MEDICAL MARIJUANA INITIATIVES FOCUS ON SPECIFIC AILMENTS

JUNEAU, Alaska - 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. 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. Chief 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. Advocates say 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.

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.

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: Don Beck