SOME LAWMAKERS WANT POT LEGALIZED FOR SICK PEOPLE

MONTPELIER -- Card-carrying marijuana smokers. A nonprofit organization
approved to sell the weed. A state government that allows some residents to
grow a few pot plants in the garden.

All these are envisioned in a bill that will be introduced today in the
Legislature. The measure allows people suffering from cancer, glaucoma, AIDS
or other chronic illnesses to use marijuana legally to ease their pain --
with a physician's note.

The bill is sponsored by 21 members of the House of Representatives, a
mostly liberal group but with Republicans sprinkled in.

The Legislature passed a law 20 years ago that permits marijuana smoking for
medicinal reasons, supporters of the bill say. Successive governors'
administrations, including that of Gov. Howard Dean, have refused to develop
the necessary rules to implement the law.

This bill would force the creation of such rules in 90 days. Political
anxieties surrounding the issue have changed little in those 20 years, and
one lawmaker said the bill probably won't have a hearing.

"I guess you could quote me: It's not high on my list of priorities," said
Rep. Tom Koch, R-Barre, chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee
and a lawyer.

It was hard enough recruiting sponsors.

"Some people I would have thought would have been sure sponsors were like,
'No way.' They're afraid of this as if it were a lightning rod," said Rep.
Frederick Maslack, R-Poultney, the prime sponsor.

Under the bill, patients would obtain a physician's permission to grow or
buy marijuana. The state would allow them to cultivate no more than three
mature plants. A nonprofit agency could grow and sell small amounts of the
drug to registered patients.

Maslack said he sponsored the bill for a friend, Joel Williams, a former
candidate for governor from the Vermont Grassroots Party. The group wants to
legalize marijuana. Maslack also said he watched another friend die of
throat cancer whose suffering might have been eased with marijuana smoking.

Eight states have laws on the books allowing sick people to use marijuana,
including Maine, according to Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.,
organization that wrote a model bill that Maslack borrowed.

The National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine noted in 1999 that
marijuana can be beneficial for treating or alleviating pain or other
symptoms associated with certain debilitating illnesses, the bill says.

Robert Melamede, an assistant research professor in the microbiology
department of the University of Vermont, and a supporter of marijuana use,
said the body uses compounds similar to the main chemical in marijuana to
naturally self-medicate itself. Marijuana does cause temporary loss of
short-term memory and can impair or help the immune system of some people,
he said.

Capt. Steve Miller of the Vermont State Police said some young people can
start experimenting with marijuana and then move to more dangerous drugs. He
said medicinal marijuana bills are an attempt to have marijuana use
legalized.