Club Can’t Sell Marijuana, Court Rules
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SAN FRANCISCO — Marijuana clubs cannot sell the drug legally to patients despite California’s medical marijuana initiative, a state appeals court ruled Friday.
The 1st District Court of Appeal ordered the reinstatement of an injunction that shut down the Cannabis Buyers’ Club in San Francisco after a raid by Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren’s agents in August 1996.
The club had been allowed to operate by San Francisco authorities. But Lungren’s agents said marijuana was being sold to people without doctors’ prescriptions and was resold on the street, and that children were on the premises.
The club’s founder, Dennis Peron, who was also the author of the Proposition 215 initiative, called the ruling “a slap in the face of the voters” and said he would appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Peron and five others face charges of sale and transportation of marijuana seized in the raid.
Proposition 215, approved in November 1996, allows possession and cultivation of marijuana upon a doctor’s recommendation to ease the pain and nausea of AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and other conditions.
The ruling, the first by a California appellate court in the issue, takes effect in 30 days unless stayed on appeal.
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