MEDICINAL POT ON BALLOT

Secretary of state concedes signatures valid

DENVER - An initiative to allow the medicinal use of marijuana was ordered
placed on the Nov. 3 ballot by a judge Friday after the state's top
election official conceded errors were made in verifying signatures.

It's another in a series of election-year embarrassments for Secretary of
State Vikki Buckley, who ruled last month that medicinal pot proponent
Martin Chilcutt lacked enough valid signatures of registered voters to
qualify for the ballot.

But Denver District Court Judge Henry C. Stern III said Friday he had
little choice but to place the measure on the ballot after Buckley's lawyer
announced that 50 signatures ruled invalid during a random sample were
actually legal.

The 50 signatures were not enough for the measure to automatically qualify
for the ballot. However, they were enough to require that Buckley check
each of the nearly 89,000 signatures that Chilcutt submitted in July.

Little time exists to complete that laborious process by Monday - when the
statewide ballot must be certified. So the question at the hearing became
whether the initiative could be ordered onto the ballot pending a
line-by-line recount.

Buckley's lawyer, deputy state attorney general Maurice Knaizer, argued for
the recount, which he said could be completed by the end of the month.

After nearly three hours of debate, Stern said the law was "clearly
uncertain," but ruled in favor of placing the measure on the ballot
unconditionally.

State statutes are unclear on whether Buckley could be given permission to
go beyond the 30-day deadline she has to certify initiative proposals after
they are submitted, Stern said.

The judge also said he feared that placing the measure on the ballot
pending a recount would confuse voters and possibly harm the proponents'
and opponents' campaigns. "I favor enfranchising the voters of this state,
rather than creating disenfranchisement," Stern said.

The issue may not be entirely resolved. Knaizer said he plans to appeal to
the Colorado Supreme Court to reverse Stern's decision.

If the high court acted by the end of next week - which Knaizer said was
doubtful - the measure could be left off the ballot.

But if the Supreme Court were to hear the case in a few weeks and rule in
Knaizer's favor, the question on the November ballot would be moot.

"A lot of this depends on the timing of the Supreme Court," Knaizer said.

Despite the planned appeal, Chilcutt said he was pleased with the judge's
decision.

"Now we can get on with the campaign," Chilcutt said. "I will immediately
start calling the many patients out there who have been supporting us.
They're the people I'm concerned with."

The judge's ruling is "horrific news for Coloradans" says Chris Paulson,
who is leading efforts to oppose the measure.

"I hope that Secretary of State Buckley will stick to her guns and appeal
this ruling," Paulson said.

The initiative would allow adult patients with serious illnesses, and their
caregivers, to legally possess marijuana for medical use. Studies have
shown that the drug relieves pain and nausea for those who suffer from
diseases such as cancer, AIDS and glaucoma.

Patients could not possess more than two ounces of marijuana and six
marijuana plants, though exceptions could be made under certain conditions.

Health insurance companies would not be required to reimburse patients for
marijuana costs, and the state would keep track of people who could legally
possess the drug through a confidential registry.

Opponents say the initiative is dangerously worded to allow anyone - not
just the seriously ill - to possess marijuana. They argue that other
government-approved drugs are available for patients to relieve pain and
nausea.

The marijuana initiative joins two other measures - term limits and
parental notification of abortion for minors - that landed on the ballot by
default after Buckley ran out of time to certify them.

The Rocky Mountain News on Friday quoted a temporary worker in Buckley's
office saying that petition checkers had almost no supervision or training
before they began verifying signatures on the marijuana initiative.

Buckley testified in court that 20 temporary workers hired to check the
marijuana proposal were given only written materials, no personal
instructions, to learn to verify signatures. But a staff supervisor
accompanied them, she said.

Buckley denied comments by a temporary worker who said petition checkers on
the marijuana proposal knew before their 30-day deadline that the random
sample was faulty. The worker claimed that the petition checkers were then
ordered to begin a line-by-line check of the signatures, but then were told
to stop after finishing about 1,500 names.

Buckley said neither she nor her staff knew the random sample was
inaccurate until this week, and that no line-by-line recount was ordered.

Buckley, a Republican who is seeking re-election, has faced criticism in
recent months for her office's performance. But the judge and opposing
attorney on Friday sympathized with her workload.

As the initiative process becomes increasingly popular in Colorado, nine
citizen-proposed statewide ballot measures were submitted to Buckley's
office this summer, each containing at least 70,000 signatures to be
verified. She also had to process dozens of candidate petitions.

"Given the way initiatives have developed in this state, I'd certainly hope
the legislature would revisit some of these laws," Stern said, referring to
the statute that gives Buckley 30 days to process initiative petitions once
they are submitted.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson