ISLAND VOTERS SUPPORT POT FOR MEDICAL USES - POLL

Hawai'i voters overwhelmingly favor the use of marijuana for medical
purposes, according to a recent statewide poll.

Voters also strongly back the legalization of hemp, a less potent form of
marijuana, to be grown for industrial uses in Hawai'i.

Results of the public opinion poll were handed out in a press release last
week by 'Ohana Aloha, an organization of "religious and medical
practitioners of cannabis," said Big Island spokesman Roger Christie, a
longtime advocate of marijuana.

Jim Gonzalez, a former San Francisco supervisor, commissioned the public
opinion poll. Gonzalez helped enact the nation's first medical marijuana
initiative in San Francisco in 1991.

Sixty-three percent of respondents in Hawai'i either said they "strongly"
support or "somewhat" support the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Twenty-eight percent either are somewhat opposed or strongly opposed to it.
Ten percent were undecided.

Sixty-two percent of Hawai'i voters also favor industrial hemp, the poll
shows, while 21 percent opposed industrial hemp. Almost 18 percent of the
respondents said they are undecided.

The polling firm of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates, with offices
in San Francisco and Oakland, Ca., conducted the telephone survey last
month.

Christie said GOP gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle promised a Maui user
of medical marijuana that she would support its legal use if a poll showed
Hawaii's voters favor it.

Lingle spokeswoman Kitty Lagareta denied the mayor made that promise,
however, and said Lingle has not taken a position on industrial hemp or
medical marijuana. "Those are not primary issues," Lagareta said.

"If its helpful, she might consider medical marijuana," Lagareta said, "But
she has taken no position."

Gov. Cayetano has endorsed the development of industrial hemp in Hawai'i
but has taken no position on medical marijuana, said the governor's
spokeswoman Kathleen Racuya-Markrich.

Voters in five states and the District of Columbia will be voting today on
questions relating to legalizing marijuana for medical use. Hawai'i is not
among them, however. Marijuana and hemp are illegal for any uses in
Hawai'i.

Christie, however, said the poll shows the "silent majority" of voters in
Hawai'i support medical marijuana and industrial use of hemp by a margin of
more than 2 to 1.

Gonzalez now runs his own lobbying and public relations firm in Sacramento
and represents, among other clients, Americans for Medical Rights, the
group behind a successful medical marijuana initiative on the California
ballot in 1996.

"I had heard there was some debate in Hawai'i, and I decided to find out
about it as an academic exercise," Gonzalez said.

"I'm still looking at the analysis," Gonzalez said. "There is a lot for
the legislators and the new governor, if there is one, to look at."

Research associate Laurie Beijin of the polling firm said "definitely
Hawai'i is very supportive of medical marijuana, more so than in some other
states" where the firm has conducted polls. Four hundred respondents from
throughout Hawai'i first were screened for their likelihood to vote in the
general election, Beijin said. The poll, conducted September 30 to October
4, has a margin of error of 4.9 percent, Beijin said.