BOARD WANTS STUDY ON MARIJUANA BALLOT QUESTION

The Nevada Pharmacy Board wants the state to determine how marijuana will
be obtained and distributed to medical patients if a ballot question wins
voter approval next year.

Keith Macdonald, executive secretary of the Board of Pharmacy, will ask the
Board of Medical Examiners at an Aug. 28 meeting to conduct a marijuana
study. He says the answers are needed before hundreds of people seek
permission to use the drug for medical purposes. The Pharmacy Board wants
the medical board to name a coalition to study the marijuana question.

Last November, voters approved Question 9, which would allow doctors to
recommend marijuana to patients with medical problems. Under the Nevada
Constitution, the question must be approved twice before it becomes law.

Because 59 percent of voters backed medical marijuana last year, Macdonald
assumes the proposal also will pass during the November 2000 election. Five
states and the District of Columbia already have approved medical marijuana
initiatives.

"We need to decide who is going to get it and how it is going to be
contained so we don't get in a mess like in our sister state to the West,"
Macdonald said. "Our intent is to get an appropriate method for obtaining,
distributing and containing the use of marijuana."

California marijuana backers formed a number of buyers clubs for
distribution after its voters passed an initiative in 1996. Most have been
closed down by federal authorities.

Macdonald said the state should undertake a research project to determine
valid uses for marijuana. He also suggested the Agriculture Department at
the University of Nevada, Reno, should grow marijuana used by medical
patients.

Like most political leaders in Nevada, Macdonald opposed the marijuana
initiative. He calls marijuana a "third-rate drug" for treatment of
glaucoma. The drug is far more likely to cause cancer than tobacco, he added.

The proposal for medical marijuana was placed on the ballot through the
efforts of Americans for Medical Rights. Critics have complained the group
is financed by people whose real motive is the reform of marijuana laws,
rather than the use of marijuana by sick people.

Nevada law makes possession of even a small amount of marijuana a felony,
although the offense will be removed from records of minor users if they
complete anti-drug programs.