MEDICAL POT LAW SET TO KICK IN

Use Permits Sought As Legal Fears Loom

Jerry Ives has copied his medical records, filled out the state's forms,
checked all the right boxes and signed on all the necessary lines.

He's even scraped together the $140 application fee.

When Amendment 20 takes effect Friday, Ives' application for a place on a
registry of people permitted to use marijuana to treat a medical condition
will be on its way to the state health department, if it's not already there.

There's just one small potential glitch.

He doesn't have the required doctor's signature on the application.

And he doesn't plan to get one.

Ives said his doctors know he uses marijuana to ease the blinding,
nauseating headaches and to lessen the seizures that have plagued him since
he suffered a brain injury 25 years ago. But Ives, 44, is a disabled
veteran, treated at the Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Ives won't ask his VA doctors to endorse, on the record, his need for
marijuana. "They work for the federal government," Ives said.

But the federal government, through the Supreme Court, said in no uncertain
terms just this month that marijuana use is illegal.

Days before Colorado becomes the eighth state to legalize and regulate
marijuana use for patients with specific conditions, those patients are
hopeful, their doctors skittish. And while the state health department says
the infrastructure to operate the program is up and ready, everyone is
waiting for Attorney General Ken Salazar to weigh in on what the recent
Supreme Court decision might mean to Colorado's law.

"We Are Ready'

Salazar is reviewing the matter and has said he will issue an opinion.

In the meantime, "We are ready," said Carol Garrett, who helped coordinate
the state health department's preparations to implement Amendment 20.

"We're Just Waiting For Friday."

The ID cards are ready, the applications are printed - about 75 have been
sent out so far - and the procedure to review them is in place, Garrett said.

In making preparations, Colorado turned to Oregon for advice, in part
because that state's law is very similar to Colorado's and in part because
its program is highly regarded, Garrett said.

Based on Oregon's experience, she said Colorado expects about 800 people to
apply to be included on the state registry this year.

Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 20 in November. The
amendment sets up a state registry that provides identification cards for
patients with certain debilitating conditions - cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS,
cachexia (a weight-loss condition), severe pain, severe nausea, seizures
and persistent muscle spasms including those characteristic of multiple
sclerosis - to possess and use small amounts of marijuana.

It costs $140 to apply, and patients must reapply every year to be included
on the registry.

The law makes no provisions for legally buying or selling the marijuana,
and doctors do not write prescriptions for the drug. Instead, doctors must
verify that the applicant has one of the specified medical conditions and
sign a form stating, "Marijuana may mitigate the symptoms or effects of the
patient's condition."

How many doctors will be willing to sign their name to such a form remains
to be seen, some say.

Doctors are nervous, said Dr. Frank Sargent, a member of Coloradans Against
Legalizing Marijuana. And they have reason to be, he said.

Long-term effects of using the drug haven't been documented, he said.

"I'm not sure what liability carriers will say. And I don't think we'll
know that for the next few months."

Most doctors are compassionate, Sargent said. But the Supreme Court ruling
earlier this month, that cannabis buyers clubs in California violate
federal law, has made already nervous doctors even more uncertain, he said.

Doreen Bishop's doctor initially told her he wouldn't sign her application
for medical marijuana.

"He doesn't know anything about marijuana. It's the first time he's been in
a dilemma like this," Bishop said.

The 52-year-old said she's used marijuana to ease the pain and nausea from
cancer and cancer treatments over the past 16 years.

"I smoke, and it gets me through. It doesn't take (the pain) away; it just
gets me through it."

Tired of feeling like criminal:

Bishop said she's no criminal, and she's tired of feeling like one. The
possibility of her doctor of 30 years refusing her request to endorse her
marijuana use devastated her, she said.

In the end, her doctor relented.

But in the box where the state asks for comments, he wrote that he doesn't
approve of marijuana use, except for terminal and progressive disease with
pain and nausea, Bishop said.

Ives doesn't know what his doctors would say to such a request. But he said
he doesn't think it would even be fair to ask them.

Officials at Denver's VA hospital didn't respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman at the Denver office of the U.S. attorney said he couldn't
comment on whether doctors who are federal employees could face
repercussions for recommending marijuana use.

Ives won't say where he gets his marijuana but said he is going to start
growing his own.

"I'm on a fixed income; I can't afford the real good stuff," he said.
Though he's used it for years illegally, Ives said he, like Bishop, is
eager to be on the right side of the law.

"I don't think I'm a criminal, and I'm tired of being treated like one."