MEDICAL MARIJUANA MEASURES FINE-TUNED TO ATTRACT VOTERS' COMPASSION

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- When Alaskans voted to end more than a decade
of legal marijuana smoking in 1990, the question was so hotly
contested that pot got more votes than the man elected governor.

Eight years later, Alaskans -- along with voters in Nevada,
Washington, Oregon and the District of Columbia -- will decide whether
to make the drug legal again, but only for persons suffering from one
of a short list of specific ailments.

Similar measures appear on ballots in Arizona and Colorado, but
Colorado's initiative has been declared invalid for lack of approved
petition signatures.

Advocates hope the initiatives' narrow focus on medical applications
will appeal to voter compassion and evoke images of solace, of pain
eased, of appetite restored and body-wracking nausea quieted.

Opponents, however, raise fears that the measures are just a wedge to
loosen the nation's drug laws.

"I think that this is despicable, that they're using the sick and the
dying to get their foot in the door to legalize drugs," said Marie
Majewske, who campaigned to recriminalize marijuana in Alaska after a
state Supreme Court ruling had made it legal for 15 years.

Passage "would be a dangerous step backward in the fight against crime
in our nation's cities," said District of Columbia Police Chief
Charles H. Ramsey. Ramsey is president of the Major City Chiefs
Association, an organization of the chiefs of police in the 52 largest
cities in the United States and Canada. The association voted Monday
to oppose the marijuana ballot initiatives.

Criticism that the laws were too vague or that medical use would open
the door to open use of pot, LSD and heroin helped sink or stall
earlier legalization efforts, and advocates this year have taken care
to fine-tune the proposals.

The new proposals spell out specific ailments that warrant use of
marijuana. Three measures -- in Alaska, Oregon and Nevada -- would
establish state registries of patients entitled to use it. In Alaska
and Oregon, patients could get identification cards to ward off arrest.

The laws would require patients to get a doctor's recommendation that
marijuana will help one or more of a list of illnesses that includes
cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, chronic pain, seizures and muscle spasms.

"I'm not a refugee from the hemp fest," said Dr. Richard Bayer, an
internist who sponsored the Oregon initiative. "This would help
patients and this would help doctors who want to help patients."

California voters approved the cultivation and use of medicinal
marijuana in 1996, but the U.S. Justice Department and state Attorney
General Dan Lungren have successfully limited the law's effects by
persuading judges to close most of the clubs where patients bought
their pot. The latest to be shuttered is a 2,200-member club in
Oakland, where the City Council last week declared a public-health
emergency and said it would find some other way to distribute pot to
the ailing.

An Arizona measure to legalize marijuana and 115 other drugs for
medical use passed in 1996 but was thwarted the following year when
legislators barred doctors from prescribing the drugs without federal
approval.

A measure on the Nov. 3 ballot backs the Legislature's bill. If it
fails, the initiative Arizonans passed two years ago would take effect.

And last year, 60 percent of Washington voters defeated an initiative
that would have legalized a variety of drugs for medical use after
opponents raised the specter of legalized heroin.

This time around, opponents say the safeguards written into the 1998
initiatives are still insufficient. They note the measures would keep
police from seizing or destroying marijuana and growing equipment
until users have a chance to prove they had it legally.

"I think it was intentionally designed, and designed well, to thwart
any kind of police intervention," said Multnomah County Sheriff Dan
Noelle, an opponent of Oregon's measure.

Opponents also protest the funding behind most of the initiative
campaigns. Three wealthy donors -- philanthropist George Soros of New
York, insurance tycoon Peter Lewis of Cleveland and John Sperling,
founder of the University of Phoenix -- have poured more than $1.6
million into campaigns coordinated by Americans for Medical Rights,
the group behind California's successful ballot initiative in 1996.

The group, based in Los Angeles, is assisting all of the campaigns
except for those in Arizona and the District of Columbia.

"My question would be: Who's funding this effort, is it outside
interests?" Majewske said. "I can't believe the people of this state
would be essentially bullied into thinking that this was good policy."

Recent polls in Alaska, Oregon and Washington show most voters support
the measures; Nevada appears to be a close call. The Arizona
initiative that would back legislative dismantling of legalization
seems to be trailing.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry