MARIJUANA BILL RAMPS UP DEBATE ON MODERN DRUG'S POTENCY

JUNEAU--A bill by Gov. Frank Murkowski to recriminalize small amounts
of marijuana use in the home has developed into a forum in the
Legislature for debate on the potency of today's pot and the severity
of its harmful effects.

"The marijuana of Cheech and Chong had a THC content of 1 to 5
percent; today's Alaska marijuana is 14 to 18 percent," said John
Bobo, a U.S. Department of Transportation official summoned by the
Murkowski administration to talk to legislators about the dangerous
effects of driving or operating machinery under the influence of
modern marijuana.

"This stuff messes you up, and you have an inability to operate
safely," he said.

In debate on Senate Bill 74, which seeks to reverse recent state court
decisions reaffirming adults' right to possess personal-use amounts of
marijuana in their home, advocates from both sides of the issue have
presented experts to make their case to legislators.

The bill cleared its first hurdle Friday with approval from the Senate
Health, Education and Social Services Committee.

However, the measure still has multiple steps to clear before it
passes the Legislature, and the chairman of the HESS Committee said he
has not made a decision on whether to ultimately endorse all of the
administration's claims about pot in the 21st century.

The administration contends that today's marijuana is much more potent
and harmful than in 1975, when the Alaska Supreme Court ruled in the
Ravin v. State case that the risks of pot were not great enough to
override constitutional privacy protections. The Ravin decision held
that adults can legally possess personal-use amounts of pot in their
home.

Although state voters passed an initiative in 1990 banning all amounts
of marijuana possession, the Court of Appeals ruled in 2003 in the
case of a North Pole man that the initiative was invalid and that the
Ravin decision still allows adults to legally possess as much as 4
ounces of marijuana in their home.

The Murkowski administration has tried unsuccessfully to fight that
decision and others that have resulted from the case. Senate Bill 74
would make all marijuana possession illegal and contains several
"legislative findings," or statements designed to provide the state
with ammunition should the bill be enacted and challenged in court
based on the decisions related to the Ravin case.

Many of the bill's findings focus on the administration's contention
that marijuana is now much stronger and harmful than at the time of
the Ravin case, when the opinion called marijuana "innocuous" compared
to alcohol and other substances.

The 19 proposed findings in the bill are the greatest cause of
dispute, considering the statements would probably be relied on in the
strong likelihood the bill would be challenged in court should it pass.

Critics of the bill, led by proponents of a failed ballot initiative
last year to completely decriminalize marijuana and allow it to be
regulated like alcohol, argue that the administration's claims in the
bill are exaggerated, misleading or inaccurate.

One proposed finding states in part, "The increasing potency of
marijuana corresponds to an increase in the number of persons seeking
emergency medical care for marijuana-related incidents."

Other contested statements in the bill include marijuana containing
addictive properties similar to heroin and other like drugs and that
marijuana use by children is associated with an increased risk of
attempted suicide.

Lester Grinspoon, a Harvard University medical doctor and author of
two books on marijuana, told the Senate HESS Committee the Murkowski
administration is disingenuous in its claims about today's pot.

"Marijuana is no more harmful than it was in 1975, when I testified in
the Ravin case," Grinspoon said.

Grinspoon and others said while marijuana may in fact have a higher
THC content, the increased potency translates into people smoking
less, taking smaller hits and holding it in their lungs for a shorter
period.

Unlike alcohol, which people continue to drink well after they're
intoxicated, marijuana produces a saturation point at which people
tend to stop smoking because they're as high as they want to be, they
said.

"To me, that seems like a good thing, because you have to put less
smoke in your lungs," said Jim Welch, an Eagle River resident who said
he smoked marijuana for a period of time to relieve multiple sclerosis
symptoms.

HESS committee members were presented with a voluminous set of
research and literature on marijuana from both sides of the issue.

The administration's viewpoint has been presented by the Department of
Law, while the chief opposition to the bill has come from Alaskans for
Marijuana Regulation and Control and the Alaska Civil Liberties Union.

Committee Chairman Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River, said he plans to review
as much of the research presented by both sides as possible to
determine whether the legislative findings in Senate Bill 74 are accurate.

Although his HESS Committee voted 3-1 to approve the bill, most of the
committee members will have another chance to consider the bill
because they are also on another Senate panel scheduled to hear the
proposal.

The only no vote Friday came from Sen. Kim Elton, D-Juneau, who said
he had questions about the claims made by the administration in
support of its findings.

"In the battle of competing experts, I'm finding those who are pro
using this approach are using more anecdotal information than
scientific information," said Elton, who also expressed concerns that
prosecuting marijuana possession could divert state resources away
from other more pressing social problems.

Assistant Attorney General Dean Guaneli said he was bothered by
critics of the bill not focusing on one of the administration's chief
reasons for pursuing the bill: Increased marijuana use by younger and
younger children and higher rates of use among Alaska Natives.

"Part of it is the media doesn't want to acknowledge that there is a
problem," Guaneli said. "The evidence has shown that there is a problem."