MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROUP OPPOSES LIMITS

Spokesman Says Panel Ignoring Will Of Voters.

The group that promoted and gained voter approval for marijuana to be
distributed to treat illnesses in Nevada is upset by recommendations of a
medical group that the use be limited to patients in research programs.

Dan Hart, chief spokesman for Nevadans for Medical Marijuana, said
Thursday, "It disturbs me that this self-appointed committee thinks its
wisdom is greater than the voters."

He said he would carry his fight to the Nevada Legislature to allow wider
access by patients to marijuana when it is suggested by a physician.

"The voters were specific," Hart said. "They didn't want a study. If they
were going to have a study, they didn't have to vote."

The committee of doctors, osteopaths and pharmacists -- which was formed by
three state health boards after the medical marijuana ballot initiative
passed in 1998 -- released a report this week that recommended that the
distribution of the drug be done through limited research programs approved
by state and federal governments.

The process, the committee said, avoids the pitfalls of California, where
the federal government has challenged the state initiative in court to stop
the distribution of marijuana through buyers' clubs.

Voters in 1998 and this year approved a constitutional amendment to permit
medical use of marijuana for such illnesses as AIDS, cancer and glaucoma.
It will be up to the Legislature to fashion a system to distribute it legally.

Federal and Nevada law still consider use or possession of marijuana a
felony, though the 2001 Legislature will consider a bill to change that to
a gross misdemeanor or misdemeanor.

Hart said Oregon has a system for distributing marijuana that has not drawn
the ire of the federal government. In that state, he said, physicians
recommend the use and the patient can grow up to six plants, with three of
them flowering at a time.

He suggested the state of Nevada could also cultivate its own crop of
marijuana to be distributed to patients who are registered. He said the key
is "registered" to make sure there is no illegal use.

But Louis Ling, counsel for the state pharmacy board and a spokesman for
the Nevada Medical Marijuana Initiative Work Group, said the committee
studied those other distribution plans. "The problem with all of them is
they are not legal under the present law."

Under those systems, Ling said, a patient could be arrested for possession
of the drug, and a doctor who prescribed marijuana could lose his license.

The health care committee -- which included representatives of the state
pharmacy, medical and osteopath boards as well as the public -- considered
marijuana as a medicine. "If you grow it in your back yard, it is not a
medicine," Ling said.

Ling said he tried to convince Hart that the health care committee "was not
the enemy." The committee, he said, believed "it was implementing the will
of the people."

Hart was invited to the three meetings of the committee, Ling said, but he
never showed up for any of them, though he sent a representative to one.
Hart also was given a chance to suggest changes to the final report, but he
didn't, Ling said.

Hart said he wrote a letter protesting the recommendations. The medical
committee's proposal "involves lots of red tape" and delays because of the
approval required from three federal agencies -- the Food and Drug
Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National
Institute of Drug Abuse, Hart complained. And then there's the question of
which patients will be included in the testing program.

Ling noted the medical committee was formed on its own and is not a
lobbying group. He said members won't show up at the Legislature unless
asked to. On the other hand, he said, Hart is a paid lobbyist for the
marijuana proponents.