Pubdate: Mon, 30 Sep 2002
Source: Olympian, The (WA)
Copyright: 2002, The Olympian
Contact: http://www.theolympian.com/forms/lettrfrm.shtml
Website: http://www.theolympian.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/319
Author: Alma D. Sharpe, The Olympian

PROPONENTS OF MEDICAL USE SAY WAR ON MARIJUANA ISN'T WORKING

Protesters Rally At Capitol, Say Patients' Rights Are Threatened

OLYMPIA -- Supporters of the medical use of marijuana defied sometimes 
rainy and cold weather Sunday to take a stand against what they argue are 
more frequent government attacks on patients' rights.

A group that fluctuated between 10 and two dozen people gathered on the 
Capitol Campus, holding up banners to passersby and motorists, trying to 
drive home their point.

Organizer Lee Newbury, director of the South Puget Sound chapter of the 
National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, said state and federal 
government officials are moving to do away with patients' right to use 
marijuana, which is legally protected in several states.

He cited a raid early this month in Santa Cruz, Calif., where federal 
agents seized marijuana plants from the property of a medical marijuana 
collective. Founders of the group were arrested.

There's also been a move to enforce a federal law that prohibits financial 
aid from reaching college students with drug infractions in their 
backgrounds, he said.

"We want to create awareness that this war on drugs isn't working," Newbury 
said. "The will of the people is not being supported."

Controversial treatment

Bruce Buckner of Olympia attended the event Sunday, carrying a sign that 
classified him as a medical marijuana patient and also a victim of the 
criminal justice system.

He said he's used marijuana since he was in college to combat nausea and 
other problems related to Crohn's disease, which affects the digestive tract.

"I do it to fight nausea and because it helps me eat," Buckner said.

But along with the relief marijuana brings him, Buckner said, he's had to 
swallow the cost of fighting an arrest a year ago for growing the plant.

His case is in appeal in Grays Harbor County, and he said he's doing 
everything he can to establish his legal right to the drug.

"It's taken my life savings to do this," he said.

Dr. David Edwards, a retired pathologist, said he's supported the medical 
use of marijuana for years because he believes in its healing benefits. And 
he said he's bothered by the denial by the medical community, as well as 
the government, of such benefits.

"It pains me to be lied to by my government and my profession," he said. "I 
hate to have (medical use of marijuana) demonized in that fashion."

As a pathologist, Edwards said, he conducted and reviewed thousands of 
autopsies and found that many deaths were caused by alcohol and tobacco abuse.

"But I never found a case linked to the use of marijuana," he said.
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