GROUP SLAMS THOMPSON CAMPAIGN

Information from Project Vote Smart Web site used to attack
Garvey

Madison -- A national non-profit group condemned Gov. Tommy G.
Thompson's campaign Thursday for using information from the group's
Web site to publicize his challenger's willingness to let physicians
prescribe marijuana to ill patients.

In a statement, the non-partisan Project Vote Smart rebukes Thompson's
campaign for going to the group's Internet site and using "information
resources to misinform voters and defame a political opponent for
political gain."

Vote Smart must protect its integrity as an impartial national source
for voters who want to know candidates' positions on issues, said
Richard Kimball, Vote Smart executive director.

Thompson's campaign abused that process and had to be denounced,
Kimball said.

But Kevin Keane, Thompson's campaign spokesman, said Wisconsin voters
should know that Ed Garvey, the governor's Democratic opponent on Nov.
3, is willing to let physicians prescribe marijuana -- a change
Thompson adamantly opposes.

Garvey supports "a physician's right and need to prescribe penicillin,
Prozac, morphine or the active ingredient of marijuana if that
physician sees fit to treat his or her patients," his running mate,
lieutenant governor candidate Barbara Lawton, said Thursday.

Lawton said she and Garvey jointly answered the Vote Smart survey and
are running as a team, so she could answer questions about it.

Their position is not radical, despite Thompson's criticism, Lawton
added.

"It's passed in Arizona, California and anywhere else where it's been
introduced," Lawton said.

In those and other states, groups that say they represent terminally
ill people have argued that marijuana can help ease people's pain, so
physicians should be able to prescribe it.

"A physician has access to a variety of medicinal substances. Who are
we to interfere?" Lawton said. "Thompson seems to be saying that Big
Government ought to reach right into the doctor's office through the
prescription pad."

Lawton was outraged that Thompson would pick on Garvey's answer to the
Vote Smart candidate survey, when Thompson refused to answer a
candidate questionnaire sent to him by the League of Women Voters of
Wisconsin.

Thompson is trying to "twist" the Vote Smart questionnaire by focusing
attention on Garvey's answer to the marijuana question, Lawton said.

"We have been trying to comply with the needs of people across the
state to understand our positions and run an open campaign," she said,
while Thompson has declined to debate Garvey during the final two
weeks of the campaign.

In a press release from the Thompson campaign issued Wednesday,
Thompson says Garvey's desire to let physicians prescribe marijuana is
another example that the Democrat is "too easy on criminals."

Garvey "wants to lead the state down a slippery slope by supporting
the decriminalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes," Thompson
said. "What message does this send to our children? Clearly, (Garvey)
does not share the mainstream values of Wisconsin families when it
comes to fighting drugs and crime."

In the statement, Thompson says using marijuana should not be
legalized under any circumstances, and any exception to that ban would
send the "wrong message" about the dangers of drug use to Wisconsin
youths.

Keane said the Thompson campaign did nothing wrong by looking up how
Garvey answered Vote Smart questions on crime, printing out the
responses and issuing a press release criticizing those answers.

"It's public information -- they put it on the Internet," Keane said.

"It's very hypocritical for Project Vote Smart to advocate informing
the public about candidates' positions, then criticizing those who
make those positions public."

Thompson's campaign only focused on the Democrat's answers on crime
questions after Garvey on Monday accused the governor of
misrepresenting Garvey's views on those issues, Keane added.

The Thompson campaign did not highlight how the Democrat answered
other questions, Keane said.

"We're simply showing the contrast between the two candidates," Keane
said. "All we did was show people what he filled out on the
questionnaire."

But in the instructions given to candidates, Vote Smart says it "does
not permit the use of its name in partisan political advertising" and
that candidates who abuse the group's information will be denounced.

When he signed that statement, Thompson was "informed that if he
persisted in these unethical attacks, the Project would condemn his
actions and make an effort to defend both the integrity of the Project
and the candidate he was attempted to malign," Vote Smart said.

Thompson's signature was part of his own answers to the Vote Smart
issue survey. But Keane said Thompson did not actually sign the
questionnaire; an aide signed it for him.

Using Vote Smart survey answers to attack your political enemy "cheats
(voters) out of their need for trusted, abundant, accurate, factual
information," the group said.

Kimball said that when Vote Smart started, few candidates would answer
its questions because of fears that it would become a research unit
for their opponents. Vote Smart has fought to persuade candidates to
answer its questions by stressing that it is a service for voters,
Kimball added.

The Medical Society of Wisconsin has no formal position on whether
physicians should be able to prescribe marijuana or its active
ingredient, THC, to patients, said Mike Kirby, the society's vice
president for public affairs. "The society condemns smoking marijuana,"
Kirby said, "but studies suggest that prescribing it for ill patients
might help them in some ways, so it "may have some medicinal purposes."

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady