MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL TAKES STEP

SANTA FE - By the time he walked into David Salman's office, Lynn Pierson
was nearly a ghost.

A Vietnam veteran, he was looking at 30 but looking like 60. Cancer had
blasted his lungs. Chemotherapy had maimed his appetite. Now he was starving.

And he didn't want to die an outlaw.

It was 1978, and he had a request for Salman, then the state House majority
leader: Pass a law allowing cancer patients to smoke marijuana.

No state had such a law. Within weeks, New Mexico did.

What the state didn't have was a law that worked well. Laden with paperwork
and bureaucracy, it was never used.

On Thursday, advocates of medical marijuana took a tentative step toward
obtaining a law that works.

Without recommending "yes" or "no," the House Business and Industry
Committee passed onto the Judiciary Committee a medical-marijuana bill.

Under it, people with cancer, HIV, AIDS or glaucoma could apply for state
permission to possess marijuana. The bill wouldn't legalize the drug but
would offer a get-out-of-jail-free card to people who need it.

Now retired, Salman came back to urge passage of the bill, along with Anne
Murray, who drafted the original bill.

Even Lynn Pierson was there - in name only.

Three months after the 1978 law passed, he died.

Twenty-five years later, Murray said, who knows how many more Lynn Piersons
have come and gone?

"That's why we named it `The Lynn Pierson Compassionate Use Act,'" she said
of House Bill 242. "My calculation was that would give it legs in terms of
its history and its credibility."

About 25 people, many of them suffering from debilitating illnesses,
supported that aim.

"I can't work if I'm not well," said Hank Tafoya, a health educator from
Taos who has AIDS.

But by taking "two or three puffs" twice a day, he can hold down the other
drugs that keep his illness in check.

Some legislators weren't convinced.

"In Rio Arriba County, we've experienced a lot of (heroin) overdoses,"
Democratic Rep. Debbie Rodella said. "Although I empathize with all the
individuals here, it sends a bad message to our children."

Republican Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert of Corrales said she feared the bill
would encourage street dealers - a concern that was shared by the bill's
sponsor, Democratic Rep. Ken Martinez of Grants.

The bill doesn't address where the marijuana would come from, he said,
meaning patients could buy it from street dealers or grow it themselves.

That's how a similar program works in Colorado. Gail Kelsey, administrator
of that state's Medical Marijuana Registry, said the 2-year-old program
allows nearly 250 patients to possess two ounces of marijuana or six plants.

"We called the DEA office in Denver," she said. "Not only do they not have
an interest in pursuing the patients, but because of the small amounts they
possess, they couldn't even take it to federal court."

Medical marijuana was once considered the least offensive portion of former
Gov. Gary Johnson's drug-reform crusade. But the committee's tepid
endorsement of the bill portends a tough passage - first through the House
and then the Senate.

"I think that drugs are such a hot-button issue that the illegal use of
them tends to overshadow the compassionate use of them," Murray said.

Even so, Salman said, 25 years ago, New Mexico made a promise to a man who
was nearly a ghost. Legislators can make good on that promise now.

"This is an act of mercy," he said. "It was good legislation in 1978. It's
better legislation today."