MEDICAL MARIJUANA: A BETTER APPROACH

After a misguided Washington State Supreme Court refused to shelter dying
cancer patient Ralph Seeley from prosecution for marijuana possession, many
Washington voters looked for a way to change the law.

They did not find it in last November's Initiative 685, which was an
equally misguided attempt to decriminalize a whole host of drugs and free
convicted criminals from state prisons.

What reasoning voters were looking for was offered in the last session of
the state legislature in Senate Bill 6271, introduced by Sen. Jeanne Kohl.
But even though the bill had the support of the majority of the Health and
Long-Term Care Committee, including Republican Chairman, Alex Deccio, the
Senate's Republican leadership did not want the bill to come up for a vote.
So it died. (Legislators did, though, pass a bill to fund studies on the
efficacy of "medical marijuana".)

Voters finally can get what they were looking for if Initiative 692 gets
enough signatures to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot.

The initiative would protect from prosecution patients with terminal or
debilitating illnesses who use marijuana for physician-sanctioned medical
purposes. Physicians would not be prosecuted for advising a patient about
the risks and benefits of medical marijuana nor for providing a patient
documentation that the potential benefits of its use outweigh the potential
risks.

Likewise, these patients' primary care-givers would be safe from
prosecution. Neither physician nor care-giver would be allowed to consume
the marijuana.

No patient would be permitted to have more than a 60 day supply and would
have to have written documentation from a physician to possess any of the
substance.

The initiative explicitly does not legalize the "acquisition, possession,
manufacture, sale or use of marijuana for non-medical purposes."

The initiative would not decriminalize marijuana.

It would merely humanize law enforcement's approach to enforcement,
allowing dying, suffering and debilitated patients a chance at surcease
from pain, nausea, and wasting without having to become criminals.

We urge registered voters to seek out the signature gatherers for I-692,
get the measure on the ballot and strongly support its passage in November.