MEDICAL MARIJUANA CARD SYSTEM STILL HAS BARRIERS

Patients have to search for the drug and a doctor to authorize
it.

Allen Giesbrecht of Salem has a state-issued card to use marijuana
legally and help ease the pain of multiple sclerosis. But he doesn't
want to grow the herb at home around his 17-year-old son and feels
compelled to buy it on the street.

Craig Campbell of Silverton, who has fibro myalgia, thinks marijuana
works far better than the narcotic medicines his doctors prescribe.
But he's having trouble finding a local physician to sign his medical
marijuana card application.

They brought their frustrations to a public forum in Salem on
Saturday. The event revealed plenty of kinks in applying Oregon's 1998
medical marijuana initiative.

"Information about our great law has been extremely hard to come by,"
said Stormy Ray, who led the initiative drive and created a nonprofit
organization to assist medical marijuana users. The Stormy Ray
Foundation, which opened a Salem office last fall, hosted the forum to
bring together users and health and law enforcement professionals
carrying out the law.

The program has had its ups and downs, admitted Mary Leverette of the
Oregon Health Division, who said she was brought in to help restore
credibility to the state's regulatory effort.

Questions were raised after Molalla doctor Phillip Leveque signed
1,718 applications for medical marijuana cards -- nearly half the
statewide applications since the law went into effect in May 1999.
He's under investigation by the state board of medical examiners, and
the health department decided last month to deny 319 of those
applications.

Lost was the fact that 777 different doctors have signed applications,
Leverette said. "We think that's a remarkable number."

Though some predicted the law would create havoc with drug law
enforcement in Oregon, that doesn't seem to have occurred -- at least
so far.

"We haven't had an issue with it in this area, which is a good thing,"
said Lt. Ed Boyd of Salem Police Department.

"We have almost no real experience with people being out of
compliance," concurred Kevin Neely, spokesman for the Oregon
Department of Justice.

Yet there's still simmering resentment by patients about the rules for
growing or obtaining the drug.

"It's very, very difficult to stay in compliance with the law and
still have enough medication to medicate correctly," said Jerry Wade,
spokesman for the foundation.

Still, it beats the alternative for many users.

"I live in agonizing pain," said Campbell, 37. "But the toxicities
that the doctors have me on now will kill me in six to eight years."
By contrast, he said, marijuana "works wonderfully," if he could only
find a doctor to help him get some legally.