WOMAN IN BED MAKES CASE FOR POT AS MEDICINE

PRINCETON TOWNSHIP -- Pushing for the medical use of marijuana, a
group staged quiet demonstrations yesterday, first at the State House
in Trenton, then here at the governor's mansion, Drumthwacket.

Demonstrators protested Gov. Christie Whitman's refusal to meet with
them on the matter.

About eight people carted neon-colored signs that read "Suffering
patients are no Joke," "Honk for Medical Marijuana" and "Stop
Arresting Patients," through Princeton's streets before stopping at
the governor's mansion yesterday.

"Since before Whitman took office, we've done everything we could to
meet with her," said Jim Miller, whose wife, Cheryl Miller, has been
afflicted with muscular dystrophy for the past 30 years. "For six
years, Whitman has been saying that it (legalizing medical marijuana)
would send the wrong message. She refuses to make the reasons for her
position clear."

Jayne O'Connor, Whitman's press secretary, said, "The governor has
been very consistent in her opposition to allowing marijuana use for
any purpose," O'Connor said. "She believes it is an illegal substance
and that it should continue to be so."

But Miller, who wheeled his wife on a medical bed for one mile through
the streets of Princeton, said he can't understand why the governor
refuses to meet with his wife.

"She has a lot of information to go on," Miller said. "California,
Oregon, Alaska, Washington and now, most recently, Maine are the
states where it is legal."

Gary Sage, spokesman for the Cherylheart Project, the Millers'
movement to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, said that Whitman
responded to the Millers' requests for a meeting with a letter
explaining that she didn't have time to see them.

"Yet the governor has made time to cut ribbons for AT&T and stroll
with the clowns of Barnum & Bailey," Sage said.

"She takes photo opportunities whenever she can," he said. "That's
what she's busy doing rather than meeting with disabled New Jersey
citizens, and I find that repugnant."

Miller said the group plans a larger protest on May 13. "I want to do
whatever we can to let her know that she must, absolutely must, talk
to people in Cheryl's condition or a representative," he said.

"I think that Cheryl will likely not live as long as she's governor,"
he said. "In Cheryl's lifetime, she should have the dignity of at
least a recorded telephone discussion with her."