LEGAL POT USE IN MASS. IS NOT A DEAD ISSUE

Marijuana or another night without sleep? Alan faces that question
every night, and every night he chooses marijuana.

The Kingston resident, who asked that his real name not be used, was
diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about 20 years ago and is confined
to a wheelchair.

The degenerative nerve disease largely destroyed his peripheral
vision. His legs jerk involuntarily, and the shaking is violent enough
to wake him at night. 'If I sit and smoke a joint, the tremors
stop," he said. 'Then I can sleep." Alan would like to see
medical use of marijuana allowed. Despite strong support from voters
in the last two state elections, the Legislature is unlikely to
approve personal or medical use of marijuana this year. In November,
people in 12 legislative districts, including three on the South
Shore, voted on nonbinding marijuana questions.

Medical use of the drug received 70 percent support and legalization
received 64 percent.

In 2002, marijuana questions were considered in 21 of the 200
districts, with 62 percent supporting medical use and 60 percent
supporting legalization. Communities where voters have backed
marijuana questions include Abington, Whitman, Canton, Cohasset,
Hingham, Hull, Rockland, Hanover, Scituate, Randolph, Stoughton and
Quincy.

Alan, who is in his 50s, estimates that he uses about a quarter ounce
of marijuana a week, enough for about 12 to 15 marijuana cigarettes. A
week's supply costs him about $60, he said.

Alan said legalizing the medical use of marijuana also would ease his
anxiety about getting caught smoking it.

"Being able to buy marijuana legally would make my life a lot
better," he said. The Legislature approved a research program in 1991
that would have allowed patients to use marijuana to alleviate pain
from certain illnesses, such as glaucoma, asthma or nausea from
chemotherapy.

The state Department of Public Health, however, never established the
program, citing a federal ban on marijuana that some states have
challenged and which will soon be before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Proposed legislation would legalize use Rep. Frank Smizik,
D-Brookline, has filed legislation that would decriminalize medicinal
marijuana and would allow the program to be established without
federal approval.

"We're talking about very small amounts, grown under auspices of
the Department of Health and prescribed by a doctor," Smizik said.
"We are dealing with people who are usually in the later stages
of their life. So why can't we get them some help, if it works?"
Smizik acknowledged that it could take years for his bill to become
law. Sen. Robert Hedlund, R-Weymouth, is co-sponsoring a different
medical marijuana bill this year.

"My support derives from the recognition of the benefit for
people, medically," he said.

"Am I ready to make the leap to general decriminalization? No,
but I am in favor of the federal government not burying its head in
the sand on this issue because of political correctness," Hedlund
said. Whitney Taylor, executive director of the Drug Policy Forum of
Massachusetts - an advocacy group that sponsored the marijuana-related
ballot questions - believes that change in the law is inevitable.

"I am very encouraged that there seems to be new legislative
interest, people introducing bills that could someday become passed,"
she said. Advocates must first convince prosecutors First, Taylor and
others pushing for more lenient marijuana laws have to convince their
longtime opponents: prosecutors.

"The district attorneys recognize that it is a well-intentioned
but misguided effort to legalize a harmful drug," said Geline
Williams, a former Plymouth County prosecutor who now runs the
Massachusetts District Attorneys Association.

"It has been proven over and over in research that drug abuse is
behind a huge percentage of crime, and that includes marijuana," she
said. Susie Dugan, spokeswoman for Drug Watch International, agreed.
She said the problem is smoking marijuana, not using derivatives of
the plant in medical treatment.

"Crude marijuana is so unstable, so unpredictable," she said
from the organization's offices in Omaha, Neb. =80'=80'It is a dangerous
drug that affects the immune system." The organization believes that
smoking marijuana is a gateway to the use of harder drugs.

Eleven states have passed medical marijuana laws since 1996:
California, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada,
Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

In all of those states, it is currently legal to obtain marijuana with
a doctor's permission.

Oregon has 10,000 licensed pot growers In Oregon, nearly 10,000 people
have been issued cards allowing them to grow small amounts of
marijuana for treatment of chronic pain, nausea and other conditions.

In November, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a California case
that could determine whether the federal government has the right to
prosecute marijuana possession in states that allow therapeutic use of
the drug. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to allow the use
of marijuana for medical reasons, but it has been stalled for several
years. John Leonard, 47, of Hingham, is among those who want
Massachusetts to join the states that have passed medical marijuana
laws.

"My father was killed by a drunken driver in 1994," said
Leonard, a former director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform
Coalition. "He was a pedestrian, was thrown 25 feet, and died of
complications a few months later.

"The guy who hit him lost his license for two months. If you are
caught using marijuana in your home, you can be punished far worse
than that," Leonard said.