MEDICAL MARIJUANA: COMPASSION OR CRIME?

Prop. 8 allows pot for those with debilitating illness

Kevin Sampson is not a well man. He is battling AIDS, and his 6-foot body is
gaunt. He has to take handfuls of pills each day, and yet even the smell of
food or the sight of his pills can make him horribly nauseous. Eating is one
of his major chores. Sometimes his body can hardly tolerate water.

How does he manage? Smoking pot, he says.

"I really attribute to marijuana the fact that I'm even alive today," said
Sampson, a

43-year-old Air Force veteran and former state employee.

Sampson, when his illness lets him, is campaigning for the medical marijuana
initiative, which will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot as Proposition 8.

Opponents say the measure will open the door to the legalization and abuse
of illicit drugs.

"All this is, for the most part, is a big public lie to the people of this
state," said Public Safety commissioner Ron Otte.

Otte said Proposition 8 would make it virtually impossible to enforce the
state's marijuana laws. He and other opponents say the measure is about
legalizing drugs, not compassion for the sick.

"The people who are supporting this are using people like Kevin in order to
legalize the use of marijuana," said Matthew Fagnani, chairman of Alaskans
for Truth on the Medical Marijuana Initiative, which formed about a month
ago.

Sampson dismisses the arguments of people like Fagnani.

"It's all politics," he said, "and it's critical to me."

The initiative, if it becomes law, works like this: A patient diagnosed with
cancer, glaucoma, AIDS or another "debilitating medical condition" would
need a doctor's written recommendation that marijuana would help them
alleviate problems such as severe pain, severe nausea, seizures and muscle
spasms.

The Department of Health and Social Services would establish a registry of
people entitled to use medical marijuana, and patients could get
identification cards to ward off arrest.

A qualified person could possess up to one ounce of marijuana or six plants.
Medical marijuana use would not be allowed in public.

California and Arizona passed similar medical marijuana initiatives in 1996.

This isn't the first time Alaskans have voted on marijuana. In 1990, voters
decided to recriminalize possession. A state Supreme Court decision in 1975
held that possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use was
protected by the privacy clause of the Alaska Constitution.

Proposition 8 was endorsed by the Alaska Nurses Association in September.
Its supporters say it is narrowly tailored to help the suffering of the
terminally and seriously ill.

"This isn't Cheech and Chong," said Jim Kentch, who has been working with
Alaskans for Medical Rights, the group that brought the initiative.

The campaign manager, former legislator David Finkelstein, said he talked to
cancer patients, people with multiple sclerosis and other ailments who say
marijuana has helped them.

But Fagnani says the initiative is broad enough to allow marijuana use by
people suffering from sports injuries. There's no scientific evidence, he
said, that smoking marijuana has medical benefits, a claim the other side
vigorously denies.

Sampson's account of the help he gets from marijuana is not proof, Fagnani
said.

"Kevin Sampson, he's a nice guy, and he's got a very bad disease. But it's
anecdotal," Fagnani said.

The measure is opposed by both leading candidates for governor, Democrat
Tony Knowles and Republican John Lindauer.

It is also opposed by former U.S. Attorney Wev Shea.

One of Shea's concerns is that the potency of marijuana varies greatly. How,
he asked, can a doctor recommend that a patient use marijuana when no one
knows the potency of the drug the patient has?

There are prescription medications, including Marinol, a synthesized
derivative of marijuana, that can help patients battle nausea, Shea said.

He said he's also concerned that marijuana grown under the auspices of
medical use would be sold illegally for recreational use.

To counter those arguments, Sampson pulls out a plastic tub of medications
he's been prescribed to combat nausea and keep his weight up. He's got
steroids, human growth factor, Marinol and a variety of other pills.
Nothing, he said works as well, with as few side effects, as smoking
marijuana. The pills, for example, are difficult for him to keep down. And
like the dozens of other pills he has to take each day, if he can't keep
them down, the don't do any good. Marinol, he said, is especially hard to
digest. It also leaves him stoned for 8 to 10 hours, he said.

"I can't get anything done," he said.

Smoking marijuana, he said, both stimulates his appetite and quells the
nausea.

"Sure, I'm stoned for half an hour, but that's something I can live with,"
he said.

As for the arguments that medical marijuana could be sold on the street,
Sampson said that's no different than the hundreds of other prescription
medications he has.

His bottle of 200 Marinol capsules, for example, has a legal, retail value
of $1,500. And the steroids?

"I could sell this for thousands of dollars at any gym," he said, holding up
a small box. He has morphine and codeine and a host of other drugs he could
sell illegally if he were a drug dealer, he said.

His marijuana, which he bakes to kill fungi and then stores in a small
Tupperware container, cost him $30 and has lasted him for several months. It
took him three months to find someone to sell to him, he said, which is a
issue the initiative doesn't address. The initiative doesn't say where
patients would get the marijuana, or the seeds if they decided to grow their
own.

The initiative also wouldn't grant immunity from federal laws, such as those
banning interstate transport of drugs.

What the initiative would do for him, he said, is provide him protection
from state and city law enforcement.

"I won't have to lose my home," he said.

Fagnani admits he doesn't have a lot to counter Sampson.

"When you're talking about the compassionate use of marijuana, it's hard to
debate," he said. "I don't win in an argument with a guy like Kevin. But
it's not guys like Kevin that this law is bad for."

Marijuana, he said, is a "highly addictive drug" that lowers the immune
system and contains carcinogens.

"We're being misled into believing that this (initiative) is to help Kevin,
when it's not," he said.

Fagnani runs Worksafe, an alcohol- and drug-testing firm. He has been
accused of opposing the initiative to benefit his employer, but he said that
the initiative probably would benefit the company's bottom line because,
with more marijuana use, there would be more demand for testing.

He started the campaign, he said, when he learned that polling data showed
proposition 8 had a good chance of passing.

As for the motivation of the other said, Fagnani points out that Alaskans
for Medical Rights, got nearly all of its $135,000 budget from Americans for
Medical Rights, which Fagnani calls a "California pro-pot group." The
Outside interest shows the initiative is about legalizing marijuana, he
said.

Finkelstein said some of the people campaigning for Proposition 8 probably
do want to see marijuana decriminalized, but he said that's not the
motivation behind this initiative.

"You just have to look who this campaign is composed of - doctors, nurses,
patients, friends of patients," he said. "The only thing we have in common
is we think medical marijuana is a humane treatment for Alaska patients."

* Reporter Liz Ruskin can be reached at lruskin@adn.com

ON THE BALLOT

This bill would allow patients to use marijuana for certain medical
purposes. A doctor must find that the patient has a debilitating medical
condition that might benefit from marijuana. An eligible minor could use
medical marijuana only under the consent and control of a parent. There
would be limits on how much medical marijuana a patient could possess.
Patients and their primary care-givers who comply with this law would not be
guilty of a crime. The state would create a confidential registry of
patients who may use medical marijuana. Nonmedical use of marijuana would
still be a crime.

Should this initiative become law?

Checked-by: Don Beck