MEDICAL: MARIJUANA ACT RAISES NEW QUESTIONS

U.S. Attorney Steve Alm said yesterday he doesn't plan to use the list
of patients who register for medical marijuana use in Hawaii as the
basis for search warrants and arrests.

Even though the Legislature approved marijuana on Tuesday for medical
reasons, advocates from Hawaii to Washington still worry about federal
agents' invoking federal marijuana laws - and the sticky issue of
obtaining marijuana for medical reasons.

"Nothing has changed," Alm said. "It's still against federal
law."

Tom Mountain, who describes himself as an "educational, political
activist and black historian," worries about his friends who smoke
marijuana to ease their pain and medical problems.

"If you register, you're in effect admitting you're breaking federal
law," Mountain said. "Once they have a list of all of these
people, then that's the basis for a search warrant for them to break
into our homes."

But Alm said he has no intention of obtaining the names of people who
must register with the Department of Public Safety's Narcotic
Enforcement Division. "That will not happen," Alm said.

Otherwise, Alm did not want to speculate on how federal authorities
might handle medical marijuana cases in Hawaii.

The bill approved by the Legislature allows marijuana for people with
a "debilitating medical condition" such as cancer, glaucoma or
AIDS; or for a medical condition that causes pain, nausea or other
problems.

Patients would need written permission from a physician and must
register. They also would be restricted to no more than three mature
marijuana plants, four immature plants and 1 ounce of usable marijuana
per mature plant.

Sources not specified

The bill does not say how patients can legally get their seeds, plants
or smokable marijuana.

"These laws are imperfect. They still leave a tremendous gray area
in how people are to receive their marijuana," said Allen St.
Pierre, executive direc tor of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws in Washington. "They will have to buy it
from a drug connection, and all of the lovely subtlety of what that
means. Or they can buy the seeds illegally over the Internet and have
to develop the botanical skills to grow marijuana, which is not that
easy."

Gov. Ben Cayetano said he expects to sign the bill and has 45 days to
do so. Medical marijuana use is permitted in California, Arizona,
Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Maine and Nevada.

Assistant prosecutor is user

Keith Vines, an assistant district attorney in San Francisco, went
from drug prosecutor to medical marijuana advocate after he treated
his AIDS wasting syndrome by smoking marijuana.

Federal agents have moved against marijuana buyers' clubs that stretch
the bounds of medical marijuana laws, Vines said.

They're less inclined to pursue individual patients who are clearly
within the law, he said.

"The feds can go around and bust and arrest seriously ill patients,
but you know they have not done that in any of these states," Vines
said. "If they were going to come after anybody, I would seem to be
a likely candidate. I'm a prosecutor. I admit to using medicinal
marijuana. I obviously possess it."

Seattle guidelines

In 1999 Kate Pflaumer, U.S. attorney for western Washington state,
wrote a memo to Seattle police saying she wasn't interested in
prosecuting medical marijuana cases.

"Given our limited funding and overwhelming responsibilities to
enforce an ever larger number of federal offenses, we simply cannot
afford to devote prosecutive resources to cases of this magnitude,"
she wrote.

Puna grower

Jon Adler worries less about federal agents and more about providing
enough medical marijuana for everyone.

He openly grows and smokes marijuana on his half-acre property in the
Big Island's Puna District and has been lobbying state and federal
officials to become Hawaii's primary source for medical marijuana.

"I'm the only one applying for the job, and I'm applying with every
agency there is," said Adler, who is also running for Hawaii County
mayor.

Adler said he smokes marijuana for religious reasons and because it
helps his asthma. He hopes to grow 10,000 marijuana plants on his
property someday, for distribution through hospitals and other
designated dispensaries.

"I want to provide a healing ministry for those who have a
legitimate need," he said.