GROUP TO LOBBY STATE FOR LEGALIZED MEDICAL MARIJUANA

A group that believes Nebraskans should be able to use marijuana for
medical needs is taking its case to the state's pharmacy licensing
board.

They are hoping the pharmacy board will recommend that the Legislature
open the door for medical marijuana use, as the Iowa Board of Pharmacy
did in February.

But a city official in Billings, Mont., where the number of
medical-marijuana businesses has risen from a handful to more than 70
since October, had some advice to Nebraskans.

"Nip it in the bud," he suggests.

And the chairman of the Nebraska Legislature's Judiciary Committee
doesn't expect to see any bills related to medical marijuana
introduced anytime soon.

The goal is opening the eyes of others to the benefits of medical
marijuana, said Diana Wulf, one of three medical-marijuana proponents
who attended the May meeting of the state pharmacy licensing board.

Marijuana can be effectively used for attention deficit disorder,
bipolar disorders, curbing the nausea of chemotherapy, and the pain
associated with many conditions, according to supporters.

Marijuana would have benefited Bill Hawkins' father, who had painful
neuropathy and died of lung and liver cancer, as well as his mother,
who died of lung cancer.

"Cannabis would have greatly relieved their pain without side
effects," said Hawkins, a spokesman for H.E.M.P. (Helping End
Marijuana Prohibition), the group which sent representatives to the
recent licensing board meetings.

Hawkins, a Lancaster County organic farmer, also extols the benefits
of the hemp plant in general.

"The early constitution was written on hemp paper. Columbus sailed
over on hemp sails with hemp ropes," he says.

Hemp concrete (a carbon-storing concrete) is being used to insulate
houses on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, he said.

The group plans to educate Nebraskans about all the beneficial uses of
hemp and medical marijuana and will continue to attend the pharmacy
board meetings, Hawkins said.

Montana is one of 14 states allowing the medical use of
marijuana.

But the law, passed as an initiative by voters in 2004, has strayed
from its original intent - to help people with debilitating
end-of-life medical issues, according to Ed Ulledalen, a Billings,
Mont., city councilman.

"We thought it would be dispensed by pharmacies. But it's not legal to
have it in a pharmacy," he said.

What has happened is a quasi legalization of marijuana, he
said.

Storefronts that dispense marijuana and "caretakers" who grow it are
multiplying like rabbits in spring, he said.

Since September, the number of medical-marijuana patients in the state
has more than tripled to nearly 14,000.

And communities like Billings are trying to figure out how to regulate
the new medical-marijuana business and hoping for some direction from
the state legislature, said Ulledalen.

"I don't even know where to start," he said about the problems related
to medical-marijuana. "It's a quagmire."

Before even moving this direction, a state "should figure out who has
the best model, if there is one," he said

Better yet, "nip it in the bud while you can, no pun intended," he
said.

Nebraska's pharmacy licensing board chairman isn't sure that his board
is the right place to start .

The real question is whether the issue should even come before the
board, said Richard Zarek, a Gothenburg pharmacist and chairman of the
Nebraska Board of Pharmacy.

The licensing board advises the Department of Health and Human
Services on the practice of pharmacy. Under federal law, marijuana is
not eligible to be dispensed, he said.

"That puts it out of our purview," he said.

An independent pharmacy board in Iowa last winter recommended that the
Legislature reclassify marijuana so that it could be used for medical
treatment.

The Iowa Legislature has not reclassified the drug.

In Nebraska, the first step should be proposing the legalization, not
a licensing board recommendation, said Zarek.

"It seems it would be premature for us to consider this," he said in a
telephone interview last week.

But there's not likely to be any legislation in the near
future.

"I don't see any likelihood of that," said State Sen. Brad Ashford of
Omaha, chairman of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, where a
medical-marijuana bill would likely land.

"Drugs, in the Omaha area specifically, have created such a huge
crisis, I can't even imagine this (someone introducing a bill to make
marijuana use legal)," he said.

"It's not going to happen, even though an argument can be made for
it," Ashford said.