Area 420 Discovers Santa Clara Pot Club Ban in the Works

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday 4/29/2005

AREA 420 DISCOVERS SANTA CLARA POT CLUB BAN IN THE WORKS!

Area 420 Responds to Santa Clara Pot Club Moratorium by Opening Co-Op Office
Office Begins Serving Preregistered Patients at 4pm Today, Press is
Welcome to Attend
3911 Stevens Creek Blvd. Suite 206 (Upstairs to the Second Floor,
Disabled Patient Receive Deliveries)

(SANTA CLARA, CA) -- At 9am today, Area 420 Director wasn't planning
to open a pot club. He had recently secured a low-rent business
office to move patient pre-registration away from public meeting
places. At 10am he changed his mind after learning that Santa Clara
Planning has a pot club ban in the works.

"My caregiver services, which were always separate from Area 420,
were always of the highest standards. While other providers simply
look at private ID cards to determine patient status, we don't rely
on cards in Santa Clara County. The law says the patient must be
under care of a doctor who recommends their using cannabis
theraputically."

Lohse says that in the past, he has always taken at least three steps
to protect himself. He would check that the patient's doctor still
held a valid CA license, then he would verify that the patient was
from Santa Clara County. According to Senate Bill 420, a caregiver
can only provide for multiple patients if they reside in the same
city or county.

Lohse explains, "the law could be read so narrowly that all the
patients have to be from the same city. I spoke with the District
Attorney's Office about this, and we agreed that as long as all the
patients are from the county, they won't prosecute me on that basis."

Lohse's last step was to call the doctor's office to verify that the
patient has valid status. Cannabis specialists are prepared for such
"verification" calls.

He says, "As of this morning, all I wanted was an office to move
these verifications to a private location. I also plan to organize
future Area 420 events from this office. We had considered that as an
unregulated business activity, we could dispense cannabis there too,
as a sideline."

CITY OF SANTA CLARA PLANS MORATORIUM?

Yesterday, Lohse says he spoke to Lieutenant Buchanan, Public
Information Officer for the Santa Clara Police. "The conversation
went very well, and at one point the Lieutenant thanked me for
calling ahead of time. He did suggest that I call the City Attorney's
office, which confused me. It's not the city attorney's job to answer
my questions."

This morning, when Lohse spoke to Captain Tom Clark of the Santa
Clara Police, he tried to arrange a meeting. Lohse went so far as to
invite the Captain to visit the office. When the Captain inquired
about whether Lohse would distribute cannabis there, Lohse said it
wasn't the main reason for the office, but it might be a sideline.
The Captain said that his interest was piqued based on the last
statement. The same office building formerly housed the illegal
Suffering Patients doctor's clinic, which sold illegal cannabis
recommendations.

"That's why I wanted to speak to the police, to go over their
understanding of the law. It's legal for me to provide cannabis in
exchange for expenses as long as I am a caregiver for the patient,
providing for their safety on a consistent basis."

Lohse says Captain Clark also advised him to call the city attorney's
office. Since Lohse had already checked in with the Mayor's office
and the City Council office, and they did not claim to have ever
worked on any marijuana regulations, Lohse felt assured there were no
Planning codes preventing co-op distribution in Santa Clara. When
Lohse called the City Attorney's office, he spoke to a woman he won't
identify.

"I began by apologizing to her for even calling, as I knew it wasn't
her job to answer my questions. She agreed, and I explained that I
had been referred by the Police Department. We spoke, I agreed to go
back and work with the police, and she did confirm that she didn't
know about any pot club moratorium.

FINAL CONFIRMATION OF PLANNING BAN COMES AT 12:30PM FRIDAY

Lohse says that he then received a return call from a City Planner.
Lohse says the City Planner confirmed that there was a club ban in
the works, and that the Principal planner would call him Monday to
follow up.

Lohse plans to respond by serving patients from his co-op today
between 4pm and 5pm. He promises there will be no onsite smoking, and
that all sales will be to legally qualified patients for whom he
already has caregiver agreements. He says, "If they ban pot clubs,
that probably won't affect me, since we're a cop-op office, not a San
Francisco style dispensary."