JURY STILL OUT ON MARIJUANA LAW

Debate continues over the use of drug for medicinal purposes

ABERDEEN, Wash. -- "Jack," a 67-year-old former paratrooper, had never
smoked pot when voters in Washington approved a new medical marijuana law a
year ago this month.

Since then, he's been diagnosed with a tumor in his lower back that has
left him in agony, barely able to move.

Now, as doctors and law enforcement grapple with the measure, he has two
words for anybody who dares interfere with his effort to seek relief by
smoking an occasional joint -- back off!

"There are a lot of us going through some severe pains, and my government
ain't doing nothing for me," he said.

"I need it. I have to have it," Jack added before lighting a joint in his
Aberdeen home. "It makes you forget your problems and your pain."

That Jack and a friend who delivers his marijuana asked that they not be
identified illustrates the status of Washington's year-old medical
marijuana law.

Initiative 692 passed with 59 percent of the vote. Despite predictions it
would lead to a movement to legalize drugs and cause a surge in marijuana
use, neither has happened.

Instead, physicians and legal enforcers are developing professional
guidelines. Washington recently added Crohn's disease, a painful bowel
disease, to the list of qualifying ailments that includes AIDS, multiple
sclerosis, glaucoma and "intractable pain," and it is considering a request
to add hepatitis C.

In addition, it appears that few -- if any -- patients have been
prosecuted.

But serious obstacles remain, officials said.

The federal government has not relented in its opposition to legalizing
marijuana for medicinal uses.

The Justice Department is challenging voter-approved laws in Alaska,
Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington. Meanwhile, voters in Maine
approved a medical marijuana law earlier this month.

Authorities in Washington said they still do not know how to define a vague
provision in the state law that limits patients to a 60-day supply of
marijuana.

Prosecutors said they are waiting for the courts, the Legislature or
scientists to figure out how much pot is in a reasonable 60-day supply.

"We would love to have a (dosage) standard," said John Ladenburg, a Pierce
County prosecutor. "We're playing it by ear and trying to do the right
thing by what the people wanted."

Physicians at the University of Washington and Harborview Medical Center in
Seattle are working on recommended guidelines for doctors, but Washington
physicians still have legal concerns when it comes to prescribing
marijuana, said Dr. Thomas "Mac" Hooton, medical director of Harborview's
HIV-AIDS clinic.

"Marijuana is still classified as an illegal drug," Hooton said. "We have
been warned by lawyers that we need to pay attention to that and be
careful, even though the initiative attempts to give us some protection."

The most positive news from the federal government was a report earlier
this year by the Institute of Medicine, a federal advisory panel, that said
marijuana can help fight pain and nausea and should be further tested.

JoAnna McKee, co-founder of a Seattle-based underground marijuana clinic
called the Green Cross Patient Co-op, said more physicians probably will
recommend marijuana use once the experts complete the guidelines.

"I think we're better off than we were a year ago," she said.

Jack, the former paratrooper with cancer, said he credits marijuana with
curbing his nausea, restoring his appetite and helping him sleep.

But despite the year-old law, he asked that his real name be kept secret
for fear state government would cut off payment for his other medications.

Law enforcers are also frustrated because groups like the Green Cross that
deliver marijuana are still breaking the law -- it is a felony to deliver a
controlled substance -- but the initiative is so vague that it makes
prosecution difficult, said Ladenburg, the Pierce County prosecutor.

His office declined to press charges against a blind AIDS patient and his
mother, who were arrested in January after Tacoma police found three
marijuana plants in their home.

Four months later, the prosecutor filed charges against a Tacoma man who
said the 157 marijuana plants that police found in his home were supplying
pot for 11 patients with illnesses covered by the initiative.

Prosecutors in Seattle's King County are still waiting for the right "test"
case that will help set boundaries for law enforcers, said Dan Satterberg,
chief of staff to prosecutor Norm Maleng.

"So far, we've been able to make the law work as the voters intended,"
Satterberg said.