ACTIVISTS DEMAND LEGAL MARIJUANA

Is My Medicine Legal Yet?

Elvy Musikka had her medication on hand as she protested in front of Al
Gore's George Street campaign office Sunday.

The plastic orange prescription bottle held a dozen marijuana cigarettes.
But Musikka wasn't worried when she lit a joint, even though two New
Brunswick police officers calmly watched the rally supporting the
legalization of marijuana from across the street.

The California resident is one of only eight patients in the country
authorized to smoke marijuana for medical reasons. Every month, she
receives 300 joints of freeze-dried marijuana from the federal government
to treat her glaucoma.

She has already lost all vision in one eye with traditional treatment and
faced the prospect of going blind until her doctor suggested she try marijuana.

Jacki Rickert wasn't as fortunate. Neither were Cheryl Miller or Edward
Smith. At yesterday's rally, organized by the Cheryl-Heart Project and The
Legalize Marijuana Party, they and other activists shared both their
stories and their rage over the government's long- standing designation of
cannabis as a controlled dangerous substance.

According to Chuck Thomas of the Marijuana Policy Project, based in
Washington, D.C., Gore is a particular focus because of his uncompromising
stance on the issue.

Fellow presidential candidate George W. Bush, on the other hand, said the
issue should be left up to particular states, while the Libertarian and
Green parties support the legalization of cannabis. Even reform party
candidate Pat Buchanan, known for his right-wing leanings, feels that the
issue should lay between doctor and patient, Thomas said.

For several of yesterday's activists, the nation's drug policy has become a
matter of life or death. They include the wheelchair-bound Rickert, who
suffers from Ehers-Danios Syndrome and was originally included in the
federal government's limited roster of patients authorized to receive
marijuana.

But the Madison, Wis., resident no longer qualified for the program when
the federal government closed out new applicants in 1992. Since then, she
has self-medicated herself with marijuana to relive her chronic condition,
only to have her home searched in March.

"I felt like Al Capone for a month," she joked sadly.

Smith, who comes from Kentucky, suffers from both terminal cancer and AIDS.
Marinol, a prescription medication that contains the active ingredient of
marijuana in pill form, didn't help because he was too nauseated to keep
the pills down. He's made it a mission to push for the legalization of
marijuana, going so far as to smoke a joint in Gore's Austin, Texas
campaign office.

"I'm dying of two terminal illnesses," he pointed out. "What the hell can
they do to me to make it any worse?"

In front of the dozen activists, Jim and Cheryl Miller of Toms River
engaged in "civil disobedience" as Jim fed his wife marijuana-laced
chocolate to ease her multiple sclerosis. Cheryl has had multiple sclerosis
for the past 30 years, and can only move her head.

"Did anyone get hurt?" Jim Miller implored.

Dr. Steven Fenischel, a physician with a practice in Absecon, said he has
urged New Jersey doctors to support the legalization of marijuana for
medicinal purposes, but to no avail.

"I think a lot of physicians today are more interested in investing in
pharmaceutical houses," he said.

Unlike Musikka, college professor Julian Heicklen wasn't authorized to
light the "torch of freedom," as he called it. He wasn't even sick.
Heicklen, who is the Libertarian candidate for attorney general in
Pennsylvania, started smoking a joint every Thursday afternoon 2 1/2 years
ago to protest the war on drugs, which he considers antithetical to a free
society.

"I've been arrested 15 times and imprisoned five times," said the elderly
man, holding a brightly colored protest sign. "Based on my arrest record,
I'm the most dangerous man in America."

Jennifer Micale: (732) 246-5500, Ext. 7217. E-mail: jmicale@thnt.com

from the Asbury Park Press

Published: October 23, 2000