Pubdate: Sun, 30 Jul 2000
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2000 The Denver Post
Contact:  1560 Broadway, Denver, CO 80202
Fax: (303) 820.1502
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Forum: http://www.denverpost.com/voice/voice.htm
Author: Ron Bain
Note: Ron Bain is a former Western Slope newspaper editor and past
chairman of the Libertarian Party of Colorado. He owns and operates a
resume writing service in Boulder.

MARIJUANA CONTROVERSY CONTINUES

Coloradans will have a second opportunity to vote on
medical marijuana in November, and this time, by court order, their
votes will be counted.

During a 1998 ballot access court battle that lasted almost until
Election Day, the group sponsoring the medical marijuana initiative in
this state, Coloradans for Medical Rights, tangled with then Secretary
of State Vikki Buckley over the exact number of signatures on their
petitions.

The ballots got printed with the initiative on them while the court
battle raged on. Ultimately, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that,
although it was too late to reprint the ballots, votes cast in 1998
for medical marijuana would not be counted. Instead, the initiative
would reappear on the 2000 ballot for official consideration.

After Buckley died, it was discovered that petitions containing
several hundred signatures had been mysteriously misplaced within the
secretary of state's office. If the initiative passes, Colorado would
be the ninth state to challenge the federal government's "zero
tolerance" policies by legalizing cannabis in one form or another.
California was the first in 1996, passing a citizen-sponsored medical
marijuana initiative by a comfortable margin. Earlier this month,
Hawaii's governor signed into law a combined medical
marijuana/agricultural hemp bill sent to him by the state
legislature.

Since 1996, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, Maine, the state of
Washington and Washington, D.C., have approved initiatives to
liberalize laws regarding the growth, possession and/or medical use of
cannabis.

Coloradans for Medical Rights, the original sponsoring organization,
views the initiative as a referendum on the doctor/patient
relationship.

"This gives patients and doctors, not the government, one more
treatment op tion for glaucoma, cancer, AIDS and other serious
illnesses," said Luther Sy mons, president of CMR. Reorganized for the
upcoming election fight, CMR plans to use grass-roots politicking as
well as mass media advertising to ensure a victory, according to Symons.

"In 1998, we were able to do some sophisticated exit polling that
showed it would have passed with 60 percent of the vote," he said,
citing recent polls show ing that support has grown to 70 percent.

Some of that support is soft, but not for the reasons that opponents
hope. Many supporters of the initiative believe it's only a step in
the right direction.

"I'll hold my nose and vote yes purely for the symbolic value in favor
of medical marijuana," said Tom Barrus, an expharmacist and
legalization advocate who held the curious position of being the only
qualified objector to the initiative during the original ballot title
setting process. Barrus cites "bad language" in the initiative for his
reservations.

Laura Kriho, spokesperson for the Colorado Hemp Initiative Project,
said, "We support the initiative because it might help some patients.
And we see it as a referendum on the relegalization of cannabis for
all uses."

The initiative would create a state registry of authorized users of
medical marijuana and actually lower the felony threshold for
possession by non-registry users to eight ounces from 16 ounces.
Barrus said another constitutional amendment probably would be
required in two years to correct these problems.

Opponents have recruited medical professionals who say marijuana does
not provide any relief that is not readily available through other,
legal medicines; there are many other medical professionals who
attribute remarkable medicinal qualities to cannabis. A federal judge
in California, after reconsidering that issue, agrees that marijuana
has potential medicinal value. U.S. District Court Judge Charles
Breyer, under appellate court orders to reconsider marijuana for
seriously ill patients who have no effective legal alternative, in
mid-July modified an earlier injunction against an Oakland, Calif.,
cannabis club, allowing distribution to resume.

Peter McWilliams, a California AIDS victim who could only stomach his
highly toxic medicines with a few tokes, died earlier this year by
drowning in his own vomit. Denied the medical necessity defense in
federal court, where the judge refused to even acknowledge the
existence of California's medical marijuana law, McWilliams
reluctantly accepted a plea bargain on federal charges of growing
marijuana for personal use. Serving a probation sentence and subjected
to drug testing, he gave up marijuana, but without it, had extreme
difficulty keeping his AIDS medicine down.

As the McWilliams case shows, even if Colorado voters decide to
legalize medical cannabis, voters cannot prevent the federal
government from enforcing its drug laws within Colorado, nor can the
voters require that federal prosecutors and judges show an iota of
compassion toward people suffering from severe, life-threatening
illnesses. There's no medicine for hearts empty of compassion.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Derek