DRUG CZAR STUMPS AGAINST I-148

HELENA -- A visit from U.S. Deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns Wednesday brought
out a dozen protesters from around the state, who said his anti-marijuana
message takes aim at Montana's sick and dying patients.

Burns, who made a stop in Helena while on a multi-city Montana tour, spent
most of his brief time talking against Initiative 148, a measure on the
Nov. 2 ballot that would permit some patients to smoke marijuana for
medical purposes.

"I'm not here to tell everyone how to vote," Burns said. "But I am here to
talk to you about the realities of marijuana."

Burns said medical marijuana laws send the wrong message to children about
the drug, since no "credible" medical authority, such as the American
Medical Association, has ever reported that marijuana is an effective medicine.

Burns said he doesn't doubt that marijuana makes terminally ill patients
"feel better," but said the logic doesn't hold, since other illicit drugs
would have the same effect.

"That doesn't mean we prescribe crack cocaine," Burns said. "There are
better and more effective treatments than marijuana."

But supporters of the medical marijuana initiative said Burns' isn't
telling -- or doesn't know -- the whole story.

Proponents say smoking the plant relieves nausea, increases appetite,
reduces muscle spasms, relieves chronic pain and reduces pressure in the
eyes. It can be used to treat the symptoms of AIDS, cancer, multiple
sclerosis and glaucoma, among other diseases, they say.

Protester Teresa Michalski of Helena said marijuana was the only substance
that could calm the stomach of her 29-year-old son, Travis Michalski, after
he underwent chemotherapy to treat the rare blood cancer known as Hodgkin's
disease. Smoking marijuana was the only way he kept his pain pills down,
she said.

And marijuana also helped ease the incredible anxiety her son faced every
day, knowing he would die a young father, she added.

"You could see the relief in his eyes," Teresa Michalski said. Her son died
in December 2003.

Burns said it's his job to travel the country and talk to people "in the
trenches" of the drug war. Wednesday, Burns met with addiction
professionals from the Boyd Andrew Community Service Center.

As he spoke and said marijuana has become a rite of passage for
middle-school students, the drug counselors nodded their heads in agreement.

Nationwide, there are more people under the age of 18 getting treatment for
marijuana addiction than for all other illicit drugs combined, he said. And
it's easier for young children to get marijuana than it is for them to get
alcohol, he added.

Tracy Moseman, a prevention specialist with Boyd-Andrew, agreed with Burns'
message. She said the youths she works with "almost always" point to
marijuana as the gateway drug that led them to try harder substances, such
as methamphetamine.

"Once they've broken that threshold, it's easier for them to say 'I'll try
a little cocaine'," Moseman said in an interview after the press conference.

And while Burns said youth drug use has risen in states that have passed
medical marijuana laws, marijuana supporters say otherwise.

A new California study shows that teen use of marijuana has dropped since a
medical marijuana law was adopted there in 1996. The study reports that the
number of ninth-graders using marijuana dropped 45 percent over the last
eight years, from 34.2 percent of ninth-graders reported using marijuana in
1996 to 18.8 percent this year.

Burns, however, cautioned that federal law trumps state law, and said no
state initiative permitting the medical use of marijuana can circumvent the
federal law prohibiting the possession and use of marijuana.

"There's no safe harbor," Burns said.

Medical marijuana was approved by voters in Alaska, California, Colorado,
Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. In Hawaii, a law was passed by the
legislature and signed by the governor in 2000. In Vermont, a law was
passed by the legislature and allowed to become law without the governor's
signature in May 2004, the Marijuana Policy Project reports.