D.C. TO DECIDE ON MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION

Initiative 59 Would Allow Use for Medical Purposes

When Jim Fairchild's partner was dying of AIDS eight years ago, the gravely
ill man smoked marijuana to help increase his appetite.

"We grew it in the back yard. We didn't sell it to anybody; it didn't hurt
anybody," said Fairchild, who lives on Capitol Hill. "It helped. If people
are suffering, what's so wrong about it?"

Plenty, says Louise Davis, a drug treatment counselor in the District who
has glaucoma -- a condition that some doctors say can be eased by marijuana.

"I use eyedrops, and they do me just fine. I don't need to go smoke
marijuana. Legalizing it would cause trouble."

Come Nov. 3, Fairchild and Davis will make their convictions known at the
ballot box, as D.C. voters decide whether to make it legal for seriously
ill people to use marijuana for medical reasons. The question was placed on
the ballot last month after activists gathered more than 17,000 signatures
from people registered to vote in the District and fought the city's
elections board in court to get their petitions validated.

The measure, known as Initiative 59, would legalize the possession, use,
cultivation and distribution of marijuana if "recommended" by a physician
for illnesses such as AIDS, cancer and glaucoma. It also would require the
city to provide for the "safe and affordable" distribution of marijuana to
Medicaid patients and other poor people whose doctors recommend it.

The District is just the latest stage for the decades-long debate over
marijuana and efforts to decriminalize it. Voters in Alaska, Arizona,
Oregon, Colorado, Nevada and Washington state will consider marijuana
initiatives this year. California approved a measure in 1996, touching off
a mini-war between pot-growing clubs there and U.S. officials who say
they're violating federal, if not state, laws.

Federal-local tensions over the issue are similarly high here, thanks to
the District's role as the nation's capital. Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr.
(R-Ga.) has tried to block a vote on Initiative 59 by attaching an
amendment to the fiscal 1999 D.C. budget forbidding the city to use any
1999 funds to conduct a vote on reducing penalties associated with marijuana.

Ken McGhie, general counsel to the D.C. Board of Elections, said ballots
including the marijuana question have already been printed. But Barr's
amendment would create "a limitation in terms of using people on the
payroll for things like certifying the results," he said.

Organizers of the initiative say they are proceeding as if the vote is
still on, but they have pledged to take the matter to court if necessary.

"We've come so far and fought so long for this that we will not be
stopped," said Wayne Turner, who has been working on the initiative for
more than a year. "Congress has never overturned a vote of the people. We
will go to court and say . . . this violates the Constitution."

Although the initiative has drawn opposition in Congress, it appears to
have substantial support within the city, which is heavily Democratic.

Mayoral candidates Carol Schwartz (R) and Anthony A. Williams (D) favor the
measure, as do a majority of D.C. Council members, including Chairman Linda
W. Cropp (D), Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Kevin P.
Chavous (D-Ward 7), Charlene Drew Jarvis (D-Ward 4), David Catania (R-At
Large) and Hilda H.M. Mason (Statehood-At Large). Officials at the
Whitman-Walker Clinic, the city's largest provider of AIDS-related
services, have endorsed it as well.

There is local opposition to the measure in neighborhoods where drugs and
violence are major concerns. Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) has
said she cannot support the initiative because many people in her ward,
which runs from Capitol Hill to Anacostia, believe any attempt to legalize
marijuana will exacerbate the problem of open-air drug markets.

Hannah Hawkins, who runs the Children of Mine community center in Southeast
Washington, is urging people to vote "no" on the initiative.

"The voters will be playing right into the drug addicts' hands if they
approve this," Hawkins said. "I'm out here every day dealing with the
effects of drugs. . . . The average voter isn't intelligent enough to
decide these things. That's why we have the Food and Drug Administration."

Sandra Lee, 46, of Northeast, said she would feel more comfortable with the
measure if it required doctors to actually prescribe marijuana -- not just
recommend it -- and if patients could get it only at a pharmacy.

"If they had a clinic or a doctor's office where you could get it, that
would be good," Lee said. "But making it legal to get on the street? . . .
You have to think of the crime and violence problem, too."

Of course, the initiative has support from people who think all drugs
should be legal.

"I'm all for it," said Marty Martinez, 44, of Northwest. "I think drugs
should be legalized, period. It takes the criminal element out of it."

But others see a middle ground, saying marijuana can be decriminalized for
medical purposes without opening the floodgates to making all drugs legal.

"They said the same thing about the lottery -- that it would bring in
organized crime and all kinds of other gambling," said Dawn Robinson, 33,
of Northwest. "I don't think we need to be guided by paranoia and fear. . .
. Marijuana isn't like crack or something that really affects people's
behavior."

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States,
according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Nearly 70 million
Americans reported in 1996 that they had tried it at least once, according
to a survey by the institute. But although use is common, criminal
penalties in the District are light, and few people are convicted on
marijuana charges.

Under D.C. law, one of the most liberal in the country, a person arrested
for selling marijuana can be charged only with a misdemeanor, punishable at
most by a year in jail and a $10,000 fine. Simple possession carries a
maximum fine of $1,000, and first-time offenders are eligible for probation.

Last year, D.C. courts recorded 313 convictions on marijuana-related
charges; 231 of those were for possession. In 1996, there were 216
convictions in total; in 1995, there were just 140.

Court officials said they could not recall any case in which a defendant
claimed a medical defense, but supporters of the initiative say fear of
prosecution discourages many people who could benefit from marijuana from
using it.

"There is fear not only of the Metropolitan Police Department and all the
other police agencies in D.C. but also the U.S. attorney's office," said
Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, which
supports reform of drug laws. "People recognize they have no protection if
trying to use marijuana for medical purposes."

Among physicians, there is no consensus on medical marijuana. Michael
Gambello, 35, a physician who works at the National Institutes of Health
and lives in Kalorama, said he supports the initiative.

"Doctors should be allowed to make the decisions they went to medical
school to learn how to make," he said.

Douglas Gaasterland, a glaucoma specialist in the District, sees it
differently.

"As a physician, I'm very concerned about people trying to achieve 'medical
progress' through votes of the general public," he said.

Gary DeSimone, a staff physician at Whitman-Walker, said four or five of
his 300 or so patients with HIV smoke marijuana to stimulate their
appetites or reduce nausea caused by medicines. He said that his patients
have found marijuana "on their own" and that he views it as a "treatment of
last resort for a very small subset of the population."

Unlike some of the medical marijuana campaigns in California and elsewhere
that have been spearheaded by groups bankrolled by tycoons such as George
Soros, the D.C. effort is being run on a bare-bones budget by Turner with
help from the D.C. Green Party and Whitman-Walker. The campaign has
attracted groups that advocate legalizing marijuana outright, but Turner
has tried to distance himself from them.

"We didn't do all this work just to promote marijuana," said Turner, whose
partner, Steve Michael, died of AIDS in May. "We did this to protect the
patients."

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski