Some California pot sellers are living the high life this summer — because
high-tech social-networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are
allowing them to legally swap street corners for the Internet.

"Just in! Baby Crunch, Spy Diesel and Critical Mass! Buy a quarter, get a
gram," read the "tweets" listing the strains of pot available from the Los
Angeles-based non-profit medical-marijuana dispensary Artists
Collective, which also promises "free delivery."

Artists Collective has the biggest online presence, with a snazzy Web site,
Facebook and MySpace pages and
the Twitter feed. San
Francisco's more staid The Green
Cross has a MySpace
page, but like Artists Collective lists its latest arrivals on its
own Web site.

"We've been open for six months, and I've been doing this project for 18
[months], and only in the last two weeks with a Twitter account has anybody
started paying attention to us," says Dann Halem, director of Artists
Collective. "That sends a message — an important one — and it really has been,
strangely enough, the fact that we're using Twitter that has opened the
door."

The Bush administration ruled that federal drug laws superseded them, and the
Supreme Court agreed, leading to many arrests, but in March the Obama
administration announced it would not seek prosecutions in situations where
state and federal laws conflicted.

"The Bush administration did have a no-tolerance policy, and the federal
government was doing more enforcement under the Bush administration," says Lt.
Paul Torrent of the Los Angeles Police Department's narcotics division. "I have
yet to see any official stance out of the new administration, so I — as many are
— am waiting to hear what the new stance is."

But though delivery services can advertise their wares publicly, they aren't
able yet to just offer up the goods, eBay-style, to the highest bidder.

"When a person calls us, what we do is contact their doctor and verify that
they are a patient," Halem said. "Then they have paperwork that they need to
fill out. We need to see their California I.D., and assuming that they jump
through every hoop and everything is as it should be, then they are welcome to
join our collective."

Once in the collective, members are good to go, gaining the right to grow and
sell their own marijuana back to the dispensary for a profit — all of which
raises eyebrows in other parts of the country.

Halem disagrees, arguing that his organization has followed all state
guidelines for managing the sale of medical marijuana, and is hoping to do some
good by creating $10,000 grants for struggling writers, actors, musicians and
performers with the money raised.

Torrent, the LAPD officer, points out that Artists Collective may be running
a risk by promoting itself online.

"[Internet ads] would have the potential to increase the sales of marijuana,"
he says. "Sales of marijuana out of the collective, if they're not operating
within the limits of being a non-profit organization ... are, by definition, in
violation of state law."

Still, if the dispensaries play by the rules, Torrent says, the police will
have no problem with them.

"Medical-marijuana collectives and clinics that are running within the
boundaries of [Proposition] 215 are non-profit collectives that support people
that have medical problems," he says. "I mean, that's what the Compassionate Use
Act [another name for Proposition 215] was all about."

The conflict between federal and state law may soon be even greater. State
Assembly Bill 390, introduced in March, would legalize the growing, sale and use
of marijuana, as well as levy heavy taxes on all parties involved.

To Halem, it's only logical that progress is being made to take advantage of
what he feels is one of the country's largest untapped resources.

"There is a $125 billion crop in this country right now, and it's illegal. A
lot of that money is going to drug cartels," he explains. "If you take $125
billion and put it into the pockets of non-profit charities in the country, you
can do enormous good. That's what we want to do with ours, and that's why we're
being as aggressive digitally as we are."

Kowalchyn, the New Jersey lawyer, isn't convinced by California's accepting
attitude toward the production and sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

"I don't think medical marijuana serves any medical purpose," he says. "I
think it's a scam. I don't think it has any therapeutic effects. I don't think
it has much in the way of painkilling effects. I mean, it's just an excuse for
people to smoke marijuana. If they want to smoke marijuana then they should just
smoke marijuana and not go through a charade of passing some law that permits
them to do it on some bogus therapeutic basis. That's just my
opinion."





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