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Proposition 215, or the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, is a California law allowing the use of medical cannabis despite marijuana's lack of the normal Food and Drug Administration testing for safety and efficacy. It was enacted, on November 5, 1996, by means of the initiative process, and passed with 5,382,915 (55.6%) votes in favor and 4,301,960 (44.4%) against. The proposition was a statewide voter initiative authored by Dennis Peron, Anna Boyce RN, John Entwistle, Jr., Valerie Corral, Dale Gieringer, William Panzer, Scott Imler, attorney Leo Paoli and psychiatrist Tod H. Mikuriya, and approved by California voters. It allows patients with a valid doctor's recommendation, and the patients' designated Primary Caregivers, to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal medical use, and has since been expanded to protect a growing system of collective and cooperative distribution. The Act added Section 11362.5 to the California Health and Safety Code. California Proposition 215 was the first medical marijuana ballot initiative passed at the state level; causing a conflict in the United States between states' rights advocates and those who support a stronger federal presence. == Yes on 215 Campaign == Proposition 215 was conceived by San Francisco marijuana activist Dennis Peron in memory of his partner, Jonathan West, who had used marijuana to treat symptoms of AIDS. In 1991, Peron organized Proposition P, the San Francisco medical marijuana initiative, which passed with 79% of the vote. Prop P did not have force of law, but was simply a resolution declaring the city's support for medical marijuana. Santa Cruz and other cities followed suit with similar measures endorsing medical use of marijuana. The California legislature went on to approve medical marijuana bills by State Senator Milton Marks and Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, but they were vetoed by Governor Pete Wilson. Dennis Peron, suffering from his own personal ill health, worked closely with Dr. Tod Mikuriya to organize Proposition 215. Dr. Mikuriya had worked to decriminalize cannabis and declassify cannabis as a Schedule 1 controlled substance. Dr. Mikuriya spoke worldwide during the 1980s and 1990s in an effort to garner support for the medical use of cannabis. Threats to Dennis Peron would cause Peron to leave the United States following the passage of Proposition 215. Meanwhile, the federal government's interagency Task Force, in conjunction with the resources of California's Attorney General and California's Medical Board, worked tirelessly to harass, abuse, accuse and prosecute any physician willing to recommend cannabis for medicinal reasons. More than 15 medical doctors would be forced to fight to keep their medical licenses. Frustrated by the Governor's veto and by the Clinton administration's ongoing refusal to allow medical marijuana, Peron decided to turn to the voters. In 1995, Peron, Gieringer and Imler organized Californians for Compassionate Use, a PAC dedicated to putting medical marijuana on the ballot. Californians for Compassionate Use tapped veteran activist Chris Conrad to organize a grassroots, volunteer-based petition drive to collect the more than 400,000 signatures required to qualify for the ballot. As the deadline approached and it was becoming clear the unpaid signature gatherers were not on pace to qualify, a group of philanthropists, including George Soros, Peter Lewis, and George Zimmer, stepped in to pay for professional petition circulators through the Santa Monica, CA based political consulting firm of Zimmerman & Markman.〔(Ally for Dissidents in the Drug War )http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE7DF1E3BF932A2575AC0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all, NY Times, 9/11/96〕 The opposition campaign to Proposition 215 included a wide variety of law enforcement, drug prevention groups, and elected officials, including three former Presidents and California Attorney General Dan Lungren. Ballot arguments against the proposition were signed by prominent prosecutors and law enforcement officials who claimed that, while appearing well-intentioned, it was an overly vague, bad law that, "allows unlimited quantities of marijuana to be grown anywhere … in backyards or near schoolyards without any regulations or restrictions," and that it effectively legalized marijuana. Ballot arguments in support were signed by prominent oncologists, a cancer survivor, a nurse, and two politicians, Assemblyman John Vasconcellos and San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, who wrote that he supported Prop 215 because he didn't "want to send cancer patients to jail for using marijuana."〔(Ballot Pamphlet. Medical Use of Marijuana. Initiative Statute )http://www.chrisconrad.com/expert.witness/ballot_215.html.〕 The lead-up to the election saw a series of media-based attacks attempting to make the Yes on 215 Campaign a referendum on the controversial headquarters for the initiative, Dennis Peron's San Francisco Cannabis Buyer's Club. The very first of what would become more than 400 in the state, the SFCBC was a five-story full service medical marijuana club where qualified patients could in fact obtain marijuana for medical purposes (in various forms and qualities) in a retail setting. Far more than just a safe place for patients to consume, the club was a cultural center for many purposes. Dennis Peron would describe 1996 as a year when "the stars aligned for medical marijuana." It was a presidential election year with a Democrat incumbent in a heavily Democratic state. The AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s to the early 1990s as well as recent studies regarding relief for chemotherapy patients were opening people's minds to medical marijuana. On top of that, 60-year-old "Brownie" Mary Rathburn's arrest for baking marijuana brownies made headlines garnering sympathy for medical marijuana. Proposition 215 passed with 55.6% support, setting off a chain reaction across North America of medical marijuana legislation. Canada now also has federal medical marijuana legislation and also operates a medical marijuana program through Health Canada (which also involves the issuance of ID cards, issuance of recommendations by physicians and maintenance of patient records), although not completely identical to that of the state of California. The issue has ALSO been to the floor of the US Congress in the form of the Hinchey-Rohrbacher Amendment, the Truth in Trials Act, and the States Right to Medical Marijuana Act. None of this legislation succeeded in the U.S. Congress. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「California Proposition 215 (1996)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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