MEDICAL MARIJUANA MEASURES CHANGED

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- Eight years after Alaskans voted to end more than a
decade of legal marijuana smoking, the question before voters is whether to
make the drug legal again for the sick.

Alaskans -- along with voters in Nevada, Washington, Oregon and the
District of Columbia -- will decide the question Nov. 3. Marijuana would be
made legal only for persons suffering from one of a short list of specific
ailments.

Similar measures appear on ballots in Arizona and Colorado, though
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
Ramsey. He 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. 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 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.