MEDICAL MARIJUANA EFFORT FAILS

Despite a declaration by one senator that marijuana would have helped
ease the suffering of his late wife and his brother, a scaled-back
effort to provide legal protection for the medical use of marijuana
was voted down Friday in a Senate committee. It appears dead for this
legislative session.

The bill would have established a legal defense for people charged
with possession of up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana if they could prove
they were using it to ease pain or other medical conditions, or were
supplying it to someone who was.

Sen. Leo Foley, DFL-Coon Rapids, told his fellow Crime Prevention
Committee members that marijuana might have helped his wife stop short
of taking her own life due to pain and might have helped ease his late
brother's pain due to cancer treatments.

But Sen. Tom Neuville, R-Northfield, said such efforts, which have
failed repeatedly at the Legislature in recent years, are doomed as
long as marijuana remains a federally controlled substance.

Advocates included cancer sufferers, survivors and spouses, a person
with cerebral palsy, and the state public defender.