Slow start for drive to legalize medical marijuana

MILTON (AP) Two days in the conservative Panhandle produced 40
signatures on a petition to legalize medical marijuana in Florida. That
leaves 435,033 to go before the issue can be placed on the ballot.

Most visitors to the Santa Rosa County Courthouse declined to sign as
they rushed past a sixmember petitiongathering group that had set up a
table on the lawn Tuesday.

``It's just another illegal drug, as far as I'm concerned,'' said Betty
Brock, 60, of Navarre. ``And as far as I'm concerned it should stay that
way.''

The Fort Lauderdalebased Coalition Advocating Medical Marijuana is
pressing ahead with plans to visit each of the state's 67 counties.

The group collected 30 signatures outside the Escambia County Courthouse
in Pensacola on Monday and added 10 Tuesday in Santa Rosa County, which
annually produces one of the state's largest crops of illegally grown
marijuana.

``If they just legalized marijuana altogether we could get the
country out of debt,'' said Bobby Rinehart, 42, of Milton, one of the
few supporting the proposal here.

The coalition planned to move eastward across the Panhandle with stops
scheduled Wednesday in Crestview and Thursday in DeFuniak Springs.

Elvy Musikka once opposed legalizing marijuana, but the Hollywood woman
now serves as vice president of the coalition and is helping collect
signatures.

She changed her mind about the medical use of marijuana after she was
diagnosed in 1975 with glaucoma, an eye disease that can cause
blindness. Her doctor showed her research results that indicated
tetrahydrocannabinol found in marijuana relieves pressure on the eye
caused by the disease.

Now in her 50s, she began to buy marijuana illegally.

``I had to deal with the fear of losing custody of my two children,'' she
said.

``There are literally tens of millions of Americans going into the street
looking for their medicine.''

Today, she is one of eight Americans legally receiving marijuana under a
federal experimental drug program. Other participants have included AIDS
and cancer victims who used the drug to counteract nausea and allow them
to hold down food.

Two of the most celebrated participants were a Panhandle couple, Kenny
and Barbra Jenks of Panama City Beach. The two, who have AIDS, were
arrested in 1990 and convicted of growing two marijuana plants. They
received no jail time and an appeal court reversed their convictions,
ruling the marijuana was a medical necessity.

In the meantime, they were allowed to join the federal program that has
since stopped allowing new participants. Barbra Jenks died in 1992, and
her husband died the following year.