Peron intends, he says, to run in the June 2 Republican primary against Attorney General Dan Lungren, who has repeatedly attempted to close his buyer's club. Peron, who needs 10,000 signatures to bypass the payment of a $5,000 filing fee, has already gathered 1,500 names.

'I'm running against my good buddy Danny, who is essentially trying to put me in prison for life," explained Peron.

In 1996 California agents seized approximately 40 lbs. of marijuana from Peron's San Francisco Buyer's Club, charging Peron and five others with "felony sale and transportation" of marijuana.

Peron, the club's founder, is a gay male, and a VietnamVet who lost his longtime lover to AIDS. Recently, the 1st District Court of Appeals prohibited marijuana clubs from making legal sales.

Peron refuses to stop selling and distributing the pot crops he houses. He seems to foresee new, more forceful attempts by authorities to stop him. Emphasizing that he does not intend to close his doors, he says, "We're waiting for the tanks to come in. It's going to be our Tiananmen Square."

Governor Pete Wilson, having completed two terms, currently has two contenders seeking his seat, the Attorney General and Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat. Senator Feinstein, however, has not yet announced.

Peron believes, as do experts in many locales, that legalizing many currently popular drugs would remove them from the controlling hands of street gangs, eliminating the profits they make through illegal channels.

Such a move, he says, would strip street gangs of their cash-flow.

Now that the state's Attorney General is Peron's political opponent, some speculate that it may become, for now, at least, difficult to arrest him because of appearances. There is, in California, considerable sentiment in favor of using marijuana medicinally.

"Everybody knows it makes patients feel better and gives them an appetite," says Marvin Savage, a Californian who favors legalization.