Funded by Billionaires, the "Medical Marijuana" Movement is Blowing Smoke in
our Eyes

HIGH ON A LIE

One Saturday last September, 50,000 people, most of them teen-agers, crowded
into the Boston Common for the eight annual Freedom Rally. Its organizers
billed it as the largest marijuana-legalization event on the East Coast.
Strolling through the crowd, holding a joint, was a 17-year-old high-school
senior who said his name was Bill. "If they allow sick people to use it," he
said, "it can't be that damaging."

Sharing a marijuana pipe with two friends, a 15-year-old named Nicole
agreed. "Pot is harmless," she said. "It should be legalized because there
are so many medical benefits. It helps you with a lot of things. It's the
best."

An increasing number of young Americans agree. They have gotten this idea
from a well-funded movement to legalize the "compassionate" use of
marijuana. While every legitimate drug requires rigorous testing by the FDA
before being approved, marijuana advocates are opting for medicine by
popular vote. This year signatures are being gathered for medical-marijuana
initiatives in a half-dozen states and the District of Columbia.

Marijuana's main active ingredient, THC, is effective in relieving nausea
and inducing weight gain in cancer and AIDS patients. That is why the FDA
has approved Marinol, a synthetic pill form of THC. But marijuana in its
smoked form has never been shown in controlled scientific studies to be safe
or effective. In fact, marijuana smoke contains over 2000 chemicals, many of
which produce psychoactive reactions, cause lung damage and - in cancer and
AIDS patients - increase the risk of pneumonia and weaken the immune system.
Inhaling the smoke also disrupts short-term memory and leads to changes in
the brain similar to those caused by heroin, cocaine and other highly
addictive drugs.

"There is no conclusive scientific evidence that marijuana is superior to
currently available medicines," says Dr. Eric Voth, chairman of the
International Drug Strategy Institute in Omaha. "Medical marijuana is a scam
that takes advantage of sick and dying patients."

Says Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (Ret.), director of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy, "Medical marijuana is a stalking-horse for legalization.
This is not about compassion. This is about legalizing dangerous drugs."

"Daddy Warbucks" of Drugs. - The legalization of marijuana and other drugs
has been debated for more than 30 years, with a vast majority of Americans
standing in opposition. Legalization supporters have used the argument that
drugs are necessary for medical reasons. But now, for the first time, they
have significant financial backing.

In the last six years a handful of America's wealthiest people have
contributed $20 million to groups that promote medical marijuana or other
radical drug-policy reforms. Billionaire financier George Soros is the
biggest giver, donating more than $16 million. Others include Peter Lewis,
CEO of Cleveland-based Progressive Corp., the nation's sixth-largest auto
insurer, and John Sperling, president of the Apollo Group, a holding company
that controls for-profit universities and job-training centers.

In an interview with Reader's Digest, the 76-year-old Sperling said he
believes doctors should be allowed to prescribe all drugs, including heroin
and LSD. Lewis declined to be interviewed.

A spokesman for Soros said he does not support drug legalization.
Nonetheless, Soros has donated millions since 1992 to groups led by people
advocating it. Former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph A.
Califano, Jr., calls him the "Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization."

Soros created a drug-policy institute called The Lindesmith Center and has
funded it with $4 million. Its director, Ethan Nadelmann, Soros's point man
on drug policy, has said he wants to "legalize the personal possession of
drugs by adult Americans."

Soros has also given $6.4 million to the Drug Policy Foundation (DPF), a
leading advocate for medical marijuana. Its stated mission is "publicizing
alternatives to current drug strategies." Its founder, attorney and college
professor Arnold Trebach, calls himself a "flat-out legalizer" who advocates
the repeal of current drug laws.

Richard J. Dennis, a 49-year-old Chicago commodities trader and member of
DPF's board of directors, supports both medical marijuana and legalization
in general. In fact, says Dennis, "I'd like to see legalization for adults
for all drugs, including heroin."

On DPF's advisory board is Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Lester
Grinspoon, a leading advocate of medical marijuana for over 25 years. He
compares marijuana's potential benefit to that of penicillin, predicting,
"It will be the wonder drug of the new millennium."

Soros, Lewis and Sperling gained their biggest victory in November, 1996
when California voters passed Proposition 215, also knows as the
Compassionate Use Act. It allows pot to be grown and smoked for "any illness
for which marijuana provides relief." There are no age restrictions.
"Illness" is loosely defined and can include headaches, chronic pain and
arthritis. A doctor's oral recommendation is all that is required.

The principal author of the California initiative was 52-year-old Dennis
Peron, a San Francisco "medical pot club" owner who's been arrested 15 times
on marijuana charges. Peron says he worded the initiative vaguely because he
believes "all marijuana use is medical."

Peron's Cannabis Cultivators' Club is the state's largest pot club, taking
in over $20,000 a day. One day last fall, Peron wandered the club greeting
patrons and handed one a bulging quarter-pound bag of marijuana.

Standing in line at Peron's smoke-filled club to buy an eighth of an ounce
of high-grade Mexican marijuana was a 39-year-old named Anthony. Under
California's law, Anthony is consider a "seriously ill patient" who can
purchase and smoke pot. He tokes up four or five times a day.

When asked about his ailment, Anthony answered: "Officially, hernia
discomfort from overstrenuous intercourse. Actually, I can't feel it." He
said the club admitted him without any medical referral. A self-described
"potaholic," Anthony has smoked dope since he was 16. My problems, he
conceded, "are related to a general life-style kind of thing."

Peron's club has operated for years, despite violating state and federal
drug laws. In August 1996, state drug agents raided it, seizing 86 pounds of
pot and $62,000. "The club was running a sophisticated illegal
drug-distribution network," said a spokesman of California Attorney General
Dan Lungren. A grand jury indicated Peron, and he awaits trial on felony
drug charges. Meanwhile, Peron is running for governor of California.

Peron's initiative never would have made it to the ballot without the help
of Soros, Lewis and Sperling. California requires 433,269 valid petition
signatures before a "citizen's initiative" can be placed on the ballot. As
the deadline neared, Peron and his unorganized group of volunteers had
collected only 40,000.

That is when Ethan Nadelmann of Soros's Lindesmith Center stepped in. He
helped create Californians for Medical Rights, a sophisticated campaign
organization that pushed the medical-marijuana initiative. Soros and Lewis
pored $400,000 into the group, which paid professional signature gatherers
who, in 90days, obtained more than 700,000 signatures.

Once the measure was on the ballot, Soros, Lewis and Sperling contributed
$450,000 for advertising. Commercials featured emotional appeals for relief
through the use of marijuana. The ads never mentioned that Proposition 215
would allow marijuana to be smoked for any condition, without age
restriction and without a prescription.

One of the numerous medical-marijuana clubs that opened as a result of
Peron's measure was the Dharma Producers Group in San Francisco, which
bragged that it offered "medical marijuana with a Tibetan touch." The club's
"medical director," a pony-tailed 52-yar-old named Lorenzo Pace, laughed
when he explained his medical-marijuana credentials: "I did preliminary
research all through the '60s.:

California for Medical Rights has since changed its name to Americans for
Medical Rights. Today it is leading a campaign to place medical-marijuana
initiatives on state ballots across the country.

Rx: LSD. - While Californians were voting on medical marijuana, their
neighbors in Arizona were considering an even more radical initiative. The
Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act of 1996 proposed to legalize
not only marijuana but also more tan 100 other drugs - including heroin, LSD
and PCP (angel dust) - for medical use.

Arizona's initiative was sold to voters as a way to get tough on violent
criminals. How? Open up jail space by paroling all first- and second-time
drug offenders. This ignored the fact that virtually all of the 1200 inmates
affected had plea-bargained down from more serious charges or had prior
felony records.

In Arizona, Sperling spearheaded the campaign. He, Soros and Lewis
contributed a total of $1.2 million; the DPF gave $303,000. This accounted
for 99 percent of the initiative's total funding. As in California, much of
this money paid for a massive media campaign. Opponents of the initiative,
caught unprepared, did not run a single advertisement.

The measure passed, but a post-election survey revealed that Arizona voters
had been badly misled. Seventy-four percent did not believe doctors should
be able to prescribe drugs such as heroin, PCP and LSD, as he proposition
allowed; 70 percent agreed that the initiative would give children the
impression that drugs were also acceptable for recreational use. The state
legislature subsequently passed a statute that effectively overrode the
initiative.

Fighting Back. - The organizers of Arizona's initiative moved to place a
similar measure on the ballot in Washington State. Sperling, Lewis and Soros
contributed a total of more than $1.5 million.

Despite being outspent more than ten to one, opponents of the Washington
initiative were not about to be caught unprepared. They took every
opportunity to stress that the measure was not about compassion, but about
legalizing dangerous drugs. Last November voters rejected the measure.

The defeat in Washington has not sidetracked plans for similar
medical-marijuana initiatives in other states. Battlegrounds include Hawaii,
Florida, Kansas, Main and Alaska. An Oregon initiative would not only
legalize use of many drugs but also permit the sale of marijuana in state
liquor stores. In Washington, D.C., Initiative 59 would allow up to four
caregivers, including "best friends," to cultivate pot for a "seriously ill"
person. Organizers are hoping that passage of these initiatives will spur
Congress to legalize medical marijuana under federal law.

Says Dr. Robert DuPont, a former director of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse: "Never in the history of modern medicine has burning leaves been
considered medicine. Those in the medical-marijuana movement are putting on
white coats and expressing concerns about the sick. But people need to see
this for what it is: a fraud and a hoax."

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