MORGENTHAU SUPPORTS PRESCRIPTION POT FOR PAIN

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said yesterday that he favors
prescribing pot for pain.

The 83-year-old prosecutor became the first New York law enforcement
official to endorse legalizing medicinal marijuana.

Morgenthau said TV talk-show host Montel Williams, who uses weed to ease
the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis, helped him see the good in
grass.

"It should be available to those whose suffering would be eased by the use
of marijuana," Morgenthau said during a news conference with Williams.
"There is absolutely no reason for not using marijuana for medical purposes."

The district attorney's endorsement came just hours before a bill proposed
by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) cleared a major hurdle by
passing the Ways and Means Committee.

Gottfried's medicinal marijuana bill, first proposed in 1997, will be voted
on by the full Assembly within the next two weeks. But the bill has yet to
find a sponsor in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Morgenthau said he also consulted with his daughter, a doctor who tries to
get addicts off drugs. She told him to "absolutely" support the bill, he
said. "It should be another weapon in the arsenal for doctors to use,"
Morgenthau said.

Morgenthau said he has never smoked dope, quipping, "I missed that
generation." But he said people like Williams have convinced him that pot
can be used responsibly to help those suffering from cancer, AIDS,
glaucoma, severe arthritis and other ailments.

Williams, a naval officer before becoming an Emmy-winning talk-show host,
said he started using marijuana on his doctor's recommendation.

He said other painkillers failed to control his tremors and spasms, and
triggered side effects such as intestinal and kidney problems.

"Marijuana works for me," said Williams, who gets his supply from a doctor
in California, one of 10 states where it is legal to prescribe it. He
declined to say whether he tokes up while in New York.

"Why is it that doctors in California can ease my pain but doctors in New
York cannot?" Williams said. "If we feel doctors are smart enough to
prescribe morphine, why not trust them to prescribe cannabis?"