VOTERS WILL DECIDE ON MARIJUANA

New secretary of state says her predecessor undercounted petitions; 66 are
found in office

The medical marijuana initiative that was kicked off the Colorado ballot
last fall will be on it next year -- and supporters won't even have to
gather new signatures.

A new petition count has revealed that the late Secretary of State Victoria
Buckley made a mistake when she kept the initiative off the ballot for lack
of signatures.

As a result, voters will decide in November 2000 whether terminally ill
people should be allowed to relieve their pain by smoking a marijuana, said
Donetta Davidson, who succeeded Buckley in July.

Davidson on Tuesday said her staff reviewed the signature count and found
that more than 2,500 had been improperly disqualified by Buckley's staff.

She said the initiative had 253 more signatures than the 54,242 needed to
make the November 1998 election ballot.

Some of the signatures included in Davidson's new count were on 66 petitions
found in Buckley's office after she died of heart failure July 14.

"I feel very good," said Martin Chilcutt, a retired psychologist and
community volunteer who led the effort to put the initiative on the ballot.

The proposal would allow physicians to authorize the use of marijuana by
patients suffering from cancer and other painful diseases.

The initiative was in and out of state courts during the summer and fall of
1998 as Chilcutt and his supporters struggled to demonstrate that their
petitions contained enough valid voter signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The item was eventually put on the ballot over Buckley's objections, and
Coloradans voted on it.

But the state Supreme Court overruled that decision, and the votes were
never counted.

Davidson said she was told the week she took office that a recount was under
way and that the marijuana initiative would qualify for the ballot.

Chilcutt said Buckley admitted before she died that she'd erred and that the
proposal did in fact have enough signatures to make the ballot.

Davidson said she personally counted the signatures on the 66 petitions
found in Buckley's office.

She said she assumes the petitions were in Buckley's office because Buckley
was helping to count them at the time of her death.

"The only thing I can say is, she was helping in checking those," Davidson
said.

Some of the problems can be traced to the use of temporary workers to check
signatures, Davidson said.

"There's a human error factor in checking petitions," she said. "You're
working with temps, and she (Buckley) had a short time to work them, so I
would say human error was what accounted for the mistakes."

The number of signatures was close to the minimum needed to appear on the
ballot, she said.

Chilcutt declined to speculate on why Buckley got the count wrong or why 66
petitions were in her office.

"Bless her heart, she's not here," he said.

Sam Riddle, who was Buckley's spokesman, said problems occurred because "the
secretary of state is allocated far fewer people than they need to count
signatures," many of which come in at the last minute.

Riddle said he thinks the 66 petitions were in Buckley's office because she
was counting them.