NEW MEDICAL POT LAW WORKING SMOOTHLY

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Nearly 200 permits have been issued under the Oregon's
new medical marijuana law, and hundreds of other patients have inquired
about getting the state's blessing to smoke pot, officials said Tuesday.

Since the first permit was issued in May, there have been few hitches under
the voter-passed law that allows patients to cultivate and smoke marijuana
for medicinal reasons if they get a doctor's note. Backers of medicinal
marijuana say it can ease some of the symptoms of cancer, glaucoma, AIDS,
multiple sclerosis and other serious illnesses.

Some doctors are still reluctant to participate, but for patients like
Stormy Ray, an Ontario woman who suffers from multiple sclerosis, the new
law has been a life changer.

"It's a blessing," she said Tuesday. "Now I won't be ostracized and my
family won't be destroyed because I use a medication that works for me."

Kelly Paige, manager of Oregon's medical marijuana program, said that so
far 190 patients have paid the $150 fee for a permit and that her office
has gotten requests for information from another 1,500 people.

Paige said she's heard of no problems with the law, and that patients have
begun to work their way around a Catch-22 in the law that says it's legal
to grow and possess marijuana but not to buy the starting seeds.

There's nothing in the law that forbids medical marijuana patients from
giving each other seeds, and many of those people have begun "networking"
over the Internet and by other means for that purpose, she said.

"It would be a lot easier to go down to the corner pharmacy and buy
marijuana cigarettes in a little orange bottle," Paige said. "But this is
where we are at now with our law."

Dr. Rick Bayer, chief sponsor of the law, said doctors initially were
reluctant to take part for fear of running afoul of the federal government,
since any use of marijuana still is illegal under federal drug laws.

Still, Bayer said he believes doctors are becoming increasingly more
willing to help patients who have a legitimate need for medicinal marijuana.

Bayer noted that the state's largest organization of physicians, the Oregon
Medical Association, had advised its members not to participate after the
law first last fall.

The OMA dropped that stance in April and instead issued a set of guidelines
telling physicians how to help their patients obtain marijuana for
medicinal purposes.

"I think there were physicians holding back because they didn't know about
that," Bayer said of the OMA's new guidelines. "So I think it's going to
take time" to get more physicians participating.

During last year's campaign on the issue, some law enforcement official
said they were worried that large-scale marijuana growers or dealers might
try to hide behind the medical pot law.

But Marion County District Attorney Dale Penn, who worked with the 1999
Oregon Legislature to clarify the language of the law, said those fears so
far have proved to be unfounded.

"There have been a few individual cases here and there where an individual
has attempted to use the marijuana law as an after-the-fact excuse" after
being arrested for illegally possessing marijuana, he said.

"But so far, we haven't seen any major abuses," the district attorney said.

Ray, the multiple sclerosis sufferer, said she relishes being able to
legally take a few puffs of marijuana every few hours to alleviate the
muscle spasms and upset stomach caused by her disease.

"It gave me back my body," she said. "It's been a new page of life for me,
and I love it."