COURT KNOCKS MEDICINAL MARIJUANA OFF BALLOT

As a result, an initiative to legalize pot for persons who get a doctor's
note to use it won't be put before D.C. voters in November, although
advocates of medicinal marijuana collected enough petition signatures to
put the issue on the general-election ballot.

When the initiative appeared on the 1998 ballot, it was supported by more
than 75,000 D.C. voters - more than double the number of voters who opposed it.

But an amendment tagged onto the D.C. appropriations bill in 1999 by Rep.
Bob Barr, Georgia Republican, made it illegal for the District to spend
money processing the initiative. Congress has kept the Barr amendment in
the 2000, 2001 and 2002 versions of the appropriations bill.

The D.C.-based Medical Marijuana Policy Project, however, won a lawsuit
against the federal government in March, when the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia ruled the Barr amendment was unconstitutional. The
court's finding was overturned yesterday by a three-judge panel in the U.S.
Court of Appeals.

Kenneth J. McGhie, the general counsel for the D.C. Board of Elections and
Ethics, said the board was in the middle of making preparations to put the
medicinal-marijuana initiative on this year's ballot when the appeals court
handed down its ruling.

"Now we're back to square one, because the appropriations bill amendment
prevents us from using any funds to further process this," he said. "We
can't spend any money on sending the ballots to the printer if the ballots
have the marijuana initiative on them."

If Congress pulls the Barr amendment from the 2003 appropriations bill - an
unlikely scenario, according to sources on both sides of the issue - the
medicinal-marijuana initiative still won't appear on this year's ballot
because they already will have been printed, Mr. McGhie said.

Mr. Barr expressed satisfaction yesterday that his amendment was upheld. In
a statement, he said that despite an aggressive campaign by
medicinal-marijuana advocates, the appeals court's ruling "recognized the
right and responsibility of Congress to protect citizens from dangerous,
mind-altering narcotics."

Mr. Barr, who was defeated in his bid for renomination in the Georgia
primary Aug. 20, added that putting the medicinal-marijuana initiative on
the D.C. ballot would be an attempt to move the drug-legalization process
forward and would be "ultimately harmful to America's war against drugs."

Medicinal-marijuana advocates were dismayed yesterday, saying their main
disappointment is not that voters won't be permitted to weigh in on the
issue, but that marijuana will remain illegal for seriously ill people who
may be using it to subdue pain.

"We're saddened," said Steve Fox, director of government relations for the
Marijuana Policy Project. "This decision by the court of appeals will cause
the suffering of seriously ill patients in the city to continue."

Nevertheless, Mr. Fox added that he and other medicinal-marijuana advocates
can't help feeling pleased that "we were able to do the work necessary to
show that we had enough signatures and the initiative may be able to appear
on another ballot in the future."

As it is worded, the goal of the medicinal-marijuana initiative is to
prevent D.C. police from arresting "seriously ill people who use marijuana
at the advice of their physicians."

Nationwide, eight states have laws protecting people from being arrested
for using marijuana if they have a doctor's note: Alaska, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Stipulations on the laws differ in each state, and nowhere can doctors
prescribe marijuana, because it's classified by the federal government as a
Schedule I controlled substance.

Generally, patients grow their own pot plants, or they can buy the drug on
the black market.