COMMITTEE HOLDS HEARING ON BENEFITS OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

MADISON--Jacki Rickert says she is tired of risking arrest every time she
smokes marijuana to treat the pain and loss of appetite caused by a tissue
disorder and degenerative bone marrow disease.

Rickert testified Tuesday before the Assembly State Affairs Committee,
which held a hearing to gather information on the merits and pitfalls of
medical marijuana, Committee chairman Rep. Rick Skindrud, R-Mount Horeb, said.

Rickert, executive director of the group "Is My Medicine Legal Yet?"
testified that marijuana has been more helpful than any of the other drugs
she has tried, including morphine.

Rickert of Mondovi said her weight dropped down to 68 pounds and cannabis
- -- or marijuana -- has been the only drug that has been substantially
effective in increasing her weight. She said it allows her to take half the
amount of drugs she would otherwise.

"You have a few puffs, when it works, you put it out. That's not something
you can do with a pill, that's not something you can do with a liquid," she
said. "I don't sit down and get high or anything that everyone talks about.
I do this to have an appetite, to be able to have a quality of life."

Dr. Michael Miller, president of the Dane County Medical Society, said
there is not sufficient medical evidence showing that smoked marijuana is
effective in treating the symptoms of various diseases. Legalizing smoked
marijuana could be a detriment to society by making more people addicted to
the drug, he said.

"Medical marijuana is an oxymoron," he said. "Smoked marijuana is not
medicine. ... Wait until the science catches up."

The State Medical Society is now opposed to any bills that would legalize
smoked marijuana, Miller said. The Wisconsin Nurses Association supports
legalized marijuana but has not specified how it is best used -- taken
orally as a pill, inhaled using an inhaler, or smoked, said association
president Gina Dennik-Champion.

Rep. Frank Boyle, D-Superior, said he is in the process of drafting a bill
modeled after Hawaii's legalized marijuana law, which gives doctors the
authority to give patients registration certificates to use marijuana to
ease pain caused by debilitating diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

Dane County Sheriff Gary Hamblin said law enforcement should defer to the
medical community to evaluate and conduct reliable, significant research
about whether marijuana has medicinal effects.

While law enforcement officials do not want laws that will make their jobs
more difficult, Hamblin said they are "not oblivious to the need for
pharmaceutical relief for those who are in pain and suffering."

Boyle said the reason there isn't enough research is that it is illegal to
grow marijuana, so the University of Wisconsin Medical School and other
research facilities have been legally barred from conducting research.

California passed one of the nation's first medical marijuana laws in 1996,
but it has been held up by a court fight.

Voters in Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington
also have approved ballot initiatives allowing the use of medical
marijuana. The Hawaii law was passed by the Legislature and signed by the
governor last year.