CITIZENS FRUSTRATED BY MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW

Patients like Penny Simons, who smokes marijuana to relieve her
debilitating respiratory and heart disease, told lawmakers yesterday of
their frustrations with the new voter-approved medical marijuana
initiative.

Simons, 34, of Renton, said she smokes pot for medical reasons even though
her doctor won't give her the documentation the law requires.

"He's afraid he's going to wind up in prison," she said, "I don't smoke it
to get stoned. I smoke it to function. If that makes me a criminal, then
I'm a criminal."

Initiative 692, which took effect Dec. 3, authorized the use of marijuana
by patients with certain terminal or debilitating illnesses, including
cancer, AIDS and glaucoma. It does not provide any legal way for them to
obtain it. But with a doctor's note, patients - or their designated
caregiver - can possess up to a 60-day supply.

The initiative leaves patients to deduce that they must grow it and guess
how much constitutes a 60-day supply. There is nowhere they can turn for
easy, accurate information. And they are rebuffed when they turn for
answers to the state Department of Health.

A legislative analyst said the Health Department cannot write rules that
would offer a clearer interpretation because the initiative does not
explicitly give the department rule-writing authority.

And state officials are wary of drawing the wrath of the federal government.

Department spokeswoman Patricia Brown told members of the Senate Health and
Long Term Care Committee that her department has received numerous
questions from health care providers, patients and others seeking
clarification.

But the department typically tells them to just read the language in the
law, although that language is very vague.

Brown said she refers patients to their doctors for discussion on how much
pot to take.

Seattle's Tim Killian, who was campaign manager for I-692, said in an
interview that the law was written as specifically "as the federal
government's laws would allow a state law to be written."

"I think that the federal government have got their foot on this," Sen.
Lorraine Wojahn, D-Tacoma, said during the hearing.

Lawmakers took no action on suggestions that the law be amended to give the
Department of Health more authority to interpret the initiative.