WASHINGTON LEARNS MARIJUANA INITIATIVE PASSED

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Almost a year after the balloting, voters in the nation's
capital learned Monday that nearly 70 percent 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 percent 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.