PATIENTS TO PUSH FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW

Two area men with serious, chronic medical conditions will join an
assemblyman in Albany today to urge passage of a Senate bill allowing
the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

"We're hopeful," said Bruce Dunn, of Morris, from a hotel in Albany
on Monday night.

He and Richard Williams, of Richmondville, will join other patients
and Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried,
D-Manhattan, who will announce a television advertising campaign
seeking Senate approval of a bill before the lawmakers adjourn June
23. Later, patients will lobby their senators, according to a media
advisory from Gottfried and the Marijuana Police Project in Washington, D.C.

"We want to see an effective law that's going to help people,"
Williams, 46, who has had HIV for 20 years and also has hepatitis C,
said from his home Monday.

The men said separately they don't want to be criminalized because
they use marijuana for their medical conditions. Dan Bernath,
assistant director of communications for the Marijuana Policy
Project, said the possibility of arrests are a fear among patients
and today's lobby efforts are to inform senators of the importance of
the issues.

The Assembly passed a bill last year, Bernath said, and the Marijuana
Policy Project wouldn't ask patients to lobby for passage if there
were no chance senators would approve the bill.

However, a local senator expressed doubt.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said the issue is a matter of federal law,
said James Seward, R-Milford, and it is up to Congress to clarify
whether states are empowered on the matter.

"I don't anticipate the Senate will take up this issue until the
federal government tells us we can," Seward said. The Assembly is
creating some false hope about an issue that isn't clearly in the
state's jurisdiction, he said, and the fact that some other states
have moved forward to approve laws "isn't a road that New York should go down."

Seward said he personally supports the use of medicinal marijuana for
patients with chronic or terminal conditions if the drug is approved
by the Federal Drug Administration and prescribed by a physician. The
drug, like morphine, could be used for pain relief, he said.

"I could support legislation that is very, very tightly controlled,"
Seward said. But until federal and state jurisdictions are clarified,
Seward said he has a responsibility to abide by the U.S. Constitution.

The Assembly bill sponsored by Gottfried legalizes the possession,
manufacture, use, delivery, transport or administration of marijuana
by a patient or designated caregiver for a certified medical use and
directs the Department of Health to monitor uses. In its
justification, the bill refers to the National Academy of Sciences'
Institute of Medicine 1999 report that "nausea, appetite loss, pain
and anxiety ... all can be mitigated by marijuana."

Doctors and patients have documented that marijuana can be an
effective treatment _ where other medications have failed _ for some
patients with HIV/AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis and other
life-threatening or debilitating conditions.

A Senate bill regarding proposed medicinal use of marijuana is in
committee, according to the
http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menuf.cgi website.

Dunn said he has tried many therapies and medicines since his
accident in 1988 and he needs the drug because it eases pain, softens
muscles and motivates him. Marijuana is a safe drug that should be
available to those who would benefit, he said.

"There are people who need that - no other drug serves them as well
with as few side effects," Dunn, 61, said. "I'm in it for others as
well as myself."

Bernath said the TV ad is a new step in seeking passage of a law by
the Senate. Burton Aldrich, a quadriplegic father of five from
Kingston, is featured in the ads to be broadcast on CNN and CNN
Headline News, among other channels, starting Wednesday, Bernath
said. Montana, Vermont and Rhode Island are among states that have
passed medicinal marijuana laws since 2004 and after TV ad campaigns, he said.

Bernath said he spoke Monday with Barbara Jackson, a cancer survivor
from the Bronx, who expressed gratitude that she didn't go to jail
after her arrest last year for using marijuana to treat appetite
loss. The charges were dropped, Bernath said, but Jackson still faces
the threat of arrest.

"This is not a theoretical problem," he said.