MARIJUANA BILL CAN'T GET OUT OF COMMITTEE

Legislators failed Thursday in their attempt to wring a medical marijuana
bill out of a legislative committee to force a vote in the House of Delegates.

"Politics got ahead of better policy," said Delegate David Brinkley,
R-Frederick, after the chamber voted overwhelmingly to leave the bill in
the Judiciary Committee, where the chairman refuses to let lawmakers vote
on it.

Mr. Brinkley invoked Rule 43, a little-used parliamentary tactic in which a
bill can be brought to the House floor if 72 delegates, one more than half,
agree.

The vote wasn't even close at 94-30.

In a strange twist, senators across the State House's central hall were
debating the same maneuver, almost simultaneously. Sen. Alex Mooney,
R-Frederick/Washington, tried to use Rule 43 to pull a bill calling for a
two-year death penalty moratorium out of the Senate's Judicial Proceedings
Committee.

His effort will be decided today.

In the House vote, only half of the bill's 28 cosponsors supported Mr.
Brinkley's motion. Of the 30 who did support him, 22 were Republicans. Five
Judiciary Committee members opposed their chairman, and voted to pull the
bill out of committee.

Of the 94 who opposed the motion, only eight were Republicans. Ten of the
bill's sponsors opposed the motion, as did 17 members of the committee.

Five the six delegates representing Frederick County supported the motion.
Delegate Paul Stull, R-Frederick, did not vote either way, nor did four of
the bill's cosponsors.

The bill would allow terminally ill patients, if they receive their
doctor's approval, to smoke marijuana without fear of criminal reprisals.
Advocates say marijuana helps patients regain their appetite and fight the
pain of their treatments.

Without the bill, people who buy marijuana on the street run the risk of
jail or confiscation of their property if they are caught.

In his address to the House, Mr. Brinkley said he would offer an amendment
to gut the bill, replacing its provisions with one that would give patients
an "affirmative defense." If they are charged, they would be able to defend
themselves in court if they could present a doctor's certification that the
marijuana is necessary for their treatment.

Judiciary chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr., in urging the House to reject
the motion, said his committee never held a hearing on the amendment.

"My suggestion to you is, the right thing to do is what we have done," he said.

Mr. Vallario, a Prince George's County Democrat, also noted the Senate had
already killed the same bill.

"We are not in the mood to deal with bills that have been killed in the
other chamber," he said.

Mr. Brinkley, though, noted the House passed a bill that would create a
task force for public funding of campaigns. A similar measure already had
been killed in the upper chamber.

"I would hope we'd have more a little more gumption than that," he said.

House Majority Leader John Adams Hurson said his colleagues should keep the
bill in committee, saying the legislature should wait until the Supreme
Court has ruled on a pending medical marijuana case.

Judiciary Committee member Carmen Amedori, a conservative Republican from
Carroll County, said she supported Mr. Brinkley's effort even though she
opposes the bill.

But Delegate Lisa Gladden, a Baltimore Democrat who cosponsored the bill,
voted against the motion to support her committee.

"This issue became the political control of the system as opposed to the
confiscation of people's property if they get busted," Mr. Brinkley said.

Mr. Mooney's effort to pull the death penalty bill surprised his
colleagues. Because the Senate was unprepared, a decision was delayed until
this morning.

The measure advocates a two-year ban on application of the death penalty,
while a University of Maryland criminologist studies whether capital
punishment is applied unfairly to blacks.

The bill is one of the top items on the agenda of black lawmakers, but
Judicial Proceedings chairman Walter Baker refuses to let his committee
vote on it.

Mr. Mooney said he could support the bill, if the study were expanded.

"I agree there is a racial problem. But the real problem is economics," Mr.
Mooney said.