D.C. OFFICIALS CAUTIOUS ON LEGAL MARIJUANA

Studying 11-Year-Old Initiative

D.C. officials Wednesday said they would proceed cautiously if
Congress lifts a federal roadblock to implementing a voter initiative
approved more than a decade ago that called for legalizing medical
marijuana.

Congress is poised to pass an omnibus spending bill that will not
include a rider known as the Barr Amendment, which has blocked the
District from legalizing medical marijuana.

The Barr Amendment has banned the city from funding legalization
efforts since 1998, when 69 percent of voters cast ballots approving
the use of medical marijuana in the District.

Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray called the removal of the ban a
victory for home rule. A spokeswoman for Mr. Gray said the chairman
would meet with members to discuss how to proceed.

"This just happened. It's too early to say what will happen." Gray
spokeswoman Doxie McCoy said.

Council member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council's Committee on
Public Safety and the Judiciary, said he, too, was unsure of how to
treat the initiative after so much time.

"It's been 11 years since anyone has looked at this," he said. "I
don't know what the next steps should be."

D.C. Attorney General Peter J. Nickles said only, "I'm studying it.
It's a complex issue."

A spokeswoman for the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics said that
voter initiatives such as the medical marijuana initiative are
transmitted to the council after they are passed and the council then
submits the measures to Congress, which has 30 sitting days to take
action against the initiative.

Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said the
absence of the Barr Amendment, originally added by former Rep. Bob
Barr, then a Republican from Georgia, paves the way for legalization
of medical marijuana.

"The residents who need medical marijuana will have a cloud removed
from over them," Mr. Mirken said. "It's time D.C. pulls this law out
of the mothballs."

Mr. Mirken said he does not expect the Democratic Congress to overturn
the initiative. He said that if the measure passes, the city's
Department of Health would be responsible for developing plans for the
safe distribution of medical marijuana.

D.C. Department of Health spokeswoman Dena Iverson agreed, saying the
agency's responsibility is to regulate health issues in the District.
Those duties include licensing pharmacies.

Initiative 59 was primarily pushed by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash
Power known as ACT UP. The group got a second chance in February 1998
to collect signatures to get the initiative on the ballot after
falling short of the required number by 800 and having 4,000
disqualified.