PROPONENTS OF MEDICAL USE SAY WAR ON MARIJUANA ISN'T WORKING

Protesters Rally At Capitol, Say Patients' Rights Are Threatened

OLYMPIA -- Supporters of the medical use of marijuana defied sometimes
rainy and cold weather Sunday to take a stand against what they argue are
more frequent government attacks on patients' rights.

A group that fluctuated between 10 and two dozen people gathered on the
Capitol Campus, holding up banners to passersby and motorists, trying to
drive home their point.

Organizer Lee Newbury, director of the South Puget Sound chapter of the
National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, said state and federal
government officials are moving to do away with patients' right to use
marijuana, which is legally protected in several states.

He cited a raid early this month in Santa Cruz, Calif., where federal
agents seized marijuana plants from the property of a medical marijuana
collective. Founders of the group were arrested.

There's also been a move to enforce a federal law that prohibits financial
aid from reaching college students with drug infractions in their
backgrounds, he said.

"We want to create awareness that this war on drugs isn't working," Newbury
said. "The will of the people is not being supported."

Controversial treatment

Bruce Buckner of Olympia attended the event Sunday, carrying a sign that
classified him as a medical marijuana patient and also a victim of the
criminal justice system.

He said he's used marijuana since he was in college to combat nausea and
other problems related to Crohn's disease, which affects the digestive tract.

"I do it to fight nausea and because it helps me eat," Buckner said.

But along with the relief marijuana brings him, Buckner said, he's had to
swallow the cost of fighting an arrest a year ago for growing the plant.

His case is in appeal in Grays Harbor County, and he said he's doing
everything he can to establish his legal right to the drug.

"It's taken my life savings to do this," he said.

Dr. David Edwards, a retired pathologist, said he's supported the medical
use of marijuana for years because he believes in its healing benefits. And
he said he's bothered by the denial by the medical community, as well as
the government, of such benefits.

"It pains me to be lied to by my government and my profession," he said. "I
hate to have (medical use of marijuana) demonized in that fashion."

As a pathologist, Edwards said, he conducted and reviewed thousands of
autopsies and found that many deaths were caused by alcohol and tobacco abuse.

"But I never found a case linked to the use of marijuana," he said.