Detroit Proposal:

VOTERS APPROVE MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

Detroit voted Tuesday to allow residents to use and possess marijuana
for medical purposes.

The measure does not affect state and federal law.

With 49 percent of precincts reporting early today, 59 percent of
voters had approved the measure and 41 percent had opposed it.

"I always knew Detroit would come through for people who need help,"
said Rochelle Lampkin, a city resident who smokes marijuana for relief
from multiple sclerosis.

But Andre Johnson, an antidrug activist, said, "This will be a silent
killer for Detroit. It's the last thing Detroit needs."

The city's proposal earned almost 60 percent approval from votes. It
follows on the heels of a movement that has spread mainly in the West.

But now other Midwestern cities, including Ann Arbor, Madison, Wis.,
and Columbia, Mo., are looking at similar measures.

"A lot of places that are in your traditional Midwest are looking more
like Berkeley, Los Angeles, Portland," said Allen St. Pierre,
executive director for the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, a Washington, D.C.-based group in favor of legalizing
the drug.

So far, nine states -- Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine,
Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington -- allow the use of medical
marijuana.

The Detroit proposal exempts residents who use or possess marijuana
for medical purposes from the portion of the city code that makes the
drug illegal.

That means Detroit police officers would not arrest or ticket
residents with medical permission. Those found to illegally possess
marijuana still would face up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Federal agents, state police and county sheriff's deputies could still
arrest people with marijuana in the city. But law enforcement
officials say most marijuana possession cases are handled by Detroit
police.

"Our narcotics unit, we're looking for dealers. We're trying to get to
the source of the problem," said Lawrence Meyer, undersheriff and
chief deputy with the Wayne County Sheriff's Office.

Drug Enforcement Agency special agent David Jacobson said the medical
marijuana effort is a veiled push to legalize the drug.

Advocates of medical marijuana "are preying on the compassion of
people across the United States . . . but there is no value to smoking
marijuana," he said.

He would not say whether federal authorities would arrest or prosecute
Detroiters found with marijuana for medical reasons, as has happened
in other states with similar laws.

Timothy Beck, head of the Detroit Coalition for Compassionate Care,
the group that led the effort to place the proposal on the ballot,
said smoking marijuana eases the suffering of people with AIDS, cancer
and other diseases.

"It's simple human justice," Beck said. "We find it reprehensible that
people who are sick would be persecuted like criminals."