THE CAMPAIGN TO DECRIMINALIZE POT

Already Approved By Voters In Eight Other States, Efforts To Legalize
Medical Marijuana Are Gearing Up In Ohio

The outside of John Precup's tent is adorned with quotes from the 1999
Institute of Medicine report--a 288-page affirmation of drug reform
sentiment ordered by Barry McCaffrey's White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy in 1997, and downplayed by the same drug czar when the
results were released two years later.

"There is no evidence that marijuana serves as a stepping stone on the
basis of its particular physiological effect," the report reads, as
reprinted on the tent. "The accumulated data indicate a potential
therapeutic value for cannabinoid drugs, particularly for symptoms such as
pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation."

They're the words of a government-ordered report, not Precup, and they
provide a bit of enlightenment for the mostly young, politically curious
passersby at this year's June 2 Hemp Fest. Many stop to ask Precup
questions. Some sign a petition in support of medical marijuana.

The Mansfield-area bait store owner has been fending off nausea since he
was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. But he wasn't turned
on to pot activism until he read a statement from Ohio Deputy Attorney
General Mark Weaver, quoted in the November 28, 1996, Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Earlier that year, Governor George Voinovich and Attorney General Betty
Montgomery were caught off guard when they overlooked a provision entered
into an omnibus criminal sentencing bill by Representative David Hartley
which allowed a medical necessity defense for those caught with marijuana.
Basically, courts would be able to take a doctor's prescription into
consideration should somebody be busted with pot.

Of course, with egg on their faces and not wanting to look "soft on crime,"
as Democratic attorney general candidate Richard Cordray would later
disingenuously label Montgomery because of the incident, state officials
went into damage control mode--resentful that the provision had passed
underneath their noses.

"This loophole will last about as long as the white meat on a Thanksgiving
turkey," Weaver insisted.

That said, Precup planned to stick around as long as the gizzards. "That
really hurt me," he recalled. "That very quote is what got me involved in
this whole entire movement. I thought, 'How trite is that? How insensitive
is that to say when people are laying there and dying and puking?'"

The state legislature closed the medical marijuana "loophole" with record
speed during the next General Assembly. On February 5, 1997, the Senate
passed the bill 30-3. On March 4, it passed the House 64-33 and it was
signed into law a week later.

Precup's frequent partner and fellow activist Kenny Schweickart, leader of
For a Better Ohio, tried putting a medical marijuana and industrial hemp
ballot initiative in the hands of voters the next year, but stopped
collecting signatures after receiving 56,000 of the 200,774 needed. Precup
has been fighting ever since to get a medical necessity defense back into
state law.

While he has a prescription for Marinol, a schedule-III drug patented by
the Columbus-based Roxane laboratories, Precup said the synthetic THC pills
aren 't as good as the real thing.

"I take three of these every day per what the prescription recommends for
nausea. Problem is, there are mornings I wake up and I can't even keep
water down. And this pill isn't going to stay in my stomach long enough to
do me any good," Precup explained. "So I have a marijuana pipe right beside
me in bed. If it's that bad, I'll just take a few puffs off of that and
I'll be OK for a while. I can take sips of water then and move up to toast
and be able to actually eat something later in the day."

Precup's pills are paid for, for the most part, by Medicaid. He argues that
decriminalizing the real thing would allow him to grow his own plants and
save taxpayer money. In the month of April, 225 Marinol claims were
registered with the state of Ohio, and were reimbursed to the tune of
$51,063. While Marinol represents only 2.85 percent of all claims for
anti-emetic drugs, almost 13 percent of Medicaid money spent on such drugs
is spent on Marinol, according to Ohio Department of Job and Family
Services data.

Precup remains hopeful that such taxpayer savings will help Ohio
constituents sympathize with his plight. While they were not receptive to
the idea of all-out marijuana legalization, 48 percent of Franklin County
voters said they would vote for a ballot initiative legalizing the medical
use of marijuana with a doctor's prescription, while 30 percent said they'd
vote against it and 22 percent were undecided, according to a 1996 tracking
survey conducted by Erney and Busher Associates and commissioned by the
Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism. The report suggested that
medical marijuana legalization, with a doctor's prescription, would pass on
the Ohio ballot.

The ongoing efforts of Precup and successful medical marijuana efforts in
nine states has been met with less than open arms in Washington, D.C.
During visits to Fort Hayes High School and the Columbus Metropolitan Club
on March 8, 2000, McCaffrey echoed his frequent criticism of the medical
marijuana movement. When a student at Fort Hayes asked McCaffrey about
medical marijuana, the drug czar said that in 10 years, marijuana won't
even be considered for medical reasons.

While cannabis as medicine is nothing new to humanity, it is a relatively
new phenomenon for the post-war United States. The Chinese herbal medicine
directory Pen Ts'ao acknowledged as early as 2800 B.C. that cannabis was
useful in treating constipation, gout, malaria, rheumatism and menstrual
problems, according to Leslie Iversen's The Science of Marijuana. So too
did Arab and Indian cultures utilize cannabis for medical practices.

In the mid-19th century, cannabis caught on in Western medicine, when a
young doctor named William O'Shaughnessy began publicizing its medical
benefits and it became popular in Britain. By 1854, cannabis extract was a
recognized medicine in the United States, albeit not wildly popular,
according to Iversen's research, in no small part because potencies varied
from pharmacist to pharmacist and because cannabis could not be given via
injection.

More than a century later, with AIDS wasting syndrome and cancer side
effects at the forefront of concern, the medical marijuana debate reached
its crescendo in 1996, when voters in California and Arizona overwhelmingly
approved medical marijuana ballot measures. The Clinton administration
responded to the voters' intent later that year with a plan to criminally
prosecute physicians who prescribed or recommended marijuana in those states.

Despite federal agents hassling doctors and buyers' clubs in California,
voters in six other states went on to approve medical marijuana initiatives
and the Hawaii state legislature approved its own medical marijuana measure
on April 25, 2000.

This year, Schweickart, Precup and fellow activists planned to resurrect
the medical marijuana debate in Ohio, meeting with about 30 state
legislators in hopes of having a bill introduced, according to Precup. But
with the budget debate overwhelming this year's General Assembly, Precup
has set his sights on 2002 to get legislation introduced.

While most in the drug reform movement see medical marijuana as a viable
issue, there has been some debate as to it's priority among pot activism.
Some reformers would rather see a stronger decriminalization or
legalization push without singling out medical marijuana as a separate issue.

Don Ruben is one of them. The reform-minded criminal defense attorney made
a name for himself taking on hundreds of drug cases in the 1980s. While he
said he agrees with medical marijuana's validity, he said the efforts of
marijuana activists should be on much-needed decriminalization, without
such an emphasis on medical marijuana.

"I think that it gets confusing to people because you know you get all
these people that are against medical marijuana that say, 'Well, what these
people really are after or a great number of them are after is to
decriminalize marijuana and they're just using this,'" Ruben said. "I'm
saying let's cut all this out."

That concern has certainly provided fodder for McCaffrey and others to
cling to. After last year's Fort Hayes presentation, McCaffrey told
Columbus Alive that there was "no question" medical marijuana was a front
for marijuana legalization.

"To some extent it's all a crock," McCaffrey said. "I think it's an easy
question. If it's a medical issue, let the [National Institute of Health]
and the [Food and Drug Administration] decide it, based on clinical
controlled trials. But at the end of the day, no doctor is actually hopeful
that you can get a big doobie as the pain management device for prostate
cancer."

While the American Medical Association rejected a proposal earlier this
month to support the "compassionate use" of medical marijuana, other
medical groups including the American Public Health Association, New
England Journal of Medicine and dozens of other state and national based
organizations have been supporters.

Constantino Benedetti, a pain specialist at the Arthur G. James Cancer
Hospital and Research Institute, said he doesn't yet have an opinion on
medical marijuana, but would like to see more research conducted in the
field. He said that while he doesn't encourage it, some patients have
reported smoking marijuana.

"Certainly some patients make comments on it," he said. "In the patients
that use it, the majority that use it get a positive response."

With Ohio targeted as the next state in which the Campaign for New Drug
Policies plans to push a ballot initiative favoring treatment over jail
time for non-violent drug users, Schweickart recently asked the
California-based group if it would include in the initiative's language a
medical marijuana provision. While Schweickart hasn't heard back from the
group, Campaign for New Drug Policies Attorney Bill Zimmerman earlier told
Columbus Alive that the group wasn't pursuing a medical marijuana
initiative in Ohio because of already-lax definitions of misdemeanor
marijuana possession here. State law allows up to about 3.5 ounces for a
minor misdemeanor and seven ounces for a misdemeanor possession offense.

The medical marijuana movement suffered a black eye when the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled last month that the federal government could prosecute those
who distribute marijuana, even to medical users. The court's ruling,
however, did nothing to invalidate states' medical necessity defenses.

But it was the media coverage of the court's ruling that made activist John
Precup wince. "I think it was horrible," he said. "They said that medical
marijuana is dealt a stunning defeat and a devastating blow...I think it
got people, even in our movement, thinking twice about it."

Not Precup. His Ohio Patient Network grew by 65 members during this year's
Hemp Fest alone. Still, winning over legislators has been at times a
frustrating endeavor.

"You don't know what else to say to them," he said. "What can I say to you,
what can I tell you? My doctor is in favor of it. The science is done. What
more do you need, you know? The polling has been done. The people are
behind you. I don't know what it's going to take, honestly."