REMOVE BARRIERS TO MEDICINAL POT

AS a prosecutor, I send drug traffickers to prison. As an AIDS patient, I
use marijuana as medicine under state law.

Sadly, the federal government is bent on criminalizing seriously ill people
like me.

In March, the prestigious Institute of Medicine concluded that smoking
marijuana can alleviate cancer and AIDS symptoms; the institute recommended
patients be given immediate legal access to marijuana under a
``compassionate use'' program.

However, federal Health and Human Services guidelines, which go into effect
Dec. 1, reject compassionate use and are too cumbersome to enable necessary
research. Seriously ill people will continue to face arrest and
imprisonment, while potentially lifesaving research is bogged down in red
tape.

We can provide medicinal marijuana without compromising our anti-drug
efforts or jeopardizing law enforcement.

Drug czar Barry McCaffrey predicted an epidemic of teenage marijuana use
when California voters legalized medicinal marijuana in 1996. Instead,
teenage marijuana use in California is now less than the national average
and declining, according to federal surveys.

Since 1985, I've been an assistant district attorney in San Francisco,
where I have successfully prosecuted numerous drug cases.

In 1993, I was diagnosed with AIDS wasting syndrome. I suffered a
devastating weight loss of 45 pounds. My body was disintegrating. I
couldn't sit in a chair because I was sitting on bone.

My treatment with a growth hormone to combat the wasting needed three
high-calorie meals daily to work. I had no appetite, and couldn't eat.

My physician recommended Marinol, the prescription THC pill. It knocked me
out for hours and didn't stimulate my appetite.

I was dying.

My physician and I discussed the benefits and risks of smoking marijuana,
and I decided to try it. It worked. With my appetite restored, I could eat,
and with the growth hormone I regained precious lost weight. I was able to
control the dose so it didn't incapacitate me.

I don't use marijuana recreationally. I don't like being stoned, but I do
like being alive. People who suffer from serious illnesses who need
marijuana are not smoking to get high but to get healthy.

It is a tragedy -- no, an outrage -- that federal officials at the White
House, in Congress and at Health and Human Services insist that the drug
war ought to extend to people who use marijuana to help them survive and
fight terrible illnesses.

Congress should not interfere with state and District of Columbia medicinal
marijuana laws, and the federal government should create a federal
compassionate use program.