Could this really be happening in the State House, right
outside the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing room no
less?

Could it be that a woman wearing a silver pendant in the
shape of a cannabis leaf was displaying her little cache of
marijuana cigarettes "They look like Pall Malls," she
said and explaining to two senators why she lights up
every morning and takes a big toke? The woman in question
was Elvy Musikka, 56, of Hollywood, Fla., one of only eight
people allowed by the federal government to use marijuana
for medical treatment.

The senators were Rhoda E. Perry, DProvidence, and
Karen J. Nygaard, DBristol. Perry has filed a bill that
would make it legal for doctors to recommend and for
patients to use marijuana. Perry and Nygaard wanted
firsthand information from someone who had been using the
drug for medical purposes.

Musikka, who has glaucoma, has been using the drug for
21 years. She told Perry and Nygaard that it is the only
medicine that brings her relief. She was arrested in 1988
for cultivating marijuana plants. After she was acquitted,
she was signed on to a federal program that supplies
marijuana to medical patients.

The program was pretty much shut down in the early '90s,
but those on the list continue to get their stash. Musikka
receives her marijuana, grown through a federal program in
Mississippi, in threemonth shipments.

She takes 10 doses a day sometimes by smoking a
cigarette, sometimes baked in brownies or cookies and she
admits that she is perpetually high. But she believes that
marijuana is her only hope of retaining what vision she
still has. She wears thick glasses, and has almost no
vision in her right eye.

Musikka was brought to the State House by Anne
McCormick, of Pawtucket, who had given her son marijuana
when he was 10 years old to ease the pain from cancer.
McCormick is active in the movement to legalize marijuana
for medical use. Perry introduced McCormick and Musikka to
the Senate, where they were greeted with polite applause.

As it happens, Musikka came to the State House a week
too late to testify on Perry's bill. But she hopes to
return if Perry can schedule another round of hearings.

"I don't mind cheap flights," she said. "I have
dedicated my life to this." Hold those bills

Rep. Edward Inman of Coventry has a novel solution to
the perennial problem of a legislature logjammed by too
many bills. Inman wants a consitutional amendment that
would require the General Assembly to hold what he calls a
"sunset" session, during which very few bills would be
introduced. The idea is that every third year starting in
2002 a sunset session would be held. No new legislation
would be introduced or debated. There would be a few
exceptions, including the state budget and related bills
and city and town legislation.

"There are a variety of good reasons to have such a
sunset session, not the least of which is that it would
provide legislators with a relatively unencumbered year
every three years for substantive, thorough review of what
has been done and study of issues that need to be addressed
in future sessions," Inman said in a news release last
week. A sad day for democracy

The final returns from 1996 are in and they do not augur
well for the democratic process. Rhode Island voter turnout
in the 1996 election was off by about 6 percent from the
last presidential year of 1992, according to figures
compiled by the Washingtonbased Committee for the Study of
the American Electorate. In 1996, 52 percent of eligible
Rhode Islanders voted, compared with about 58 percent in
1992.

Massachusetts had a slightly higher turnout, with 55
percent voting in 1996, compared with 60 percent in 1992.
According to Curtis Gans, director of the committee, voter
turnout is highest in New England, the Mountain states and
the rust belt states of the Midwest. Turnout is generally
lowest in the South. But the nadir of 1996 turnout was in
Nevada, where only 39 percent of eligible voters went to
the polls. The highest voter participation rates were in
Maine and Minnesota; about 64 percent cast ballots in each
of those states.

Nationwide, about 49 percent of eligible voters cast
ballots, compared with about 55 percent in 1992. The 1996
turnout was the lowest since 1924, Gans said in an
interview. No state had a higher turnout in 1996 than it
had in 1992, according to the statistics.

Rhode Island had New England's lowest turnout. In New
England, Maine topped the turnout list. Figures for other
New England states were: New Hampshire, 58 percent;
Vermont, 59 percent, and Connecticut, 56 percent. Ethics
complaint with a twist

Martin Healey, director of the state Ethics Commission,
has found himself on the receiving end of an ethics
complaint. On Feb. 27, Thomas DiLuglio, a WHJJradio talk
show host and former lieutenant governor, filed a complaint
alleging that Healey violated the state Ethics Code by
using "commission facilities to further personal pursuit of
financial gain."

DiLuglio has been unavailable for comment. But Healey
believes the complaint focuses on his admitted use of his
telephone at the Ethics Commission to make arrangements for
the $ 130anhour second job he has agreed to take on as
"special counsel" in an ethics probe into the mayor of Salt
Lake City.

Healey anticipates his vacation time will cover most of
the two to three weeks he expects to spend in Utah.
Whatever time it does not cover, Healey has said he will
take as unpaid leave. In keeping with office policy, Healey
has said, he would also reimburse the Ethics Commission for
his personal calls.

A week after the JournalBulletin reported Healey's
moonlighting plans, DiLuglio filed the complaint alleging
that Healey had "engaged in activities giving rise to (an)
'appearance of impropriety.' "

In companion letters to Ethics Commission members, the
U.S. attorney and the state's attorney general, DiLuglio
said he had "grave concerns" about the commission's ability
to rule "fairly and impartially" on the conduct of one of
its own employees.

"Since members of the commission, unknown and unnamed,
may have information regarding this complaint, I am
requesting that an independent investigatory body be put in
place to oversee the handling of this complaint," he wrote.

"The biggest question is who does the investigating,"
acknowledges Ethcis Commission Chairman Richard Morsilli,
who is considering one possibility: asking the attorney
general to assign an investigator to the case. A decision
on how to proceed is likely at the commission's next
meeting, on March 18.

However this evolves, the DiLuglio family is no stranger
to the Ethics Commission. Diluglio's lawyerson, former
Johnston Sen. Thomas A. DiLuglio, is appealing a $ 10,000
penalty in a conflictofinterest case that dates back 11
years while battling a more recent round of ethics charges.
The more recent charges involve his actions, as town
solicitor in Johnston, in a 1993 sex discrimination case
that is also the focus of a malpractice suit the town has
filed against him.

"I am not going to comment on his motivations," Healey
said of the elder DiLuglio's complaint. LOADDATE: March
11, 1997