DRUG OFFICIALS VEXED BY 5 STATES' INITIATIVES ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

WASHINGTON -- Renee Emry walked into the office of Rep. Bill McCollum last
month and did something rarely seen in a congressional suite: She lit up a
marijuana cigarette.

Emry, 38, suffers from multiple sclerosis, and she wanted to urge McCollum,
a Florida Republican, to support legalization of marijuana as medicine for
patients like her.

"I find that when I medicate appropriately, it calms my nerves, so I fired
up a fatty,"said Emry, who came to the Capitol from Ann Arbor, Mich., on
behalf of a group called the Marijuana Policy Project. "It's not like I was
trying to be rude, crude and totally uncalled for. I was there to educate
the man."

Whisked away by Capitol police, Emry faces trial on a drug charge in
December.

Not so easily ushered away is the issue. Medical marijuana initiatives may
be the first proposals for relaxing the drug laws that have gained
significant support since the war on drugs began in earnest in the early
1980s.

Voters in California and Arizona approved medical marijuana initiatives two
years ago. Five more Western states and the District of Columbia will vote
on similar proposals Tuesday, and opinion polls released by supporters this
week suggest they will win handily.

While those polls might be suspect, the public does face a real prospect of
waking up after Election Day to find that medical marijuana is legal, at
least in theory, in seven states containing about one-fifth of the
population.

Police, prosecutors and federal officials are frustrated. The initiatives'
popularity suggests that many people are rejecting the message that
marijuana is a dangerous gateway to stronger drugs and instead see marijuana
as potentially therapeutic.

"This is a way to legally introduce people to possibly a lifetime of drug
abuse," said John Justice, a South Carolina prosecutor who heads the
National District Attorneys Association. "The drug problem from stem to
stern in this country is tremendous, and I knew a judge who used to call
marijuana `the kindergarten of the drug industry.' "

The proposals' supporters hope they are establishing a beachhead and that
eventually marijuana will be legally available from doctors nationwide.

The initiatives' popularity raises the question of how, after years of
anti-drug ads and horror stories, so many people still view marijuana as
benign.

If some or all of the initiatives pass next week in Washington, Oregon,
Nevada, Colorado, Alaska and the District of Columbia, political leaders and
police will have to deal with the fact that the new state laws are at odds
with federal law.

"Legally there is little significance if these things pass, but politically
there is a lot of significance," said Eric Sterling, president of the
Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. "Members of Congress might start to
re-evaluate their position."

It is not entirely an accident that medical marijuana is catching on now. A
group called Americans for Medical Rights, headquartered in Santa Monica,
Calif., is pushing the crusade with small staffs in several states.

The group is bankrolled by three millionaires: financier George Soros,
insurance magnate Peter Lewis and John Sperling, who owns a successful chain
of adult education centers. The three have spent a total of a little more
than $2 million on the cause.

The campaign is airing commercials that stress the theme of compassion. An
Oregon television spot, for example, shows an avuncular doctor bemoaning his
inability to help patients suffering from chemotherapy.

"Please, let us treat you with every medicine that can help," Dr. Rick Bayer
begs viewers.

Public officials and anti-drug activists are furious at this campaign. But
there is little organized opposition or advertising on the other side.

McCollum, who pushed through a congressional resolution against medical
marijuana, contended the drug can hurt patients by weakening their immune
systems. It is misleading for the initiatives to suggest that marijuana
would be available at the corner drugstore, McCollum added, when in fact it
would remain illegal to sell it even if the initiatives pass.

"It is always phrased as though the doctor is going to provide a
prescription," McCollum said. "In reality, there is no prescription. The
doctor gives you a chit, and you can go down the street and buy it from
anyone."

Opponents see a sinister agenda, the legalization of all drugs, hiding
behind the mask of compassion.

"They are taking the case to the voters in the most obnoxious and
irresponsible way, crafting television commercials that appeal to compassion
for the terminally ill," said Sue Rusche, executive director of the
anti-drug group National Families in Action. "Who doesn't have compassion
for the terminally ill?"

Behind the social question--Is this just a way for old hippies to push
through drug legalization?--is a medical one: Does marijuana really have
therapeutic value?

Doctors are somewhat divided. Supporters of medical marijuana say it fights
the nausea caused by chemotherapy and by AIDS treatments, allowing some
patients to keep their strength at a crucial level. Marijuana is also said
to relax the cramped and spasmodic muscles that torment some multiple
sclerosis patients.

Opponents say the evidence is far from conclusive. The Food and Drug
Administration has not approved marijuana as safe and effective, and the
Drug Enforcement Administration lists it as a "Schedule I" drug, meaning it
has no medicinal value.

Barry McCaffrey, the nation's drug czar, held a press conference Tuesday to
blast the initiatives.

"We need to leave medicine to the scientists and doctors of America,"
McCaffrey said. "American medicine is the best in the world, and it's not
based on this kind of malarkey."

That, however, is not the view of Stormy Ray, a multiple sclerosis patient
in Oregon. She began smoking marijuana in 1991, she said, when her regular
medicines stopped working.

"I was absolutely amazed," said Ray, a grandmother who said she had opposed
drugs. "It was like somebody finally found the right way to turn my body
back on. It took away the nerve pain. I could not imagine anything being
able to do that."

If the initiatives do pass, that could be just the beginning of a tangled
legal battle. The sale and possession of marijuana still would violate
federal law, which takes precedence over state law.

In California, which passed a medical marijuana measure in 1996, legal
confusion prevails. Federal authorities say they will crack down on doctors
who recommend marijuana to patients, but a court has temporarily barred that
crackdown, and the outcome is in doubt.

Checked-by: Don Beck