MEDICAL MARIJUANA MEASURE BACKED

HELENA -- Larry Rathbun spent 22 months in Montana State Prison for trying
to ease the pain and spasms that come with multiple sclerosis.

The nine plants that brought about his prison sentence, he said, were the
same marijuana plants that helped him in his fight against the wheelchair.
Without it, in prison, he lost that battle.

"I walked into Deer Lodge and rolled out," he told the House Judiciary
Committee on Friday in support of House Bill 506, which would legalize the
use of medicinal cannabis, or marijuana, in the state.

Rep. Ron Erickson, D-Missoula, said he's sponsoring the bill because "pain
counts." Under the measure, people certified by the state could grow or buy
limited amounts of marijuana to help ease their pains.

The panel approved HB506, 13-5.

John Masterson, director of the Montana chapter of the National Organization
for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and a Missoula doctor who is an
authority on medicinal cannabis, teamed with Erickson to draft HB506, which
would protect those using or growing marijuana for medicinal purposes from
prosecution. The bill would set up an identification system for approved
patients, administered through the Department of Public Health and Human
Services.

Dr. Ethan Russo, a Missoula neurologist who helped draft the bill, said it
would help patients with migraines, nausea and other side effects of medical
treatments such as chemotherapy and would help patients with AIDS,
neurological diseases and glaucoma, as well as multiple sclerosis.

"We now know that cannabis positively influences the disease itself," the
doctor said. "It's not just for MS patients, but others suffering from other
ongoing, nerve-based pain."

Robin Prosser, a Missoula activist who went on a 60-day hunger strike last
spring, also came to speak for the bill. Prosser has an immunosuppressive
disorder and other conditions that she said cause chronic pain, heart
trouble and muscle spasms. She said she's on 15 medications, but she's
allergic to traditional medicines.

"I would like to get past the point of just trying to feel well enough to be
here, to do things," she said. "I'm in pain every day, and it's not my fault
that I'm sick. It's not my fault that medical science cannot come up with a
proper drug."

Only one person spoke Friday in opposition to the bill. Dr. Hollis LeFever,
a family practitioner from Glasgow who is a cancer survivor and has
glaucoma, spoke on behalf of the Montana Medical Association. Cannabis has
not been FDA-approved, he said, and physicians have no way to administer or
monitor its use in their patients. It also can harm the cardiovascular
system and causes emotional problems, he said.

And federal law would not allow doctors to prescribe pot, he said.

Russo later said that HB506 does not ask physicians to prescribe, but allows
patients to use cannabis.

HB506 was patterned after an Oregon law. So far, nine states have adopted
similar laws, including Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon.

A 1998 study done by Montana State University-Billings, and Montanans for
Medical Rights found that 70 percent of Montanans supported or strongly
supported policies that allowed for the safe and legal access to medical
cannabis.

"If we must have a war on cannabis users, what I would encourage as a policy
to at least remove the sick and wounded, the people who are in pain and have
these debilitating diseases," Masterson said. "Remove them from the
battlefield of this drug war."