Author : Wayne Turner and Steve Michael

Marijuana For Medicine, Not Abuse

In the pages of The Washington Post, drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey [oped,
Sept. 9] and former HEW secretary Joseph Califano [oped,Sept. 30] have
grossly mischaracterized the District's medical marijuana ballot measure as
part of a sinister conspiracy to legalize narcotics for recreational use.
Far from it, Initiative 57, proposed by the local AIDS advocacy group ACT
UP Washington, simply provides a legal defense, in limited circumstances,
to seriously ill and dying patients who use small amounts of marijuana to
ease their suffering.

For those of us fighting for years on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic,
where the devastating impact of addiction and substance abuse is a daily
reality, nothing less than a tightly crafted initiative, permitting
strictly medical use, could be introduced for the approval of D.C. voters.

The sick beds of AIDS patients, cancer sufferers and others with serious
and terminal illnesses are caught in the middle of a confrontation between
the prodrug legalization lobby and prosecutors who jail patients to look
tough on drugs. Initiative 57 gives the voters of the District the
opportunity to reject both extremes.

AIDS activists designed Initiative 57 to protect the very ill, not the
partygoer. The proposed D.C. medical marijuana ballot initiative is too
restrictive for the bigmoney prolegalization lobby. Initiative 57 won't
turn every corner Starbucks coffeehouse into an Amsterdamstyle hashish
bar. Instead, Initiative 57 closes loopholes and tightens vague language
incorporated into medical marijuana measures sponsored elsewhere.

The legislative text of Initiative 57, ignored by McCaffrey and Califano,
specifically addresses many of the objections raised by those alarmed by
the prospect of legalization. Under the District's Initiative 57:

Nonmedical use is explicitly prohibited. Seriously ill patients must be
under the supervision and care of a licensed physician.

Patients are limited to small amounts of marijuana in order to be protected
from criminal prosecution.

Medical use is no excuse for criminals and "shall not be a defense to any
crime of violence, the crime of operating a motor vehicle while impaired or
intoxicated, or a crime involving danger to another person or to the
public" or any other crime.

The doctorpatient relationship is protected by preventing prosecutors from
targeting physicians who recommend marijuana to their patients.

No more than four caregivers may be designated, defined as a person "who is
feeding, nursing, bathing, or otherwise caring for a medical patient while
the medical patient is in a weakened condition."

Buyers' clubs must be registered and licensed through the same D.C.
government agency that oversees the medical profession and the hospital
industry. Initiative 57 protects the community from drug dealers by
requiring those who distribute marijuana to medical patients to register
and be subjected to the same regulations as other notforprofit
corporations. They also are restricted "exclusively for the medical use of
medical patients who are authorized by this act to obtain marijuana for
medical purposes."

Initiative 57 doesn't replace science. It simply keeps seriously ill
patients out of jail, pending the ultimate approval of medicinal marijuana
by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In an action welcomed by
activists, a panel at the National Institutes of Health recommended the
resumption of fullscale research into medical marijuana at the federal
level. Initiative 57 is a stopgap measure, providing a legal defense in
limited circumstances for those patients who turn to marijuana when
conventional therapies fail.

McCaffrey argues that the medicaluse defense provided under Initiative 57
will somehow promote recreational drug use. The world of chemotherapy,
vomiting and AIDS wasting syndrome is not glamorous. For AIDS patients
throwing up their food and pills, for cancer patients undergoing the severe
side effects of chemotherapy, there is a clear distinction between medical
use and substance abuse.

We urge the voters of the District to look beyond the misinformation
propagated by the likes of McCaffrey and to protect medical patients and
their providers from criminal prosecution by signing, supporting and
ultimately voting for the "Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment
Initiative of 1997."

The writers are founders of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, in
Washington. Steve Michael is the sponsor of Initiative 57.