CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE MEDICAL 'POT' NOT OVER

After National Group Pulls Its Funding, State Backers of Ballot Drive to
Push On

Arkansans who've been campaigning for years to legalize marijuana as
medicine say they'll continue their attempt to put the question before
voters, with or without the financial backing of an Ohio billionaire.

The national organization supporting the Arkansas Alliance for Medical
Marijuana announced last week that it's pulling out of the state effort,
citing the slim chances that a proposed initiative would qualify for the
ballot.

But state supporters, dismayed by a costly campaign that may have produced
fewer petition signatures than needed, announced Monday they'll pick up
where the national campaign left off.

"We can't stop now. This is farther than we've ever been before," said
Denele Campbell of West Fork, treasurer for the alliance.

The alliance turned in about 67,000 signatures on July 2 to get the
proposed law on the Nov. 2 ballot. With at least 64,456 signatures of
registered voters needed to qualify, national organizers said it seemed
unlikely that enough valid signatures would be identified in the batch
already submitted.

So Campbell said the alliance will use the time remaining -- at least a
month -- to try to come up with 20,000 or 30,000 more signatures to replace
any that may be deemed invalid. She said she remains convinced that, if
given the chance, voters would approve the initiative that would legalize
marijuana use for people with "debilitating medical conditions."

Arkansas supporters who've worked on similar campaigns for years said they
don't understand how a paid contractor apparently failed to come up with
enough signatures after being paid $186,000 to canvass the state.

With money supplied by Peter B. Lewis of Cleveland, an Ohio insurance
tycoon, the alliance paid The Southwest Group of Las Vegas to gather the
signatures.

"I feel ripped off," said Reed Martin of Conway, a cancer survivor who said
marijuana use helped him slow weight loss during chemotherapy. "I'd like to
know what they did with all that money."

A spokesman for Southwest Group referred questions about the Arkansas
contract to the Marijuana Policy Project, the Washington-based lobby group
helping to steer the Arkansas effort.

Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said Southwest
Group should answer specific questions about the canvassing effort.

Glen Schwarz of Little Rock, president of the Arkansas chapter of the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he was a hired
canvasser but that Southwest Group laid him off on June 8. He claimed the
group shut down its Little Rock office about the same time.

Mirken said he didn't know about Southwest Group's operations but that some
local canvassers were indeed let go.

"There were a lot of local petitioners who were submitting very low numbers
of valid signatures," he said. "A bunch of those folks were laid off and
replaced with professionals."

Schwarz said he has a decade of experience gathering signatures.

"They squandered quite a bit of money on their so-called professionals," he
said.

Mirken said no one gave up on the Arkansas effort early. Until last week,
he and others thought the effort to gather signatures would continue, he said.

"We truly did agonize over this decision until last Friday," he said.

He said it became obvious that even if the alliance spent more money to
gather signatures, commercial time would be expensive and hard to obtain in
the weeks before the election, especially the race for president.

Campbell said that's a risk she and other members of Alliance for Reform of
Drug Policy in Arkansas are willing to take. The group has been working for
five years to legalize marijuana for medicinal use and created the Arkansas
Alliance for Medical Marijuana as a ballot-initiative committee last year.

"We've been doing this at a grass-roots level for years. We've never been
fancy," she said.

Larry Page of Little Rock, with the Coalition Against Legalized Marijuana,
which was formed to fight the medical marijuana initiative, said it sounds
like his job will be a little easier than expected even if the marijuana
initiative makes it to the ballot.

"Obviously, it doesn't look quite as substantial as it would without the
backing of a billionaire," he said. "But we're still here. We haven't shut
anything down."

Tim Humphries, lawyer for Secretary of State Charlie Daniels, said if the
signature total comes up short, the alliance will have 30 days from the
date of rejection to turn in a new batch of signatures.

Campbell said continuing the effort is "the only choice of conscience" to
help sick people who might benefit from the proposed measure.

The initiated act backed by the alliance would allow Arkansans with
debilitating medical conditions to use marijuana on the advice of a
physician. They could use what they or a caregiver grew. Users would obtain
a registry card from the state Department of Health.

The proposed act defines eligible medical conditions as cancer, glaucoma,
HIV-positive, AIDS, or treatment for those conditions. Also included in the
definition are chronic or debilitating diseases or conditions that cause
one or more of the following: wasting syndrome, severe pain, severe nausea,
seizures, severe and persistent muscle spasms.

Nine states have passed laws that protect patients who use marijuana as
medication from arrest and imprisonment. They are Alaska, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

In Maryland, patients aren't protected from arrest but they're prevented
from serving jail time for using marijuana for medical purposes.

Martin, a cancer survivor, said he and other patients have been betrayed
because they came out and publicly supported the effort only to find out
the national organization gave up.

"We pretty much stuck our heads out of the woodpile to get shot at," he
said. "These guys just dropped us like we're not even here."