STATE PASSED THE LAW, BUT NEVER USED IT

ALBANY, April 19 — It seemed so revolutionary. In 1996, California and
Arizona legalized the medical use of marijuana. Six states and the District
of Columbia followed. A new movement, it appeared, was sweeping the country.

Not so new, actually. New York beat them all by a mile.

In 1980, the Legislature and Gov. Hugh L. Carey, to little fanfare, enacted
a medical marijuana law in New York, the first of its kind. But the
mechanism needed to make the law effective was never put in place, and it
was largely forgotten.

In fact, many of the people involved two decades ago had to have their
memories jogged. "I had forgotten all about this," said James R. Tallon,
now the president of the United Hospital Fund, who was an assemblyman and
chairman of the Health Committee when the panel approved the bill.

Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, was Governor Carey's
counsel. "Offhand, I really don't remember it," he said when first asked
about the law. But a few days later, going through his files, he found a
memo he wrote in support of the bill.

The author of the law was a Democratic assemblyman from Queens, Alan G.
Hevesi, now the New York City comptroller and a candidate for mayor. Mr.
Hevesi declined, through a spokesman, to discuss the law, saying he had
little memory of it. The comptroller, now seen as a centrist, advocated
drug legalization in his early years in public life.

Advocates contend that marijuana combats the nausea that afflicts people
with diseases like cancer and AIDS, and that it can ease glaucoma.
Legalizing it for medical use has proved enormously popularl. But the
federal government, under President Bush and President Bill Clinton, has
opposed the state actions, and has gone to court to block them. The Supreme
Court last month heard arguments on a government challenge to the
California law.

Legislators who were involved in the New York law said it did not seem so
momentous at the time, and there was no lobbying campaign against it. When
the bill was passed by the State Legislature and signed by the governor,
newspapers reported it, but not on their front pages. And when the law was
later allowed to wither, few noticed.

The driving force behind the 1980 law was Antonio G. Olivieri, who was a
city councilman and a former assemblyman from Manhattan. Mr. Olivieri, a
Democrat, had brain cancer, and he died later that year, at age 39.

"The way the legislation came about was he, personally, lobbied his former
colleagues in Albany about it," said Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, a
Democrat from Manhattan, who now chairs the health committee.

The 1980 law said that a doctor could petition a hospital board for
permission for a patient to use marijuana. If the board approved, it would
have to file a petition with a state review board, appointed by the state
health commissioner.

The commissioner at the time, Dr. David Axelrod, an appointee of Mr. Carey,
was a vocal supporter of the bill. But state officials said Dr. Axelrod,
who died several years ago, never appointed the review board members,
making it impossible for anyone to receive permission to use marijuana.

A medical marijuana initiative prevailed in 1996 in California, in 1998 in
Alaska, Oregon, Nevada and Washington, and last year in Colorado and
Nevada. Last June, the Hawaii Legislature and governor enacted a similar law.

"I think attitudes are changing with regard to pain relief for seriously
ill people," said State Senator Kemp Hannon of New York, the Republican
chairman of the health committee. He said he did not remember the 1980 New
York law, though he was in the Assembly then, but that he would readily
vote for a medical marijuana law, provided it did not violate federal law.

For several years, Assemblyman Gottfried has introduced a simplified
medical marijuana bill, but it has never come to a vote.

"I think it's a clear circumstance that most politicians are way behind
where the public is on the issue," he said.