MEDICAL MARIJUANA AN ELECTION ISSUE

Bloomington physician Clark Brittain reached over his office desk for his
container of herbal tea, which is about the strongest thing he ever ingests.

"I don't drink alcohol, don't even drink coffee or cola," Brittain said. "I
don't smoke cigarettes, or anything else. I'm a real boring guy."

Everything about Brittain's demeanor proclaims a zest for life, though. It
is conveyed by twinkling eyes, a jaunty mustache and an engaging
personality.

Perhaps that helped him garner 25 percent of the vote in the District 61
state representative race, running as a Libertarian -- the highest
percentage received by any Indiana "third party" candidate for any state or
national office this November.

Brittain likes to think it had something to do with his message. He wants to
see marijuana decriminalized, and to see the drug approved as treatment for
certain medical conditions.

An experience with a patient who resorted to smoking marijuana to control
nausea prompted Brittain to do some research into marijuana and its reputed
medicinal properties.

"I got interested in medical marijuana," Brittain said. "I looked at it.
It's a valid medication. It's been around for about 5,000 years. It's one of
the safest drugs ever known. And it's been studied a lot. It's safer than
aspirin. Nobody has ever died from it.

"Until about 75 years ago, people could use marijuana however they wanted.
It's through this sort of moral crusade that we've demonized it."

The Monroe County Local Council of Women voted Brittain its 2001
Humanitarian Physician of the Year. He served in the U.S. Army, before and
after medical school, ending up a lieutenant colonel.

Brittain and his wife, Dr. Mary Mahern, who shares the Bloomington practice,
adopted sons Marty and Parker while stationed during the 1990s in Panama.
Brittain was already the father of 25-year-old daughter, Anyah, and
24-year-old son, Aaron.

Brittain lectures at Indiana University. He's on the board of directors of
his church.

He thinks many people already share his basic views, and that more would if
they understood the "true costs" of the "War on Drugs."

"The state of Indiana incarcerates about 40 percent of its inmates for
nonviolent drug crimes. That's about 8,100 people per year and, it's about
$650 million per year we're spending on that. That's almost as much as we
spend on nursing homes."

Brittain argues that mandatory-minimum sentencing laws end up putting
violent criminals back onto the street to make room in the crowded prisons
for nonviolent drug offenders.

"In Marion County, they're releasing real bad guys because they have to
incarcerate the pot heads," he said. "It's nuts. And I'm not the only guy
who thinks so.

"To me, it's a no-brainer. We should change our policies and our laws to
better fit reality. And I plan to keep speaking to that."