COURT BLOCKS D.C. VOTE ON MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

Efforts to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in the District were
blocked yesterday when a federal appeals court overturned, without
explanation, an earlier court ruling that had cleared the way for the issue
to be put before D.C. voters.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed a
ruling by the U.S. District Court, which in March declared unconstitutional
a congressional amendment that prevented the city from spending money to
put a medical marijuana initiative on the ballot.

The three appellate justices said in their order that they made the ruling
yesterday because today is the city's deadline for printing ballots for the
November election. Appeals judges David S. Tatel, Merrick B. Garland and
Stephen F. Williams said their decision "will be more fully explained in an
opinion to be filed at a later date."

The decision ends a 14-month campaign by the District-based Marijuana
Policy Project to again put the marijuana initiative before voters. It
would protect from arrest people who, on the advice of their doctors, use
marijuana to alleviate nausea, stimulate appetite or ease pain. Eight
states have similar medical marijuana laws.

This is the second time that the measure has been blocked in the District.
In 1998, D.C. voters passed a similar initiative, 69 percent to 31 percent.
But a congressional rider to the D.C. appropriations bill prevented the
initiative from taking effect.

Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), who sponsored the rider, said in a
statement yesterday that "despite a concerted public relations campaign to
distort the real dangers of drugs, such as marijuana, the pro-drug lobby
ran head-on today with the rule of law and a court, which recognized the
right and responsibility of Congress to protect citizens from dangerous,
mind-altering narcotics."

The case, Barr said, "was about whether federal taxpayer dollars should be
used to support the drug legalization effort in the nation's capital, and
the court's decision today was a clear and emphatic 'No.' "

The Marijuana Policy Project sponsors had hoped to get the measure on the
November ballot.

"It is too bad that a three-judge panel was able to thwart the will of tens
of thousands of D.C. voters," said Steve Fox, a spokesman for the group.
"It is sadder still that this ruling will cause the suffering of seriously
ill patients in the city to continue."

In July 2001, the group filed a request with the D.C. Board of Elections
and Ethics to circulate petitions for the initiative. The board denied that
request, citing the Barr amendment -- which prevented the District from
spending money to put the measure on the ballot.

The group then filed suit against the federal and District governments,
calling the Barr amendment an abridgment of political speech. On March 28,
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled in the group's favor.

Additional legal wranglings, which weren't settled until June, left the
group with only 25 days to gather the more than 17,000 signatures necessary
to place the initiative on the November ballot.

The group turned in more than 38,000 signatures, but the elections board
said the medical marijuana advocates had come up short of the required
signatures in one city ward. An extensive recount, however, showed that the
board had failed to count hundreds of valid signatures.

But by then the U.S. Department of Justice had appealed the federal court
decision. An elections board spokesman, Bill O'Field, said this week that
board members were waiting for the appeals court ruling before issuing its
own decision on whether the initiative could be on the ballot in November.

The court ruling "was very disappointing," Fox said. "But as Al Gore found
out, sometimes you fight the good fight only to have your legs cut out from
under you by the court."

The initiative is not dead, Fox said. If the Barr amendment is repealed by
Congress, he said, the initiative could appear on the ballot in the next
citywide election.