D.C. LEARNS MARIJUANA INITIATIVE PASSED

WASHINGTON (AP) - Almost a year after the balloting, voters in the
nation's capital learned Monday that nearly 70% of them favored
medical use of marijuana. Votes on their referendum were finally
counted after a judge overruled a congressional ban.

That doesn't mean marijuana is now legal for medical purposes in
Washington. Congress will get at least one more chance at the issue.

As passed, District of Columbia ballot initiative 59 would allow
doctors to inform their seriously ill patients of the option of using
marijuana to ease certain symptoms and side effects of treatment
related to AIDS and cancer.

''That will allow a patient to bring a physician in to testify in
court, seeking a medical exemption from prosecution under the D.C.
Uniformed Controlled Substances Act,'' said Wayne Turner, coordinator
of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, a gay rights and patient
advocacy group. The D.C. chapter of ACT UP helped collect the
signatures of 32,000 registered voters needed to put the measure on
the ballot.

After the proposal is submitted on Capitol Hill, Congress would have
30 legislative days to pass a resolution of disapproval. If it didn't,
the measure would become law.

''Our democracy has not fallen apart because (some) states have
medical marijuana in them,'' said Mary Jane DeFrank, executive
director of the D.C. area American Civil Liberties Union, which filed
the lawsuit to force the ballot counting.

Although 11 of 13 D.C. Council members and Mayor Anthony Williams
supported the measure, the White House and the Republican majority in
Congress have cited a lack of conclusive medical research in their
opposition.

''Marijuana continues to be a Schedule I substance and is still
illegal under federal law to cultivate, possess or use,'' said Joseph
C. Peters, acting Assistant Deputy Director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy.

''It would send a terrible message to America's young people to allow
those laws to be openly flaunted in the same city where they were
passed,'' said Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga.

Barr wrote the amendment to the district's budget that blocked city
officials from spending local money to count the ballot last November.
He also is backing an amendment to the city's 2000 budget to block
possible implementation of the measure.

U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts ruled Friday that preventing city
officials from counting and certifying the referendum results was a
violation of the constitutional rights of district voters.

Sixty-nine percent or 75,536 district voters cast their ballots in
support of the measure. Thirty-one percent or 34,621 ballots were cast
against the initiative in an election that brought out 40% of the
district's 353,503 registered voters.

Five states - California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Arizona -
also have passed medical marijuana initiatives. Three others - Nevada,
Colorado and Maine - are expected to consider similar measures over
the next 14 months.