CONGRESS AT COMPLETE LOSS TO ABSORB MARIJUANA VOTE

WASHINGTON - Why are we not surprised? Referendum results illicitly
suppressed by Congress for a year and only now made public by court order
show that the District of Columbia voted overwhelmingly last fall to
legalize the use of marijuana to ease the suffering of seriously ill patients.

It wasn't even close. The measure passed by 69 percent to 31 percent. Every
precinct in the nation's capital, from pricey Georgetown to rundown
Anacostia, went for it.

The outcome is what conservative Republicans had feared. That is why they
refused to authorize funds to count the ballots, arrogantly keeping the
electorate in the dark.

Congress loves to push the nation's capital around, dictating what its local
officials can and cannot do. Congress is free to do that because it has
legislative and financial authority over the city, although our worthy
solons clearly exceeded their power by denying us, the D.C. voters, the
results of a democratic election.

A federal judge ruled that Congress violated our First Amendment right to
express an opinion because no one was allowed to hear it.

Congressional oversight was okay with most of us when Marion Barry,
convicted of possessing cocaine, was mayor. He was a major embarrassment
nobody could trust. But the city currently has as its mayor Anthony
Williams, a hard-working, honest bureaucrat who is rapidly restoring
administrative order and even filling the city's infamous potholes.

Yet Congress still thinks it knows what is best for Washington. To heck with
the voters. Capitol Hill Republicans reacted angrily to the referendum,
promising to block any administrative move to decriminalize pot for medical
purposes.

Current D.C. law makes possession of marijuana a misdemeanor punishable by
up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Getting caught is not going to
ruin your life. But you won't like it.

The pioneering concept embraced by D.C. voters is highly controversial. A
year ago, the House approved by 310 to 93 a nonbinding resolution opposing
legalization of marijuana for medicinal use, deliberately preempting the
then-silent election outcome. However sympathetic members may have been to
the agonies of the seriously ill, they were more interested in guarding
against opponents who might accuse them of being soft on all drugs,
including cocaine.

The Clinton White House stands with Congress on this. Politics is politics.

Voters in six states have approved similar legalization measures in the last
three years, permitting the possession, use, cultivation and distribution of
pot if recommended by a doctor for a serious illness. Advocates are
convinced that marijuana can make life better for patients who have AIDS,
cancer and other devastating illnesses, and there is anecdotal evidence to
support their theory.

Its usefulness is still largely unproved. Yet how can it ever be proved or
disproved unless there is a widespread lifting of the criminal restrictions
that prevent ill people who are not hopheads from trying it?

Inevitable doubts arise about control. Will marijuana really be limited to
medicinal purposes or will half the population suddenly invent headaches
that sucker some doctor into prescribing a legal high?

Such ambiguities do not bother the leaders of the GOP majority in Congress.
Deep in their conservative bones, they automatically reject the whole idea.

They cannot override legal referendums in the states. After all, they keep
lecturing us about the importance of handing federal power over to the
states. But they can stick it to the District of Columbia, a colony that has
been denied self-government. And they intend to do so.

Immediately, Rep. Thomas Davis III, R-Va., chairman of the House committee
that runs the city, said Congress was "determined" to block the measure.
Mayor Williams, who supported the referendum, was not happy. But he controls
no votes in Virginia or anywhere else.

The odds are that Congress will again substitute its judgment for that of
the capital's voters. It's an old story. But at least we stirred the pot.
(Get it?) Maybe next time.