City Supervisor Mark Leno said he drafted the measure out of frustration when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) shut down clubs that distributed medical marijuana in California. In 1996, voters in the state passed Proposition 215, allowing for medical-marijuana use.

"If the federal government insists on standing in our way locally, we must take matters into our own hands and protect the lives of our community members and protect their right to access life-saving medicine," said Leno, a Democratic nominee for the state Assembly seat representing the eastern half of San Francisco.

Leno said the marijuana would be cultivated on vacant city property. "We have a lot of land. That's not going to be a problem," he said.

The ballot proposal asks voters if the city should explore implementing a marijuana-growing program. If the measure is approved and the Board of Supervisors and mayor enact legislation to move forward with the program, San Francisco would become the first city in the United States to grow its own medical marijuana.

If the city proceeds to do so, Richard Meyer, spokesman for the DEA's regional office in San Francisco, said the agency would enforce the federal law. "Cultivation, possession and distribution of marijuana is illegal under the Controlled Substances Act," said Meyer. "Unless Congress changes the law and makes marijuana a legal substance, then we have to do our job and enforce the law, whether or not it's popular."

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