabis Buyers' Club.

Sept. 18: West Hollywood Cannabis Buyers' Club reopens in a Methodist church.

Sept. 19: In a poll by Mervin Field, 51 percent of likely California voters report having heard about Prop. 215, and 57 percent of those voters say they will vote for it in November.

Oct. I: California Attorney General Dan Lungren (R) holds a news conference protesting the pro-21 5 Doonesbury comic strips by Garry Trudeau. A second week of Doonesbury strips commenting on Prop. 215 begins Oct. 21.

Oct. 14: DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine writes to drug prevention professionals saying that, "Drug legalization proponents are attempting to cloak a pro-legalization agenda in specious medical arguments, and I believe we all need to speak out vigorously to accurately portray the California and Arizona initiatives as what they really are — dishonest attempts to legalize drugs."

Oct. 29: Three former presidents — George Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford — and former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop announce in separate letters their opposition to Prop. 215.
McCaffrey adds in a press release: "This stalking horse for legalization is being pushed on unsuspecting Californians and funded by out-of-state drug legalizers who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to further their pro-drug agenda. The proposition is in direct violation of federal law."

Nov. 5: Election Day
Arizona's Proposition 200 passes with 65 percent of the vote.
California's Proposition 215 passes with 56 percent of the vote.

Nov. 7: California Attorney General Lungren calls a meeting of California's police chiefs, sheriffs, and county prosecutors to discuss Prop. 215. Steve Telliano, Lungren's spokesman, comments, "We have legal anarchy, no one knows what this means."

Nov. 15: McCaffrey says in a news release: "Just when the nation is trying its hardest to educate teenagers not to use psychoactive drugs, now they are being told that marijuana and other drugs are good, they are medicine. The conflict in messages is extremely harmful." McCaffrey adds, "By our judgment, increased drug abuse in every category will be the inevitable result of the referenda."

Nov. 20: The "Yes on 215" campaign files a complaint with California's Fair Political Practices Commission naming McCaffrey, the New York City-based Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, and state Attorney General Lungren for failing to report thousands of dollars in in-kind contributions to the "No on 215" effort.

Dec. 2: The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on the Arizona and California propositions. Committee member Sen. Jon
Kyl (R-Ariz.) said of Prop. 200: "How could this happen in Arizona? I am extraordinarily embarrassed."
DEA Administrator Constantine testifies that the DEA "will continue to target and arrest significant drug traffickers, whether they're doctors or citizens operating domestically or internationally."

Dec. 30: McCaffrey, Attorney General Janet Reno, and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala announce that the DEA will revoke the registration of doctors who prescribe medical marijuana. The aim of the policy "is to ensure that no American gets the wrong message about the dangers of drugs and to ensure the safety and efficacy of all medicines available to the American public."
When asked on CNN whether there is "any evidence ... that marijuana is useful in a medical situation," McCaffrey answers: "No, none at all. There are hundreds of studies that indicate it isn't."

— 1997 —

Jan. 5: McCaffrey quoted in the Chicago Tribune: "Medicine gave up on smoked pot as a medical agent in the 1980s. As far as I can see, there isn't a shred of evidence that smoked marijuana, a carcinogen containing 400 odd compounds, is the appropriate thing needed for glaucoma and other illnesses it has allegedly benefited."

Jan. 7: Despite his previous descriptions of the research on medical marijuana, McCaffrey announces that the federal government will give the Institute of Medicine $995,639 to review medical marijuana research over the next 18 months. (In 1982, 10M published a report — "Marijuana and Health" — supporting medical marijuana based on IOM's review of the research then available.)

Jan. 8: San Francisco Superior Court Judge David Garcia lifts the injunction on the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers' Club that had kept it closed since August 4.

Jan. 10: The president of the American Federation of Scientists, Jeremy Stone, criticizes the proposed White House study of medical marijuana as a delaying tactic, saying the government's "least important function is to search the literature" when it can act.

Jan. 13: McCaffrey says: "What American doctors want is effective medicine. They want something to manage pain, that handles the nausea of chemotherapy.... There is an open door to any substance that claims it's a medicine. But it has to pass medical-scientific evaluation."

Jan. 14: San Francisco area physicians file suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California — Conant v. McCaffrey — claiming that doctors are protected by the First Amendment in their discussions of treatment options with their patients.

Jan. 15: San Francisco's main buyers' club reopens as the Cannabis Cultivators' Club.

Jan. 21: Senators Lauch Faircloth and Jesse Helms from North Carolina introduce S.40, the "Drug Use Prevention Act of 1997," proposing prison sentences of up to eight years and/or fines of up to $60,000 for doctors who recommend marijuana to patients.

Jan. 27: As later revealed by the San Francisco Examiner, two DEA agents question a Northern California doctor, Robert Mastroianni, because he recommended marijuana to three patients since the passage of Prop. 215.

Jan. 30: Editorial by the New England Journal of Medicine's editor-in-chief, Dr. Jerome Kassirer, supports medical marijuana (see p. 35).

Feb. 3: The DEA and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, which is based in northern Virginia, host a meeting to develop antimedicalization strategies.

Feb. 12: San Francisco's Department of Public Health releases its final guidelines for doctors, patients, and caregivers using Prop. 215.

Feb. 14: Proponents release a national poll by Lake Research finding that 60 percent of American voters favor allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to seriously or terminally ill patients, and 68 percent of Americans believe that the federal government should not penalize doctors for recommending marijuana in those states that permitted medical marijuana.

Feb. 19-20: The National Institutes of Health holds a conference in Maryland to review medical marijuana research. The panelists do not release an official statement, but support more research.

Feb. 24: California Senator John Vasconcellos (D) introduces S.B. 535 to provide $6 million to the University of California to create the Medical Marijuana Research Center. Vasconcellos had promised the bill earlier in the month saying, "If the federal government is unwilling to conduct real research to benefit sick and dying people, then California will."

Feb. 27: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice send a letter to heads of medical associations reassuring them of their right to discuss treatments with patients, but adds that doctors may not "enable" patients to get marijuana or other banned drugs. "Physicians who do so risk revocation of their DEA prescription authority, criminal prosecution, and exclusion from participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs."

March 6: Arizona Govenor Fife Symington signs a law giving the state's Board of Executive Clemency the power to refuse early release for drug offenders deemed to be "dangerous." Instead of nearly 1,000 prisoners who would have been eligible for early release under Prop. 200, only about 200 prisoners will appear before the board.

March 14: The presidents of the California and the American Medical Associations release a letter asking California doctors not to help patients gain access to marijuana, even through a buyers' club. The letter does, however, affirm the doctor's right to discuss the "risks and benefits of marijuana's medical use" with a patient. The letter also requests that the litigants in Conant v. McCaffrey end the suit because the federal government has promised to research medical marijuana's potential.

April 9: Former drug czar William Bennett speaking at a news conference in Arizona says, "That this initiative [Prop. 200] passed is a scandal. It's also understandable given the promotion and advertising that were used. Many of us would have been taken in." Bennett challenges George Soros to a debate over medicalization.

April 11: U.S. District Court Judge Fern Smith announces a temporary restraining order in Conant v. McCaffrey preventing federal enforcement actions against California doctors while both parties discuss settlement possibilities.

April 16: Arizona legislature approves H.B. 2518, which requires the U.S. Food and Drug Administatration to approve any drug before it can be recommended by Arizonan doctors — the heart of Prop. 200's medicalization policy.

April 21: Ten days after the federal court implemented a temporary restraining order in California, the DEA raids a medicinal marijuana facility in San Francisco called Flower Therapy. Agents seize 33 I marijuana plants and growing equipment, but make no arrests.

April 21: Arizona Gov. Symington signs H.B. 2518 into law, requiring doctors who would prescribe marijuana to wait for FDA approval.

April 30: After settlement negotiations fail, U.S. District Court Judge Fern Smith puts a preliminary injunction in place while parties in Conant v. McCaffrey prepare for trial. The injunction prevents the federal government from punishing physicians who recommend marijuana to patients in accordance with Prop. 215 until after the trial is completed.

May I: In Arizona, a pro-initiatives group called The People Have Spoken files petitions to keep Prop. 200 in effect as it was passed in November until the next statewide election in 1998.