MARIJUANA FACES TEST AT POLLS

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- Is marijuana a medicine for the desperately
ill, or the ``kindergarten of the drug industry'' designed to hook
people into a life of addiction and despair?

These two opposing views of the cannabis plant will compete at the
polls next week as voters in four states and the District of Columbia
consider new state initiatives to allow the medical use of marijuana.

For embattled marijuana boosters, the new proposals in Washington
state, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada are a ray of hope in a landscape
grown dark with litigation.

While California and Arizona led the nation in 1996 by passing their
own state marijuana initiatives, both have been effectively quashed by
federal suits aimed at keeping marijuana subject to national narcotics
laws.

``We're looking for a situation where science prevails,'' said Jim
Gonzalez of the group Americans for Medical Rights, which is
coordinating efforts to legalize medical marijuana use in the western
states.

``We are not saying that marijuana is the only solution to nausea,
chemotherapy or wasting disease. But is a solution for a number of
patients, and those patients should not be made into
criminals.''

But critics say the medical marijuana movement promotes drug abuse and
criminal behavior by ushering young people into what one judge has
called ``the kindergarten of the drug industry''.

``Those who would surrender the war on drugs surrender our children to
addiction, surrender our neighborhoods to crime, and surrender our
streets to violence,'' Gilbert Gallegos, president of the Fraternal
Order of Police, said in one typical anti-marijuana broadside.

The Clinton administration has been uncompromising in its opposition
to medical marijuana. At a news conference this week, senior officials
came out swinging, saying there was no official proof to back the
contention that marijuana can help ease symptoms of AIDS, cancer,
multiple sclerosis and other serious diseases.

``Smoked marijuana has not been tested (by the government),'' Dr. Don
Vereen, deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
said.

``We must keep an open mind about drugs with medical purposes, (but)
before you vote, ask yourself: `What other medicines do you smoke?'
Smoked marijuana damages the brain, heart, lungs and immune system.''

Barry McCaffrey, the administration's narcotics ``czar'', dismissed
the pro-marijuana camp as representing the thin edge of a wedge aimed
at weakening America's anti-drug resolve. ``Let's have none of this
malarkey (nonsense) on marijuana smoking by cunning groups working to
legalize drugs,'' McCaffrey said. ``American medicine is the best in
the world for pain management.''

That claim rings false for pro-medical marijuana groups in California,
which have fought a long and ultimately unsuccessful battle to
implement Prop. 215, the 1996 state law which allowed seriously ill
people to use marijuana when advised to do so by their doctor.

Under relentless federal assault in the courts, the marijuana supply
clubs that sprang up to provide people with the drug have been forced
to close. The last, in Oakland, shut its doors this month -- leaving
its 2,000 ``clients'' with little option but to turn to street dealers
for the drug.

Now, the Santa Monica-based Americans for Medical Rights, which is
funded in large part by three multimillionaire philanthropists,
financier George Soros, insurance magnate Peter Lewis and
educator-entrepreneur John Sperling, is spending more than $2 million
in an effort to turn the tide back in favor of medical marijuana.

Gonzalez said lessons from the 1996 ballots in California and Arizona
had helped organizers to craft proposals that focus voter attention on
the potential benefits of controlled marijuana use by the very sick.

Unlike the earlier propositions, which critics said opened the door to
the legalization of everything from heroin to LSD, this year's ballot
measures are designed to minimize controversy and head off federal
challenges.

In Washington, Oregon and Alaska, the measures are seen as having a
good chance of passage, while in Nevada it is more of a toss up,
Gonzalez said.

``This is a long term patient rights movement,'' Gonzalez said. ``It
is not a regional phenomenon. It is getting to be a national
experience of patients. You can't just say thats a bunch of old
hippies in California.''

Checked-by: Patrick Henry