DOCTORS, PATIENTS DESCRIBE HOW MEDICAL MARIJUANA HELPS

Battling pneumonia and AIDS, Jennifer Smith couldn't hold down food or the
precious medicine designed to prolong her life. She had shrunk to a mere 84
pounds.

Her doctor prescribed Marinol, a pill-form derivative of marijuana, to
pique her appetite. Instead, her nausea continued.

So Smith, diagnosed with AIDS just before her two-year wedding anniversary
eight years ago, tried smoking a marijuana cigarette and found that she
could eat again. Now, she and her husband routinely risk arrest by buying
pot on the street.

"When you can't eat, you can't take your pills," Smith, 31, told the House
Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence on Tuesday. "When you don't take your
pills, you can't live."

Smith, of San Antonio, joined a medical doctor, a nurse and other people
who testified in favor of House Bill 513. The bill, by Rep. Terry Keel,
R-Austin, a former Travis County prosecutor and sheriff, would allow a
defendant charged with marijuana possession to claim as a defense that the
drug was recommended by a physician for treatment of a medical condition.
The bill, left pending in committee Tuesday night, does not allow doctors
to prescribe marijuana.

For some terminally ill patients, marijuana offers relief no other drug
can, said Keel and a medical doctor who testified Tuesday. Yet patients
cannot legally take it, even though more addictive drugs are used to treat
chronic pain, he said.

Some at Tuesday's hearing clearly hoped the bill would lead to more than a
defense for terminally ill patients using medicinal marijuana under a
doctor's supervision.

Eduard Apperson, who referred to himself as "Professor Hemp," read
lawmakers a lengthy tribute to hemp and marijuana. He told lawmakers --
some of whom sat rubbing their foreheads -- that marijuana should be
legalized and sold in coffee shops.

Some lawmakers had concerns about possibly opening the door to more
marijuana use.

"It appears to me that what's happening with this is a movement to legalize
marijuana," said Rep. Robert Talton, R-Pasadena.

But Keel called the bill a "modest step." Keel, who has prided himself on
"being on the front lines of the drug war for 10 years," said his bill is
narrowly drawn and would not interfere with police.