BILL IN STATE HOUSE WOULD MAKE MARIJUANA LEGAL FOR MEDICAL USE

Bill Waschko reached to the shelf of vintage medicine bottles at his
family's century-old drug store in Hazleton and pulled down one
labeled "Cannabis."

The powdered extract of marijuana was bottled by Eli Lilly and Co.,
but although the bottle is empty and the label has no date, marijuana
was a legal drug around the country until 1937.

A bill in the state House of Representatives would make marijuana
legal again for medical uses, emulating action already taken in 13
states and also proposed in New York and New Jersey.

The Pennsylvania bill, sponsored by Reps. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston,
and Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, would set up compassion centers for
growing and distributing marijuana to patients who had registered
identification cards. Physicians would give written statements to
patients whom they believe would benefit medically from using
marijuana, but they would not write prescriptions, which could
subject them to federal prosecution.

They would have a (marijuana) clinic like a methadone clinic,"
suggested George Waschko, Bill's brother and the pharmacist at
Waschko's Pharmacy.

George Waschko said the possible medical uses of marijuana include
treating glaucoma and nausea caused by chemotherapy given to cancer patients.

The bill also lists marijuana as a treatment for wasting due to AIDS
and for chronic pain, seizures and Crohn's disease.

Tom Dougherty, a pharmacist at Valley Pharmacy in Sugarloaf,
remembers marijuana was in the dispensary at Albert Einstein Medical
Center in Philadelphia while he was a student.

It sat there. We had to count it every month. We never used it,"
Dougherty said.

Dougherty wonders whether there is a great medical need for marijuana
or whether it would be "an orphan drug where you have six patients
who need it in Pennsylvania."

The Medical Board of California, which in 1996 became the first state
to re-legalize marijuana, issued a statement in 2004 calling medical
marijuana an emerging treatment.

Ed Pane, director of Serento Gardens Alcoholism and Drug Services in
Hazleton, supports the use of marijuana for medical purposes only and
said numerous patients might benefit from it.

He said marijuana can reduce vomiting in chemotherapy patients, and
treat migraines and the spasms of multiple sclerosis, "which can be
extremely painful."

Three hundred thousand Americans have multiple sclerosis, and 1.25
million people are diagnosed yearly with cancer, Pane wrote in a
paper this fall for a class he is taking while earning a master's degree.

Marijuana "helps individuals to put on weight and handle food and
cuts down on the need for pain medication by enhancing what the
person is taking. It doesn't make the medication stronger to the
point of overdose, but makes it more effective," Pane said in an
interview Friday.

While 32,000 people die yearly from prescription medicines, including
overdoses and allergic reactions, no one ever has died from an
overdose of marijuana, he said.

States can make money by taxing medical marijuana and save the
expenses of prosecuting patients who use marijuana, but Pane still
wants Pennsylvania to prohibit abuse of the drug.

Street dealing under any guise needs to be illegal," he said. "From
my standpoint, it breaks my heart when I see kids using it. They're
not going to grow up emotionally. It becomes a means of handling problems."