MEDICAL MARIJUANA NETWORK SOUGHT

Potential Users Go To Workshop To Find Ways To Acquire Drug

SPARKS -- Potential medical marijuana users said Tuesday they worry about
finding doctors willing to let them use pot and obtain seeds to grow it.

The handful of people who showed up at a workshop to discuss Nevada's
medical marijuana program also said they want a way to communicate with
other legal marijuana users.

One Fallon woman, who declined to give her name, told Department of
Agriculture representatives that there should be a medical marijuana
newsletter or a group formed to let users share information.

The Department of Agriculture is the state agency designated by the
Legislature to carry out the medical marijuana program.

Under a law passed in June, qualified patients suffering from AIDS, cancer,
nausea and other illnesses may grow at many as seven marijuana plants with
the permission of their doctors. The law goes into effect Oct. 1 and the
Agriculture Department is gathering information from potential users that
may become part of the program regulations.

A similar workshop will be conducted at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in room 4401 of
the Sawyer Building in Las Vegas.

Cecile Crofoot, manger of the marijuana program, said the law does not
allow her agency to reveal names of legal users of marijuana.

But after hearing several potential users say they want to talk with each
other and share information, Crofoot said she would try to accommodate them.

She said legal users might sign written statements that their names could
be given to other users. That way, a medical marijuana network could be
created.

"Networking will be the key to making this program a success," Agriculture
Department Director Paul Iverson said.

The 28-year-old Fallon woman said she needs marijuana to alleviate pain
from spinal cord and nerve damage injuries she suffered when she fell 60
feet while rock climbing.

"I am not currently using it," she said. "I have written off my doctor
(recommending marijuana). I just need to find a legitimate doctor willing
to do it."

Crofoot told her that doctors face no risk if they allow their patients to
use marijuana. A signed statement by a physician is all that's needed for
patient approval under the program.

"Once doctors understand the program better I think they will be more
willing," she said.

Gary Brown, a 54-year-old Vietnam War veteran, said he wants to use
marijuana to treat injuries he suffered in 1967 when he was shot during the
war.

"I am 70 percent disabled," he said. "The VA won't do anything (with the
medical marijuana program). I guess I will have to find another doctor."

Brown and other potential users said they are concerned because the law
provides them no legal way to acquire seeds.

"Everything about getting started is illegal," he said.

Numerous Web sites based in other countries offer seeds for sale, but
purchasing them for shipment to the United States is illegal.

Once they acquire seeds, marijuana is an easy plant to grow, according to
Bob Gronowski, administrator of the Plant Industry Division of the
Agriculture Department.

Gronowski said the plant can be grown as a perennial and that one plant,
properly treated, can supply all of a user's needs. Iverson said most
people will grow plants indoors under grow lights.