MEDICAL MARIJUANA FINDS A MELLOW AUDIENCE IN MD.

In State That's Shown Leniency, Advocates Push Legalization For Some Cases

Although far smaller in scale, a California-style approach of going
easy on medical-use pot smokers has been wafting through the
Montgomery County courthouse.

Within minutes of each other last week, two defendants left the
courthouse with slaps on their wrists: a 56-year-old man with cyclic
vomiting syndrome, and a 19-year-old woman with epilepsy.

Their cases show how Maryland's little-known medical marijuana law
might be applied in the future and how some ill pot smokers are
beginning to raise awareness of it.

"It's essential the state do more. Marijuana is critical for people
with certain illnesses," said Steven Kupferberg, a defense lawyer in
one of the cases.

Thirteen states allow the medical use of marijuana. California has led
that effort, permitting storefront dispensaries to sell pot to
residents with a doctor's recommendation.

Virginia is not one of the 13 states, and politicians appear to have
little interest in changing that.

The District also forbids the practice, but advocates got a boost this
summer when the U.S. House of Representatives lifted a restriction
that curbs the city from changing its drug laws. The Senate has not
taken that action, advocates said. The sponsor of the 1998 D.C.
measure, then-U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), praised the move, calling it
"an important step in the direction of individual freedom."

Maryland forbids medical use, but under a 2003 law, defendants can be
shown leniency if they show medical necessity. The law is rarely used
- -- not all lawyers know about it, and people convicted of simple
marijuana possession can receive leniency, particularly for a first
arrest.

Advocates for the medical use of pot in Maryland are pushing for a law
that would keep sick people from resorting to buying it on the street.
And more of those buyers have been willing to speak out for such a
law.

Debate over the medical use of marijuana often turns on the drug's
efficacy and whether it is the only remedy available. The latter issue
was evident in the two Montgomery cases.

The case of William York started Feb. 8, 2008, when detectives
intercepted a package of marijuana addressed to him. They delivered it
to York at his home in Silver Spring, finding him dripping wet in his
bathrobe after he had just gotten out of the tub. York was convicted
of marijuana possession.

At his sentencing hearing Aug. 27, York's attorney submitted medical
records and two doctors' notes to show that York couldn't control his
cyclic vomiting syndrome with pills, in part because he threw them up.
The condition is typified by episodes of severe nausea and vomiting
that can persist for hours or days.

"What happens is, I wake in the morning with such bad nausea that I go
into a vomiting fit, and I can't stop the vomiting," York told the
judge at the hearing. "But if I use marijuana right at the point where
the nausea attack hits me, most of the time it subdues, and after two
hours I am able to work without any problems."

York, a project manager at a telecom company who makes more than
$100,000 a year, also spoke of the perils of having to buy an illegal,
unregulated product: "I've been robbed a couple of times. The quality
of the cannabis is suspect."

Prosecutor Vlatka Tomazic said at the hearing that the doctors' notes
were little more than a summary of what York had told his doctors, and
one wasn't even dated. No medical professionals testified.

"I get it," Tomazic said of marijuana's effect on vomiting.
"Obviously, there is some research to show that it does help with
nausea. But there's no indication that this is the only way that he
can get better."

Montgomery Circuit Court Judge David A. Boynton entered a finding of
"medical necessity" and charged York a $100 fine.

Forty-five minutes earlier, in a courtroom one floor above, attorneys
had begun arguing the case of Winnie Gesumwa at her sentencing
hearing. That investigation began the night of Feb. 24, when officers
got a tip that someone smelled marijuana smoke at a Silver Spring
apartment that doubled as a tattoo parlor, attorneys in the case said.

Officers found three people inside, including Gesumwa. In her purse,
they found 17 small packets of marijuana, valued at $170. She was
charged with intent to sell because she had so many packets. Gesumwa
pleaded guilty to marijuana possession, a lesser charge.

Gesumwa, a native of Kenya, was 3 when she started exhibiting brief
"blank stares" that halted her speech and caused her to zone out, her
mother told the judge. She also had periodic grand mal seizures that
sent her into convulsions.

After Gesumwa had moved to the United States, doctors at Children's
National Medical Center diagnosed epilepsy when she was 12, said her
attorney, Alex Foster.

Doctors prescribed Depakote, which caused sudden weight shifts,
migraines and nausea, Gesumwa told the judge at her hearing. She said
that marijuana controlled daily bouts of blanking out, without
Depakote-like side effects, and that she bought 17 units at once to
reduce the chance of getting caught. No medical experts testified.

The state's medical-use law "has sort of flown under the radar here in
Maryland," Foster said, adding that it applied "perfectly" to
Gesumwa's case.

Judge Andrew Sonner ruled that she had a medical necessity and waived
the $100 fine.

The debate over the medical use of marijuana isn't new in Maryland.

In a 1999 case, a 16-year-old daughter of anti-nuclear activists in
Takoma Park gave police some photos of 69 pot plants growing in the
family's basement. The girl's mother said she needed the pot for
severe migraines and fibromyalgia, a chronic and painful disorder.

In 2002, conservative state Del. Donald E. Murphy (R-Baltimore County)
took up the cause after a former Army green beret who had cancer told
him that the drug eased intense nausea from chemotherapy. The measure,
which went into law in 2003, lowered penalties for medical use but
stopped short of legalizing it.

Critics of using marijuana as medicine say that it can do more harm
than good and worry that medical use is a first step toward full-blown
legalization.

Opponents of making the practice legal include the American Medical
Association, the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement
Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy.

"Until the AMA weighs in otherwise, this is no more than medical
folklore," said Leonard C. Collins Jr., Charles County's top
prosecutor and former president of the Maryland State's Attorneys'
Association. "If Eli Lilly was pushing this stuff, people would be
accusing them of greed, and the users would be suing them for the bad
side effects."