WOMAN PARTAKES, SETS UP TEST

MS patient faces drug prosecution

WASHINGTON -- The government's ban on using marijuana for medicinal
purposes will be tested in the nation's capital as a woman suffering from
multiple sclerosis stands trial for lighting a joint in a congressman's
office.

Renee Emry Wolfe said taking a few puffs of marijuana is the only way she
gets relief when her muscles go into spasm from the disease she has had for
two decades.

For Wolfe, "having a joint is like an asthmatic having a bronchial
inhaler," said her attorney, Jeff Orchard.

On Sept. 15, Wolfe lighted a marijuana cigarette in the office of Rep. Bill
McCollum, R-Fla., to bring attention to the issue of medical marijuana.

"This patient has run out of patience," Wolfe, a 38-year-old mother of
three from Ann Arbor, Mich., said in an interview.

"It's an uphill battle that I'm fighting," she said after Superior Court
Judge Anita Josey-Herring set an April 26 trial date. "I feel that if I
have to talk to every judge in this country to get things changed, I will."

Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said
prosecutors are pushing the case because "possession of marijuana is
against the law" in the District of Columbia.

There is a growing national debate over the use of marijuana for medical
reasons.

Last fall, Wolfe went to McCollum's office to protest his resolution that
day on the House floor, which said marijuana is a dangerous and addictive
drug and should not be legalized for medical use. McCollum is chairman of
the House Judiciary Committee's crime panel.

In his legal argument, Orchard contends that Wolfe started to feel tense
when McCollum's aides did not want to talk with her and she lighted the
marijuana cigarette because she felt her symptoms returning. When she gets
attacks, her hands shake and she loses control of her legs.

However, McCollum aide Shannon Gravitte said she spoke to Wolfe. Gravitte
said the incident seemed like a publicity stunt since Wolfe had brought
several cameras and a reporter with her.