MARIJUANA VOTE BRINGS OUT BIG SOCIETAL ISSUES

* Oregonians will decide whether legalizing medical marijuana offers
compassion to the sick and dying or an open door to widespread drug
use

Kristin VanAnden, a free-lance writer and translator who lives in
Northwest Portland, got the bad news in late January. Breast cancer
had moved into her bones. She would have to undergo a series of
chemotherapy sessions to kill off the invading cancer cells.

In classic understatement, VanAnden, 58, said chemotherapy was not
fun. For the first few days, she said, she felt nauseated, and
everything tasted like cardboard.

She recalled hearing that marijuana could combat the nausea and
improve her appetite, so she decided to try it.

A couple of puffs produced a kind of a feeling in the stomach that its
somehow settled, that it feels OK, she said. There's a deep relaxation
response.

But getting marijuana is always difficult, she said. And there's
always the threat of arrest. I'm frankly quite irritated, she said.
Marijuana is so clearly beneficial as an anti-nausea medication.

Not everyone agrees. Opponents of medical marijuana use say that
existing anti-nausea medications work fine, that marijuanas benefits
are scientifically questionable and that legalizing medical use opens
the door to increased drug abuse. Oregon voters will soon have their
say on the issue.

On Nov. 3, Oregonians will vote on Ballot Measure 67, deciding whether
marijuana is a breakthrough in compassion for the sick and dying or
the beginning of a slide down a slippery slope toward legalization of
all drugs.

Early statewide polling points to widespread support for legalizing
medical marijuana, with strong backing across age, income, political
and geographic lines. Ironically, Oregonians also will vote in
November on Ballot Measure 57, which would make possession of small
amounts of marijuana a criminal offense. Early polling shows more
voters opposing than supporting that measure.

Rob Elkins, Molalla police chief and a director of Oregonians Against
Dangerous Drugs, views the medical marijuana measure as an open door
for all marijuana use.

"My beliefs come from long before I became a cop, he said. I have
seven brothers. I saw every one of them get arrested. Four of them
served time in penitentiaries. All were into drugs to a pretty high
degree.

And they all started with marijuana, he said.

But Dr. Richard Bayer, a Portland internist and a chief petitioner for
the marijuana initiative, said the ultimate goal isn't legalization of
all drugs -- just to make it possible for sick people to obtain
marijuana at a pharmacy, with a prescription.

In the eyes of the federal government, marijuana occupies the same
dangerous-drug status as heroin and LSD. All are considered to have no
medical value and thus can't be prescribed.

Bayer said the point of state campaigns is to force the federal
government to acknowledge the medical benefits of marijuana.

In November 1996, voters in Arizona and California approved ballot
measures sanctioning marijuanas use for medical purposes. Two months
later, the White House asked the National Academy of Sciences
Institute of Medicine to conduct a $1 million study to find out what
science knows and doesn't know about the medicinal value of marijuana.
The study has not been completed.

Oregon's campaign for legalization is heavily financed by three
wealthy out-of-state men: George Soros, a billionaire currency trader
and international financier; John Sperling, a Phoenix businessman,

Reed College graduate and founder of the University of Phoenix; and
Peter Lewis of Cleveland, the president, chairman and chief executive
officer of Progressive Corp., a large automobile insurance company.

Financing comes to Oregon through Americans for Medical Rights, a Los
Angeles-based organization run by the people who led the campaign that
legalized medical marijuana in California.

Dave Fratello, campaign coordinator for the organization, said
Americans for Medical Rights plans to spend about $2 million on
campaigns in five states: Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Alaska and
Colorado. About $500,000, he said, will go to Oregons campaign, with
much of the money to be spent on advertising in the three weeks before
the election.

The principal opponent of Measure 67 is Oregonians Against Dangerous
Drugs, a thinly financed group composed mainly of law enforcement
officers. Paul Phillips, a campaign coordinator for Oregonians Against
Dangerous Drugs, said the organization has raised about $3,000.

"We are hopeful that once the business community understands that this
measure would totally wipe out drug-free workplaces, well see more
donations, Phillips said.

Heres how the law would work:

* The attending physician provides the Oregon Health Division with
written documentation that a patient has been diagnosed with a
debilitating medical condition -- cancer, glaucoma, HIV infection --
or has cachexia (a general physical wasting associated with chronic
disease), severe pain or nausea, seizures, persistent muscle spasms or
any other ailment that might be added to the list in the future. (The
measure includes a petition process to expand the list of covered
medical conditions.)

* The Health Division issues registration cards to the patient and a
designated primary caregiver. The caregiver is someone besides a
doctor who helps the patient. The cards exempt patient and caregiver
from most state laws against possession and cultivation of marijuana.

* Police who seize marijuana plants from someone covered by the law
must make sure the plants aren't harmed, neglected, injured or
destroyed while they are in the possession of any law enforcement agency.

* Patients are permitted to carry as much as 1 ounce of marijuana. The
law would permit the patient or caregiver possession of three mature
plants, four immature plants and 1 ounce of usable marijuana for each
mature plant.

A number of firsts

Oregonians have a long history of accommodating marijuana.

In 1979, the Oregon Legislature passed a bill that required Oregon
State Police to provide confiscated marijuana to the state Health
Division for use by patients undergoing chemotherapy or suffering from
glaucoma, an eye disease.

The law made Oregon the first state in the nation to have a state-run
program to distribute marijuana for medical purposes. Both the Oregon
Senate and House of Representatives passed the measure without dissent.

Then-Gov. Vic Atiyeh signed the measure into law, calling it a good
example of what can be done out of compassion for people.

The law eventually proved unworkable. It called for the Health
Division to certify the confiscated marijuana as free of
contamination. But Kristine Gebbie, Health Division administrator at
the time, said no test was available to guarantee the safety of the
drug.

Efforts to obtain marijuana grown for the federal government under
contract with the University of Mississippi were unsuccessful, and the
law was repealed in 1987. In 1973, Oregon became the first state to
remove criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

J. Pat Horton, a former Lane County district attorney, favored
decriminalization. He testified before Congress about what he
considered the successes of the new law -- unclogging the criminal
courts and encouraging police to pursue more serious criminals.

Horton, now in private practice, still thinks decriminalization was a
good idea and calls legalization of medical marijuana a
"no-brainer."

"Doctors prescribe codeine and all these dangerous things for pain,"

he said. "Why would anyone say there's something wrong with a doctor
prescribing something that's going to help eradicate pain or help a
patient?"

But Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Noelle, a director of Oregonians
Against Dangerous Drugs, says the legal implications of the measure
take it far beyond the simple question of medical use.

"It really gets down to what's the message and what's the intent of
this bill," he said. "I firmly believe this bill is intended to be
part of a national campaign to legalize drugs , in this country . . .
I think it's about legalizing drugs under the disguise of appealing to
people's compassion. ate guilt."

Hidden in the proposal are law enforcement land mines, he
said.

Noelle objects to what he sees as vague language defining who could
get medical marijuana. Anyone can complain of severe nausea, pain and
lack of appetite, he said. And as long as a doctor agrees, the patient
gets a registration card.

As for the requirement that law officers return seized marijuana
plants in their original condition -- that's impossible, he says.

Noelle sees the measure being backed by a daunting array of
non-Oregonian financial powerhouses pitted against a financially poor
but dedicated opposition. Oregonians Against Dangerous Drugs, he says,
is basically a grass-roots organization armed with law enforcement
speakers who will make the rounds of civic groups to bring a message
of warning.

Doctors stay neutral

Oregon's medical community has contributed to an atmosphere of
acceptance for medicinal marijuana. 'In April, the Oregon Medical
Association, which represents 5,800 of the state's 8,300 physicians,
handed proponents of medical marijuana a victory, voting to remain
neutral on the issue.

Bayer called the vote "a wise and compassionate decision."

In lengthy debate, members of the association's house of delegates
split generally into three camps: those who think marijuana can help
their patients and thus should be legal; those who think more study is
needed to assess side effects; and those who think that other
anti-nausea drugs, such as Marinol make smoking marijuana
unnecessary.

The OMA's stand is at odds with the American Medical Association,
which recommends a ban on smoked marijuana until experiments prove its
usefulness.

Although Bayer is a chief petitioner, Rep. George Eighmey, D-Portland,
could well be regarded as the father of the medical marijuana measure.

Eighmey said he became involved in the issue of medical marijuana
several years ago as chairman of the board of directors of Our House
of Portland, a center for people with AIDS. "We had many, many deaths
during the time I was on the board," he said. "Many of those people
suffered agony in the last days of their lives."

One hallmark of AIDS is wasting syndrome, in which patients undergo
dangerous weight loss. Eighmey said some of them seemed to benefit
from marijuana, which they smoked Illegally and which stimulated their
appetites.

As an attorney, he said, "I could not condone illegal activity." So he
sponsored a bill in the 1997 Oregon Legislature to legalize marijuana
for medical purposes.

The measure died without a hearing but not without a certain amount of
national publicity. That brought Eighmey to the attention of Fratello
and Americans for Medical Rights.

Fratello's organization grew out of the successful campaigns to
legalize medical marijuana in California and Arizona. After those
elections, Fratello said, "we knew we had to keep fighting to find
friends and advocates in other states."

"(Eighmey's bill) was very interesting to us," Fratello said. "Here
was a bona fide piece of legislation, and people were supporting it.
This idea of involving the state in the program was attractive. In
California, the state was separate from the marijuana program."

California's medical marijuana law acts as a defense in court after an
arrest has been made. But Oregon's measure puts a state agency in the

position of certifying who is permitted to use marijuana, thus
eliminating the need for an arrest.

In Washington state, voters in November will decide on their own
medical marijuana measure. A big difference between the Oregon and
Washington measures is the involvement of a state agency. In Oregon,
the Health Division would issue cards to people covered by the act.
But in Washington, patients and their caregivers would be required to
carry a signed statement from the patient's physician.

Stormy Ray of Ontario, a chief petitioner for Oregon's medical
marijuana measure, suffers from multiple sclerosis. The 43-year-old
computer artist said marijuana was effective in fighting the pain of
muscle spasms caused by her disease.

"I don't think patients should have to be exposed to the underworld to
get their medicine," she said.

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Patrick O'Neill of The Oregonian's Health/Medicine/Science Team can be
reached by phone at 503-221-8233, by fax at 503-294-4150, or by e-mail
at poneill@news.oregonian.com.

newshawk note - two 1980 stories from The Oregon Journal about
Oregon's federally approved medical marijuana program at that time are
linked (in chronological order) to Portland NORML's "History of Oregon
Reform Efforts" page at:
http://www.pdxnorml.org/history.html

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady