WOMAN TESTS D.C.'S BAN ON MEDICINAL USE OF MARIJUANA

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.

Last 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 here,
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.

Voters in six states -- California, Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, Nevada
and Washington -- have approved measures in the last few years
allowing use of marijuana for medical reasons. Congress barred the
District of Columbia from counting of voting results from a similar
ballot initiative last fall.

The New England Journal of Medicine has editorialized in favor of
medical marijuana and the American Medical Association, altering its
policy, voted to urge the National Institutes of Health to support
more research on the subject.