MEDICAL POT, ABORTION TOP ISSUES THIS WEEK

SALEM - The Legislature opens its upcoming week with hot-button
issues, especially in the House Rules Committee where marijuana and
abortion will share space on the same agenda.

The panel on Monday holds hearings on bills to expand the state's
medical marijuana law and to impose a 24-hour "informed consent"
waiting period for abortions.

Oregon voters in 1998 passed an initiative measure allowing people,
with a doctor's approval, to use marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Eight other states also permit medicinal use of the plant.

More than 1,600 Oregonians hold official cards permitting medical
marijuana use. The law allows doctors to approve marijuana for
specific maladies including cancer, glaucoma, HIV or AIDS, severe pain
or nausea, seizures or muscle spasms.

House Bill 3919 would expand coverage to include any medical condition
that a physician believed "would be benefited by the medical use of
marijuana."

Nurse practitioners and naturopaths, in additional to medical doctors
and osteopaths, could make patients eligible for medical marijuana
under the bill.

And the bill would increase the quantity of marijuana a patient could
legally possess from three to five mature marijuana plants, from four
to five immature plants, and usable marijuana - meaning dried leaves
and flowers - from 3 ounces to 10 ounces.

The bill has seemed to wither on the vine since its main advocate,
former Democratic state Rep. Jo Ann Bowman of Portland, resigned her
seat in the House to run for Multnomah County commissioner.

Supporters of the measure say the law has worked but that patients
have problems getting an adequate supply.

Rep. Carl Wilson of Grants Pass, Rules Committee chairman and a
conservative vote on many issues, said he's not ready to take a
position on the bill but that he no longer opposes medical marijuana
use generally.

Wilson said he opposed the 1998 ballot measure but now supports
it.

"I've heard from a number of people who have had measurable relief
from this," Wilson said. "If we find people are getting this relief,
it's worth looking at. We ought to discuss who can prescribe it and
who can grow it."

Rising prices for conventional drugs also could work in favor of a
broader medical marijuana law, he said.

House Minority Leader Dan Gardner, D-Portland, said he asked that the
bill be moved from a panel where it looked to be dead to Wilson's
committee when Wilson agreed to give it an airing.

Neither Gardner nor Wilson said they could gauge how much House
support the bill might have.

Top police around the state want nothing to do with the bill, said
Kevin Campbell, lobbyist for the Oregon Association of Chiefs of Police.

The association opposed putting the measure on the ballot and is
against "any attempt to broaden the ability to prescribe. It expands
the potential for abuse."

The bill also would "create more confusion about what's legal and what
isn't," Campbell said.

Another simmering issue is electric deregulation, with House Speaker
Mark Simmons, R-Elgin, taking a lead with his bill to delay opening up
free-market power purchasing by large businesses from Oct. 1 to
January 2003.

The minority Democrats, saying citizens are squeamish because of
California's deregulation problems, are trying to force a vote on
repealing the deregulation law outright.

Simmons, whose party runs the House on a 33-27 count, said talks on a
possible compromise are under way. He said he hopes a bill can emerge
from committee by week's end.

Senate Minority Leader Dave Nelson, R-Pendleton, said that chamber is
waiting to see what the House does on the issue.