EFFORTS FOR BILL ON POT GO ON

High court ruling against medical use doesn't faze Murphy;
'Compassionate' law sought; Rally in Columbia today is first of 3
planned this week

The champion of legislation that would make medical uses of marijuana
legal in Maryland says he is undeterred by a Supreme Court ruling
yesterday that federal law prohibits such a use.

Del. Donald E. Murphy, a Catonsville Republican, plans to be outside
The Mall in Columbia this morning, waving signs at a rally supporting
medical marijuana. Murphy has sponsored two medical marijuana bills
named after Darrell Putman, a former Green Beret and Howard County
farmer who died of cancer,

Today's rally is the first of three scheduled this week in Columbia,
Frederick and Silver Spring. They are being co-sponsored by the
Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington advocacy group.

"I'm just as happy the [federal] case is out of the way," Murphy said
of the 8-0 vote by the Supreme Court in a 1998 case involving
California clubs founded to distribute the drug after approval of a
state law legalizing medical marijuana.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, said the
federal law making marijuana illegal contains no exception for medical
uses. The law says marijuana "has no currently accepted medical use,"
Thomas noted.

Murphy said a clear outcome in the case, though not an encouraging one
from his point of view, might help state legislators who had said they
were waiting for the Supreme Court ruling before deciding on the
issue. Still, he concedes that getting a law legalizing medical uses
of marijuana passed in Maryland will take years, adding that "the
people using it now don't have a few years."

At first, Murphy said, Putman resisted using marijuana to help him
regain weight because it was illegal. By the time he began using it to
prepare for a potentially lifesaving stem-cell procedure, he had
"waited until he was beyond repair," Murphy said. Putman died in
December 1999, just before the first legalization bill was introduced.

Two Howard Democrats who co-sponsored last year's bill with Murphy and
Howard Republican Robert H. Kittleman, the House minority leader, said
they won't be at the rally today.

Del. Shane Pendergrass said she remains firm in her support of medical
marijuana. Del. Frank S. Turner said the Supreme Court decision will
make it harder to get a bill passed in Maryland.

Turner also indicated that his support for such a bill is wavering.
"I've done a lot of research since I signed on the bill. I think the
bill has some validity, but there are substitutes and derivatives that
have the same effect," he said.

Pendergrass said she is not wavering. "I absolutely support the
concept. I'm still of the portion of a generation who is wondering why
marijuana was illegal and so many other things aren't, starting with
alcohol," she said.

Murphy said of the Supreme Court ruling, "This does not preclude the
state of Maryland from having a compassionate-use law."

Richard Schmitz, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy
Project, said that despite the federal law, "the fact is that 99
percent of all marijuana arrests are made by state and local
authorities."

"We're looking for a law similar to a law on the books in California,
Oregon and Maine removing criminal penalties," Schmitz said. Nine
states have laws legalizing medical marijuana.

Murphy's bill to decriminalize marijuana use by seriously ill people
started with 28 supporters in the General Assembly last year. For the
second year in a row, it failed to get out of committee.

The first year, it died in the House. Last year, it died in the
Senate, where Prince George's County Sen. Ulysses Currie, a Democrat,
was the chief sponsor.