Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK) Contact: http://www.adn.com/ Copyright: 1998 The Anchorage Daily News Author: LIZ RUSKIN Daily News reporter Pubdate: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 MEDICAL MARIJUANA: COMPASSION OR CRIME? Prop. 8 allows pot for those with debilitating illness Kevin Sampson is not a well man. He is battling AIDS, and his 6-foot body is gaunt. He has to take handfuls of pills each day, and yet even the smell of food or the sight of his pills can make him horribly nauseous. Eating is one of his major chores. Sometimes his body can hardly tolerate water. How does he manage? Smoking pot, he says. "I really attribute to marijuana the fact that I'm even alive today," said Sampson, a 43-year-old Air Force veteran and former state employee. Sampson, when his illness lets him, is campaigning for the medical marijuana initiative, which will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot as Proposition 8. Opponents say the measure will open the door to the legalization and abuse of illicit drugs. "All this is, for the most part, is a big public lie to the people of this state," said Public Safety commissioner Ron Otte. Otte said Proposition 8 would make it virtually impossible to enforce the state's marijuana laws. He and other opponents say the measure is about legalizing drugs, not compassion for the sick. "The people who are supporting this are using people like Kevin in order to legalize the use of marijuana," said Matthew Fagnani, chairman of Alaskans for Truth on the Medical Marijuana Initiative, which formed about a month ago. Sampson dismisses the arguments of people like Fagnani. "It's all politics," he said, "and it's critical to me." The initiative, if it becomes law, works like this: A patient diagnosed with cancer, glaucoma, AIDS or another "debilitating medical condition" would need a doctor's written recommendation that marijuana would help them alleviate problems such as severe pain, severe nausea, seizures and muscle spasms. The Department of Health and Social Services would establish a registry of people entitled to use medical marijuana, and patients could get identification cards to ward off arrest. A qualified person could possess up to one ounce of marijuana or six plants. Medical marijuana use would not be allowed in public. California and Arizona passed similar medical marijuana initiatives in 1996. This isn't the first time Alaskans have voted on marijuana. In 1990, voters decided to recriminalize possession. A state Supreme Court decision in 1975 held that possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use was protected by the privacy clause of the Alaska Constitution. Proposition 8 was endorsed by the Alaska Nurses Association in September. Its supporters say it is narrowly tailored to help the suffering of the terminally and seriously ill. "This isn't Cheech and Chong," said Jim Kentch, who has been working with Alaskans for Medical Rights, the group that brought the initiative. The campaign manager, former legislator David Finkelstein, said he talked to cancer patients, people with multiple sclerosis and other ailments who say marijuana has helped them. But Fagnani says the initiative is broad enough to allow marijuana use by people suffering from sports injuries. There's no scientific evidence, he said, that smoking marijuana has medical benefits, a claim the other side vigorously denies. Sampson's account of the help he gets from marijuana is not proof, Fagnani said. "Kevin Sampson, he's a nice guy, and he's got a very bad disease. But it's anecdotal," Fagnani said. The measure is opposed by both leading candidates for governor, Democrat Tony Knowles and Republican John Lindauer. It is also opposed by former U.S. Attorney Wev Shea. One of Shea's concerns is that the potency of marijuana varies greatly. How, he asked, can a doctor recommend that a patient use marijuana when no one knows the potency of the drug the patient has? There are prescription medications, including Marinol, a synthesized derivative of marijuana, that can help patients battle nausea, Shea said. He said he's also concerned that marijuana grown under the auspices of medical use would be sold illegally for recreational use. To counter those arguments, Sampson pulls out a plastic tub of medications he's been prescribed to combat nausea and keep his weight up. He's got steroids, human growth factor, Marinol and a variety of other pills. Nothing, he said works as well, with as few side effects, as smoking marijuana. The pills, for example, are difficult for him to keep down. And like the dozens of other pills he has to take each day, if he can't keep them down, the don't do any good. Marinol, he said, is especially hard to digest. It also leaves him stoned for 8 to 10 hours, he said. "I can't get anything done," he said. Smoking marijuana, he said, both stimulates his appetite and quells the nausea. "Sure, I'm stoned for half an hour, but that's something I can live with," he said. As for the arguments that medical marijuana could be sold on the street, Sampson said that's no different than the hundreds of other prescription medications he has. His bottle of 200 Marinol capsules, for example, has a legal, retail value of $1,500. And the steroids? "I could sell this for thousands of dollars at any gym," he said, holding up a small box. He has morphine and codeine and a host of other drugs he could sell illegally if he were a drug dealer, he said. His marijuana, which he bakes to kill fungi and then stores in a small Tupperware container, cost him $30 and has lasted him for several months. It took him three months to find someone to sell to him, he said, which is a issue the initiative doesn't address. The initiative doesn't say where patients would get the marijuana, or the seeds if they decided to grow their own. The initiative also wouldn't grant immunity from federal laws, such as those banning interstate transport of drugs. What the initiative would do for him, he said, is provide him protection from state and city law enforcement. "I won't have to lose my home," he said. Fagnani admits he doesn't have a lot to counter Sampson. "When you're talking about the compassionate use of marijuana, it's hard to debate," he said. "I don't win in an argument with a guy like Kevin. But it's not guys like Kevin that this law is bad for." Marijuana, he said, is a "highly addictive drug" that lowers the immune system and contains carcinogens. "We're being misled into believing that this (initiative) is to help Kevin, when it's not," he said. Fagnani runs Worksafe, an alcohol- and drug-testing firm. He has been accused of opposing the initiative to benefit his employer, but he said that the initiative probably would benefit the company's bottom line because, with more marijuana use, there would be more demand for testing. He started the campaign, he said, when he learned that polling data showed proposition 8 had a good chance of passing. As for the motivation of the other said, Fagnani points out that Alaskans for Medical Rights, got nearly all of its $135,000 budget from Americans for Medical Rights, which Fagnani calls a "California pro-pot group." The Outside interest shows the initiative is about legalizing marijuana, he said. Finkelstein said some of the people campaigning for Proposition 8 probably do want to see marijuana decriminalized, but he said that's not the motivation behind this initiative. "You just have to look who this campaign is composed of - doctors, nurses, patients, friends of patients," he said. "The only thing we have in common is we think medical marijuana is a humane treatment for Alaska patients." * Reporter Liz Ruskin can be reached at ON THE BALLOT This bill would allow patients to use marijuana for certain medical purposes. A doctor must find that the patient has a debilitating medical condition that might benefit from marijuana. An eligible minor could use medical marijuana only under the consent and control of a parent. There would be limits on how much medical marijuana a patient could possess. Patients and their primary care-givers who comply with this law would not be guilty of a crime. The state would create a confidential registry of patients who may use medical marijuana. Nonmedical use of marijuana would still be a crime. Should this initiative become law? - --- Checked-by: Don Beck