NEED EXISTS TO REFORM 'POT' LAW, GROUP SAYS

Advocates for reforming Arkansas drug laws called in two homebound medical
patients Sunday to champion a proposal to allow the chronically ill to
smoke marijuana.

Delbert Lewis and James Markes rolled to the podium in wheelchairs to give
testimonials on their medicinal use of marijuana - Markes to combat drastic
weight loss and Lewis to deal with a debilitating condition he called
"post-polio syndrome." While both acknowledged smoking marijuana in the
past, neither said he is currently using the drug, which is illegal in
Arkansas even for medicinal use.

The Alliance for Reform of Drug Policy in Arkansas hopes to change the law,
which supporters say bars the seriously ill from a medical alternative that
can relieve their pain. Opponents, though, say no scientific evidence
supports that claim and that the medicinal marijuana movement undercuts the
government's anti-drug efforts.

The grass-roots advocacy group, based in Fayetteville, started collecting
signatures last month on an initiative petition to allow chronic sufferers
to use marijuana on a doctor's recommendation.

The plan would require the state Department of Health to administer the
marijuana program, handing out special identification cards to patients
whose doctors recommended the drug. Patients with the cards could legally
use marijuana in recommended amounts.

Denele Campbell, a Fayetteville piano tuner who is president of the
alliance, said organizers modeled the proposal after a medicinal-marijuana
law in Oregon. Similar laws are in place in Alaska, Arizona, California,
Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, D.C.

Though Campbell said Arkansas supporters are circulating petitions in
support of the measure in 13 counties, she had "no clue" how many people
have signed. To place the proposal on the November general-election ballot,
the group needs the signatures of nearly 57,000 registered voters by early
July.

Though Campbell said the initiative is finding supporters in its Northwest
Arkansas base, organizers knew from the start that their chances were slim
to make the July deadline. They decided to press ahead anyway to at least
put the idea of medical marijuana in the public arena, Campbell said.

Sunday's meeting at Laman Library in North Little Rock was the group's
first venture into Pulaski County.

Mara Leveritt, an Arkansas Times contributor who has written in support of
the proposal, welcomed the 40 or so who showed up for the session.

Though some voters automatically recoil at any proposal having to do with
legalizing marijuana, Leveritt said, residents in seven states found good
reasons to support medicinal marijuana.

"They have decided this is an issue of compassion," she said. "It's a
civil-rights issue. This is something that physicians should be able to
prescribe."

Markes, a 37-year-old Navy veteran suffering a disabling condition he
described as "collagenous colitis and other pathologies," said the
marijuana he tried as a last resort helped him gain back some of the 70
pounds he lost because of his illness.

Markes, who declined to give his address, said a doctor suggested he try
marijuana after nothing else worked. After regaining 28 pounds in the first
month, he credited the drug with saving his life.

"I know it has," Markes said.

But he has been arrested and fined and had his driver's license taken away
as a result of taking the drug, he said.

Lewis, the polio survivor, said it's wrong for a patient who benefits from
the drug to live in fear of arrest.

"I currently don't use cannabis as much as I'd like to because of the
fear," said Lewis, a former state Department of Human Services employee who
said he had to leave the job because of the debilitating fatigue caused by
his post-polio syndrome.

A self-described "retired recluse" who said he has been out of his house
only three times in as many years, Lewis said he thought he could still be
working if he could legally use marijuana.

"It's ridiculous how the establishment penalizes the most defenseless
members of society" for trying to make their lives more livable, he said.

The message appeared to be going over well with Sunday's crowd, which
included representatives of the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws.

Also present was Tom Brown, the Our Church founder who went to federal
prison after he made headlines for openly planting marijuana seeds on
church grounds, claiming it was for religious practices.

Another man said he was in favor of broad use of marijuana, not just for
medicine. But the medicinal-use initiative is an important first step, said
the man, who declined to give his name. "I'm still on probation," he
explained.

Supporters of proposed constitutional amendments must have 70,701
signatures of registered Arkansas voters on their petitions by July 7 to
get proposed amendments on the November ballot.

Supporters of initiative acts have until July 7 to collect at least 56,481
signatures of registered Arkansas voters to get their proposals on the ballot.

A significant difference between proposed constitutional amendments and
initiated acts is that the Legislature cannot amend a constitutional
amendment that the voters adopt unless the amendment grants such authority
to the Legislature.

An initiated act approved by the voters could be amended by lawmakers by a
two-thirds majority of the House and Senate.