Pubdate: Sat, 11 Jan 2003
Source: Marshfield News-Herald, The (WI)
Copyright: 2003 Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.marshfieldnewsherald.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2236
Author: Gary Storck

PASSAGE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL PUSHED

Editor: Thanks to Ken Slezak for his reminder of Rep. Scott Suder's 
involvement in the caucus scandal and Suder's questionable relationship 
with disgraced ex-Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, "Legislators must clean up 
their mess"(Dec 28). It is a shame that Suder's unethical behavior did not 
receive the scrutiny it should have in the recent election campaign.

Wisconsinites should also remember how Jensen and Suder worked to 
deliberately deprive the sick and dying of legal access to medical 
marijuana by conspiring to bury last session's medical marijuana bill in 
Suder's Criminal Justice Committee, despite poll findings showing over 80 
percent of Wisconsinites support legalizing medical marijuana 
(www.immly.org/poll.htm).

As a medical marijuana activist with "Is My Medicine Legal Yet?" 
(www.immly.org), a board member of Wisconsin NORML (www.winorml.org) and 
active in other drug policy reform groups including the Drug Policy Forum 
of Wisconsin (www.drugsense.org/dpfwi), I personally have heard of close to 
10 Wisconsin patients facing criminal charges for using medical marijuana 
in 2002. Patients have had their doors kicked in by police, incurred huge 
legal bills, and have been sentenced to jail and had forfeiture proceedings 
initiated on their homes.

Is this the kind of state we want to live in, where corrupt politicians 
like Jensen and Suder make a mockery of Wisconsin's reputation as a clean 
government state while cynically working to withhold an essential medicine 
from Wisconsinites under the duress of arrest and jail? Please contact 
Governor-elect Jim Doyle and your legislators and request that they move 
quickly to pass a medical marijuana bill in 2003 so no more Wisconsinites 
will have to choose between easing their suffering and risking arrest and 
jail, or going without and facing the misery of uncontrollable pain.

Gary Storck

Director of communications Is My Medicine Legal YET?

Madison
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