VINCENT MARRONE PREDICTS MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW

Vincent Marrone, a New York City-based lobbyist, is convinced that the
state will one day have a medical marijuana law.

Vincent Marrone: 45; Larchmont, Westchester County

Hometown: Syracuse

Personal: Married. He and wife, Alexis, have a son, Zachary, 3 months.

Hobbies: Softball, riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle

Last book read: "Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms: A Lifetime of Memories
From Striking Out the Babe to Teeing It Up With the President," by Elden
Auker with Tom Keegan

What He Does:

Principal of Public Strategies LLC, a New York City-based lobbying firm,
and head of New Yorkers for Compassionate Care, a non-profit group formed
to support legalizing the smoking of marijuana by people who are terminally
or chronically ill.

How He Got There:

Cornell University, B.S. in business management; University at Albany, MSW.
Worked for the state Assembly Health Committee and the state Health
Department before taking a job with the Drug Policy Alliance, funded by
philanthropist George Soros. He later worked for another Soros-backed
organization, the After School Corp. Marrone went out on his own as a
lobbyist roughly two years ago.

Largely due to Marrone's lobbying efforts, a bill that would allow
seriously ill people to smoke marijuana to ease pain and other medical
troubles was recently voted out of the Assembly Health Committee for the
first time since it was introduced in 1997.

Now, close to 30 Assembly members have signed on to the bill, spearheaded
by Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan --
including two Republicans. There is no sponsor in the GOP-controlled state
Senate yet, but Marrone says he is close to landing one.

It's unlikely the bill will become law this year. Gov. George Pataki has
repeatedly said he supports DOH officials' opinion that alternatives to
smoking pot provide similar benefits. But if elected officials' penchant
for acting on poll results is any guide, don't be surprised if an agreement
is reached on this legislation eventually.

In a poll conducted Jan. 23-26 by Zogby International for Marrone's group
New Yorkers for Compassionate Care, 66 percent of respondents favored
allowing seriously ill people to legally smoke pot.

Backed by cash from Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Insurance Co.
in Cleveland, armed with copious data to support his argument and clad in
suits and tasteful animal-motif ties, Marrone is a conventional-looking and
well-prepared champion for a controversial issue. He is optimistic that
success is possible, no matter how long it might take.

On why elected officials remain reluctant to approve a medical marijuana bill:

"The public is way ahead of elected officials on this issue. If you put it
before the voters it would pass tomorrow. But the legislators are almost
all very scared. ... The public doesn't have to be elected tomorrow. ...
This is a controversial issue. Legislators want to see mainstream support
for an issue like this. ... But it's not a party issue. It's really based
on personal experience."

On the argument that marijuana is an addictive, dangerous "street drug" and
therefore should not be legalized for medical use:

"There's a lot of drugs that are illegal that can be abused that are
prescribed every day. Cocaine. Every pharmacy in the state has cocaine. And
I don't think anybody, certainly no scientist who knows anything about
drugs, would say that marijuana is more addictive or dangerous than
cocaine. ... You don't deny access to medication to patients just because
it's dangerous. There's a million dangerous drugs out there that are legal."

On the concern that smoking marijuana will harm the lungs of already sick
people, potentially compounding their medical troubles:

"Medicine is a balancing act. It's about doing things and trying things
that aren't necessarily going to cure you, but are going to improve -- in
the short term and hopefully in the long term -- your condition. ... You
can go through a list of medications that have FDA approval that hurt you.
But you take them because, on margin, it makes you better." On the fact
that passing a medical marijuana bill would put the state at odds with
federal law:

"States are within their constitutional rights to do these things. If you
watch what's happening in California, the feds have gone after patients and
are trying to go after doctors. They haven't gone after the law, and
there's a reason for that. It's because they know they can't beat it. ...
The only thing you can't do as a state is say that you can prescribe
marijuana. So a doctor can certify a patient to smoke."