Pubdate: Fri, 20 Sep 2002
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Arthur Santana

COURT BLOCKS D.C. VOTE ON MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

Efforts to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in the District were 
blocked yesterday when a federal appeals court overturned, without 
explanation, an earlier court ruling that had cleared the way for the issue 
to be put before D.C. voters.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed a 
ruling by the U.S. District Court, which in March declared unconstitutional 
a congressional amendment that prevented the city from spending money to 
put a medical marijuana initiative on the ballot.

The three appellate justices said in their order that they made the ruling 
yesterday because today is the city's deadline for printing ballots for the 
November election. Appeals judges David S. Tatel, Merrick B. Garland and 
Stephen F. Williams said their decision "will be more fully explained in an 
opinion to be filed at a later date."

The decision ends a 14-month campaign by the District-based Marijuana 
Policy Project to again put the marijuana initiative before voters. It 
would protect from arrest people who, on the advice of their doctors, use 
marijuana to alleviate nausea, stimulate appetite or ease pain. Eight 
states have similar medical marijuana laws.

This is the second time that the measure has been blocked in the District. 
In 1998, D.C. voters passed a similar initiative, 69 percent to 31 percent. 
But a congressional rider to the D.C. appropriations bill prevented the 
initiative from taking effect.

Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), who sponsored the rider, said in a 
statement yesterday that "despite a concerted public relations campaign to 
distort the real dangers of drugs, such as marijuana, the pro-drug lobby 
ran head-on today with the rule of law and a court, which recognized the 
right and responsibility of Congress to protect citizens from dangerous, 
mind-altering narcotics."

The case, Barr said, "was about whether federal taxpayer dollars should be 
used to support the drug legalization effort in the nation's capital, and 
the court's decision today was a clear and emphatic 'No.' "

The Marijuana Policy Project sponsors had hoped to get the measure on the 
November ballot.

"It is too bad that a three-judge panel was able to thwart the will of tens 
of thousands of D.C. voters," said Steve Fox, a spokesman for the group. 
"It is sadder still that this ruling will cause the suffering of seriously 
ill patients in the city to continue."

In July 2001, the group filed a request with the D.C. Board of Elections 
and Ethics to circulate petitions for the initiative. The board denied that 
request, citing the Barr amendment -- which prevented the District from 
spending money to put the measure on the ballot.

The group then filed suit against the federal and District governments, 
calling the Barr amendment an abridgment of political speech. On March 28, 
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled in the group's favor.

Additional legal wranglings, which weren't settled until June, left the 
group with only 25 days to gather the more than 17,000 signatures necessary 
to place the initiative on the November ballot.

The group turned in more than 38,000 signatures, but the elections board 
said the medical marijuana advocates had come up short of the required 
signatures in one city ward. An extensive recount, however, showed that the 
board had failed to count hundreds of valid signatures.

But by then the U.S. Department of Justice had appealed the federal court 
decision. An elections board spokesman, Bill O'Field, said this week that 
board members were waiting for the appeals court ruling before issuing its 
own decision on whether the initiative could be on the ballot in November.

The court ruling "was very disappointing," Fox said. "But as Al Gore found 
out, sometimes you fight the good fight only to have your legs cut out from 
under you by the court."

The initiative is not dead, Fox said. If the Barr amendment is repealed by 
Congress, he said, the initiative could appear on the ballot in the next 
citywide election.
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MAP posted-by: Alex