MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN NEW YORK

As the Marijuana Reform Party Licks Its Wounds, MPP Funds New
Legislative Effort

Tom Golisano, the independent candidate for New York governor, didn't
succeed in knocking off Republican incumbent Gov. George Pataki, but
his last minute TV and radio ad blitz in New York City markets
supporting medical marijuana may well have doomed the efforts of the
New York Marijuana Reform Party (http://www.marijuanareform.org), as
well as the Libertarians and the Greens, to win ballot line status for
the next four years. Gubernatorial candidates needed to win 50,000
votes statewide to earn that status. The MRP's Tom Leighton pulled in
only 22,500 votes, and he's pointing a big finger at the Golisano campaign.

"He ripped off our position, he ripped off our brochure -- his ads
repeated the identical factual error we had in our brochure -- and he
ripped off our voters," Leighton told DRCNet. "I never saw such an
assault on public consciousness as his medical marijuana media
campaign here. You could see his ads 10 or 15 times in one evening.
When we were out handing out fliers to voters and urging them to
support medical marijuana, they would say, 'yes, I'm voting for Golisano.'"

Although Leighton wanted to wait until final results were certified so
the party could see if it had lost votes in New York City since the
last election, which he presumes went to Golisano this year, he was
convinced the Golisano campaign was a major factor in the MRP's
inability to crack the 50,000 vote mark. "The Golisano factor was very
important," said Leighton, "but he actually worked against medical
marijuana because he took votes away from parties that do support it.
His people actually had the gall to call for my help on this, and then
in their mailings they claimed Golisano was the only candidate in
favor of medical marijuana," he said.

While Golisano may have taken unfair advantage of MRP positions and
materials, Leighton's view of what Golisano's pro-medical marijuana
stance accomplished is colored by the losses his party suffered at
Golisano's hands. Other New York activists have lauded Golisano for
raising public awareness of the issue, including Tony Papa, former
Rockefeller drug law prisoner turned activist. Papa appeared in a
Golisano ad focusing on the Rockefeller drug laws.

"We're the Rodney Dangerfield of the drug reform movement -- we don't
get no respect," complained Leighton, and he wasn't just talking about
Golisano. "We got no support from the movement. For a tiny fraction of
the money spent on those failed initiatives, we could have gotten on
the ballot. It seems like NORML, the Marijuana Policy Project
(http://www.mpp.org), and the Drug Policy Alliance have sewn up all
the big money, and we couldn't get a dime out of them."

If MPP isn't funding Leighton, it's not for lack of interest in New
York state. MPP's Chad Thevenot told DRCNet that the group has
provided a grant to veteran New York activist and lobbyist Vince
Marrone to construct a coalition to push a medical marijuana bill in
the state assembly next year. "Marrone is really running the show up
there," said Thevenot, "but unlike most of our grants, part of this
involves continuing consultations with us, in part because we have
expertise that's relevant."

Marrone confirmed that work is underway. "For the past three or four
months, we've been meeting with all the groups even tangentially
involved in the issue -- medical groups, labor, church groups,
patients, you name it," he told DRCNet. "We have created New Yorkers
for Compassionate Care as a coalition group to advance our agenda. We
will be doing all of the traditional kinds of advocacy efforts in
coming months -- media work, lobbying, press conferences, all of
that," he said. "We have a bill that has never moved in the Assembly,
but Dick Gottfried (D), chair of the Assembly committee on health, has
agreed to put it on the agenda," said Marrone, adding that hearings
have been scheduled for December 13 in New York City and sometime in
January in Albany.

Medical marijuana has strong support in New York, said Marrone, citing
a 1999 poll that showed 80% in favor. "We'll be doing another poll in
January, and we expect to see the same sorts of numbers," he added.

The coalition is counting on local activists, said Marrone. "Local
activists are the base for what we're doing, and the biggest group
we've tapped into so far is the AIDS community. We need local
activists -- as long as they're working on medical marijuana. Some
have a broader agenda," he said.

That would include the MRP, which favors legalization of the herb.
"I've been talking to Marrone," said Leighton, whose enthusiasm for
the coalition is dampened, though, by MRP's lack of funding and no
offer of a leadership role in the new campaign.

Leighton has also been talking with his membership about the future of
the party. "We are not sure what will happen yet," he said. "With the
big money choosing not to help us, we could only go so far. We will
probably continue in some fashion, but the question is what fashion.
Our first thought was to regroup as a political action committee, but
we don't have the fundraising network. We might become just an issue
advocacy group," he told DRCNet. "We will try to decide by sometime in
January."

MRP is also pushing a measure before the New York City council that
asks the state legislature to enact a comprehensive medical marijuana
program created and overseen by physicians, Leighton said. "If we can
get that passed, I would hope that someone will consider our
experience and the value we can bring to the movement," he said.

Meanwhile, as MPP funds a medical marijuana effort and the MRP tries
to figure out what to do next, New York City continues to account for
almost one-tenth of marijuana arrests in the United States.