PANEL DELAYS DECISION ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Senate Sponsor, Ventura May Re-Tool Over Distribution, Enforcement Issues

In less than one minute of testimony to a state Senate committee
Tuesday, Nancy Briggs argued an emotional case for allowing patients
with debilitating medical conditions to smoke marijuana.

Briggs, who calls herself a ``cancer survivor,'' described suffering
intense nausea and severe headaches that accompanied chemotherapy and
radiation treatments she underwent after breast surgery last spring.

``I tried a dozen different prescription medicines to combat the side
effects,'' said Briggs, 44, of Golden Valley. ``Nothing worked,
nothing even came close. . . . Someone then gave me a marijuana
cigarette. It stopped the nausea, it stopped the headaches. The relief
was thorough, immediate and quite extraordinary.''

Briggs was one of string of witnesses who testified for and against a
bill that would allow a patient -- with a note from his or her
physician -- to possess up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana without having
to worry about facing state criminal charges.

The Senate Health and Family Security Committee postponed a vote on
the bill to allow the Senate sponsor and top officials in Gov. Jesse
Ventura's administration to try to negotiate compromise amendments
addressing concerns Public Safety Commissioner Charlie Weaver said
Ventura has with the bill.

The committee tentatively is scheduled to resume debate on the bill at
7:30 tonight in Room 15 of the Capitol.

As the bill stands, its chances of passage are not good in the
Democrat-dominated Senate, and even weaker in the Republican-controlled
House.

Sen. Dan Stevens, R-Mora, a committee member and opponent of the bill,
said it would send a ``terrible message'' to children that
recreational, as well as medical, use of marijuana is acceptable.

But the bill's prospects will improve significantly if it's endorsed
by Ventura and Weaver, a respected former Republican House member who
was a law-and-order candidate for attorney general.

``What the governor supports,'' Weaver said, ``is figuring out a way
to allow people who are terminally ill, or seriously ill, access to
marijuana without creating a nightmare for law enforcement.''

Weaver said he envisioned amendments that would allow the state Health
Department or the University of Minnesota to seek federal permission
for marijuana to be tested in a strictly controlled research project.

Weaver said he and Ventura also want to tighten the bill's language
about who could qualify to use marijuana. ``The governor doesn't want
this to apply to just anybody with a bad back,'' Weaver said.

The bill's author, Sen. Pat Piper, DFL-Austin, and an official of the
Bureau of Criminal Apprehension were expected to resume meeting today
to try to negotiate acceptable language.

Darrell Paulsen of South St. Paul, who has cerebral palsy and attended
the hearing Tuesday to support passage of the bill, said he thought
the changes proposed by Weaver would gut Piper's bill.

Paulsen said he met briefly with Ventura after the hearing and urged
him to overrule the position Weaver took in the hearing.

``I think he is missing the boat when he thinks we can design a pilot
project so these people can get it,'' Paulsen said of Weaver.

As originally drafted, the bill would remove the already-small state
criminal penalties for use and possession of less than 1.5 grams of
marijuana by people who have demonstrated to their doctors they need
the drug for the treatment of cancer, AIDS, Crohn's disease,
scleroderma, chronic pain or similar ailments.

The bill also would protect doctors from any criminal penalties for
prescribing marijuana.

But the legislation would not have created a mechanism for anyone
legally to sell the marijuana. And, according to Weaver, the bill
would have done nothing to protect patients from federal anti-drug
laws.

People selling the marijuana would be committing felonies, Weaver
said. He said he and Ventura do not want patients seeking marijuana
for medicinal purposes to have to rely on street purchases of
marijuana of widely varying potency.

The committee Tuesday approved an amendment that calls for the state
Health and Public Safety departments to create a system for the
distribution of marijuana under the auspices of the state Board of
Pharmacy. But Weaver said that amendment would not fix the problem of
patients potentially facing federal charges.

Two physicians testified in favor of the bill on Tuesday; one opposed
it.

Dr. Dennis Dykstra, a University of Minnesota Medical School
professor, said the active ingredient in marijuana,
tetrahydro-cannabinol or THC, helps reduce spasticity in patients who
have suffered spinal cord injuries or who have cerebral palsy. He said
he thinks that for many patients, smoking marijuana produces better
results than taking an oral version of the drug.

``Some of my patients are smoking cannabis -- marijuana -- and they're
getting far better results than with the oral medicine,'' Dykstra said.

A psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Willenbring, who directs an addiction
treatment program at the Veterans Administration Medical Center at
Fort Snelling, said smoking marijuana can help patients suffering from
nausea and vomiting. ``There is more evidence for medical marijuana
than for many other medicines we use,'' he said.

But a third doctor, Dr. Mary Bhvsar, an ophthalmologist, urged the
committee members not to believe that marijuana is the only, or best,
treatment for patients suffering from glaucoma. Some new medicines
work better, she said.

Briggs, the breast cancer survivor from Golden Valley, said she tried
marijuana several times two decades ago when she was in college, but
did not use the drug again until a friend offered it as an antidote to
the side effects of her chemotherapy, which included loss of appetite
and open sores in her mouth.

After she tried the marijuana, it never occurred to her let the law
deter her from using it, she said.

``It never concerned me,'' she said. ``My relief was so extreme that I
would have been willing to do anything.'

(Patrick Sweeney, who covers state government and politics, can be
contacted at psweeney@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5253.)