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<br />PRESCRIPTION FOR CHANGE / With 43 medical marijuana dispensaries in San Franci... Page 1 of 8 <br />SR-te.a>m Www,sfgat~,com <br />Return to_ regular view <br />PRESCRIPTlONFQRClIANGE <br />With43 me.!lical marIjuana <br />dispensaries in San Francisco <br />operatingwitbno..oversigbt,city FREE <br />offidals debate_how to rein in growth <br />of the shops and those who abuse <br />Prop, 21S's intent FLIP PHONES <br />_ VVyatt Buchanan, Chronide Staff Writer <br />Sunday, April 24, 2005 X cingular ONLINE ONLY <br />llliillll raising the bar' Go Now:' <br /> Certam testricti~n9 appfv. 2: y$af &lJfllement requIred. <br />11111111 <br />At Alternative Herbal Health Services, a marijuana club on lower Haight Street in San <br />Francisco, a high-quality joint costs $5. Pot brownies are for sale, along with chocolate <br />bars, suckers and peanut butter and jelly infused with marijuana. <br />Different varieties of pot ranging in taste, price and quality are stored behind the glass <br />counter in 41 small drawers. <br />"That's more than Baskin-Robbins," says Wayne Justmann, a 60-year-old marijuana activist <br />and patient who frequents the small club and helps 26-year- old owner Jason Beck run the <br />place. <br />But opening a Baskin-Robbins or any other business in San Francisco requires obtaining <br />city permits and licenses -- a step that just a handful of pot clubs have taken, according to <br />city records. <br />The city has no regulations regarding the 43 clubs Mayor Gavin Newsom says are open <br />now, more than the city's estimate of37 thought to be in operation when a moratorium on <br />new clubs was set by the Board of Supervisors at the end of March. <br />Nor does the city regulate doctors and suppliers who make up the other parts of the city's <br />medical marijuana infrastructure that has burgeoned since passage of Proposition 215, the <br />1996 California law that sanctions the use of the drug for qualified patients. Doctors say <br />they are writing a great number of recommendations for a wide range of maladies. <br />Meanwhile, an underground network of pot suppliers is growing and transporting large <br />quantities of cannabis into and around the city every day. <br />The hands-off attitude has allowed San Francisco to become host to more pot clubs than any <br />other city in the United States. The federal government bans the sale, possession and use of <br />http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi ?file=/c/a/2005/04/24/MNGDTCEA9H I.DTL&type=pr... 4/29/2005 <br />