MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILLS AWAIT LEGISLATIVE APPROVAL

Medical Marijuana Issue Comes Of Age

Jackie Cosgrove doesn't mind rolling a joint in front of his
grandchildren and lighting up. He looks at marijuana as medicine that
works better than the Demerol, Dilaudid and morphine doctors have
prescribed over the years for his damaged back.

But Cosgrove doesn't like telling a 6-year-old and a 7-year-old that
grandpa's medical marijuana use is illegal and has to stay hidden.

Cosgrove and others like him around Hawaii hope their secret life will
change now that the Legislature may be days away from making Hawaii
the seventh state to legalize marijuana for medical reasons.

Cosgrove uses a cane since his back snapped in a freak accident on a
construction site in 1995. He has had his discs fused and pins
implanted. The pain is constant, he said, and prescription medicines
make him hallucinate.

Smoking a joint every four hours takes the edge off. It also makes
Cosgrove an outlaw.

"I go outside and smoke, and I have to look around to make sure no
one's looking," he said. "I worry that people can smell it. I'm not a
thief. I've never hurt anybody. I'm not a criminal. I just got hurt."

The House and Senate have passed different versions of bills allowing
marijuana for medical reasons. State Sen. Avery Chumbley, (D-East
Maui, North Kauai), said he is worried that the 13-12 vote in the
Senate means some legislators might change their positions.

Chumbley, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee that looked at the
medical marijuana bills, wants to avoid a House and Senate conference
committee and is working to get the House version approved this week.
It allows people who have written permission from a doctor to acquire,
possess, cultivate, distribute, transport and use marijuana for
medical reasons. The Senate version is vague on how patients would get
their marijuana.

"Just because you allow someone to use marijuana for pain relief
doesn't mean you're allowing the general public to allow it for
general, recreational use," Chumbley said.

He wants to focus on helping people who suffer from severe injuries
and diseases like AIDS or glaucoma.

"If we can provide some relief from pain to individuals who are
currently smoking marijuana for medical reasons, then why should we
continue to criminalize them?" he asked.

Legislator voices concerns

But Rep. Dave Stegmaier, (D-Kalama Valley/Portlock), said he worries
that legalizing marijuana for medical reasons will lead to other drugs
being legalized in Hawaii.

"This is very significant," Stegmaier said. "There's clearly an agenda
at work. If the agenda is to go from one type of legalization to the
next, I feel strongly about putting up a fight every step of the way.
I don't like having to be the bad guy. But if I see that ultimately
society will be harmed, my responsibility as a legislator is to speak
up now rather than to voice my concerns after the fact."

The medical marijuana issue also divides Hawaii doctors.

Dr. David McEwan sees cancer and AIDS patients in his family practice
with the Honolulu Medical Group who swear that marijuana works better
than their prescription drugs.

"The balance between medicine and law is a difficult one, and I can
appreciate the two views," McEwan said. "But as a physician, my first
role always will be to advocate for the patient, even when it
conflicts with the law. I just pray for the day when legislators have
some compassion and some common sense. Even if they don't pass the
law, the people will keep on using marijuana anyway."

In both private practice and as medical director of Hospice Hawaii for
seven years, Dr. Don Purcell said he treated patients with
prescription drugs that worked as well as marijuana.

"I worry about the long-term effects of marijuana on the lungs," he
said. "Is it a carcinogenic? I'm also concerned that medical marijuana
may be misused."

And as the former staff psychiatrist for the Sand Island Addiction
Treatment Center, Purcell said his biggest concern is that marijuana
used for medical reasons "will fall into the wrong hands" and lead to
addiction problems.

Group wants state to wait

The Hawaii Medical Association, which has a membership of 1,700,
opposes the medical marijuana bills and said Hawaii should wait for
the outcome of studies on the effectiveness of marijuana. The group
also argued that smoking marijuana is no better than inhaling tobacco
smoke.

Members are worried that doctors might lose their Drug Enforcement
Administration licenses because marijuana still would be illegal under
federal law, said Dr. Phil Hellreich, legislative chairman and
president elect of the Hawaii Medical Association.

U.S. Attorney Steve Alm would not speculate on how federal officials
would react to medical marijuana in Hawaii. The federal government's
interest in Hawaii marijuana arrests so far usually has been
restricted to serious criminals.

"Historically we've always done some cases," Alm said. "They've
typically been very large, commercial growing cases."

Jim Lucas said his experience with marijuana dispels the idea that
people who use marijuana as medication are looking for an excuse to
get stoned.

He has AIDS, and doctors gave him testosterone injections and growth
hormones when his weight dropped from 160 to 144 because of AIDS
Wasting Syndrome. But Lucas didn't have the appetite to consume more
calories.

"I would sit down to a meal, take three bites and feel like I was at
the end of a Thanksgiving meal," he said.

Friends on the Mainland sent him a quarter-ounce of marijuana for
$160, and suddenly he was hungry again. After four months, Lucas'
weight returned, but he found himself enjoying getting high.

"That's why I don't smoke pot anymore," said Lucas, 43. "It was like,
`OK, you're getting into those high school days of getting stoned. Cut
it out.' So I quit."

User's home raided

John Detroy didn't like sneaking around, buying marijuana to help him
handle the pain that went along with his back problems, which date to
childhood. His friends who bought pot from dealers had been ripped
off, threatened with guns or encouraged to buy harder drugs.

So Detroy built an elaborate growing operation in one of the bedrooms
in his Kaneohe apartment. It suited him fine until police searched his
apartment in December 1997 and seized more than 800 plants. He was
convicted on three felony counts and is serving 10 years probation.

Nothing that doctors have prescribed over the years -- not the Demerol,
morphine nor Dilaudid -- eases his pain. Neither does marijuana, but it
works better than anything else, Detroy said.

Because he's on probation, Detroy, 45, has turned to Marinol, the
legal, prescription pill form of marijuana. Each month he swallows
$2,400 worth of the pills that he gets at Longs Drugs. The pills take
hours to kick in, don't work as well as marijuana and cost almost five
times as much, Detroy said.

"I'm in constant pain," he said. "I'm not interested in getting high
as much as getting some relief."

Detroy has plans for the day that smoking marijuana for medical
reasons becomes legal in Hawaii.

"I'm going to go out and buy a bag of pot," he said. "And then I'm
going to start growing my own."