PASTORS UNITE IN FAVOR OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Illinois Church Leaders Urge State Lawmakers to Approve Bill That
Would Legalize Appropriate Use

CHICAGO -- Arguing that Illinois lawmakers have a moral duty to
legalize medical use of marijuana, dozens of pastors and church
leaders are urging them to allow doctors to recommend the drug for
seriously ill patients.

The religious leaders say they feel compelled to support doctors who
want to use whatever tools necessary to ease the pain of the extremely sick.

A petition was e-mailed to state senators late last month. The state
Senate was expected to vote on the bill this week, said Sen. John
Cullerton, the bill's author. If passed and signed into law, Illinois
would become the 13th state to allow the use of medical marijuana.

"This is about compassion for people," Cullerton said. "Many patients
are not having trouble finding it. They just don't want to be
criminals for using it."

Countered Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America
Foundation, a national drug policy group critical of such measures:
"People can't just call anything medicine. Just because they're
religious leaders does not mean they can judge the merits of
something like this."

The letter - which asked that neither medical practitioners face
criminal sanctions for recommending the drug, nor patients for using
it if their doctors have told them it could help - reflects the
recent trend among religious leaders toward taking a firmer stand on
policy issues with which they normally are not identified. The
signers included representatives of Protestant, Jewish, Unitarian and
other Advertisement faiths.

In recent years, a growing number of religious denominations have
spoken in favor of marijuana's medicinal value. Though most
faith-based groups oppose recreational use of the drug, some have
started to ask state and federal government agencies to intervene on
behalf of patients who struggle with glaucoma, cancer or AIDS.

"I've been a pastor for more than 30 years, and I know some of my
parishioners, and their doctors have thought that they need this tool
for better pain management," said the Rev. Bob Hillenbrand, pastor of
the First Presbyterian Church in Rockford, Ill. Hillenbrand, along
with 49 other religious figures in Illinois, signed the petition that
had been pulled together by the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, a
Washington area group that lobbies religious leaders on drug policy issues.

"For me, the question is, 'Should it be the government deciding out
of hand that something is medically wrong to use? Or should it be
decided by research and the medical industry itself?'" Hillenbrand said.

Illinois has a law on its books, dating to 1978, that allows doctors
to dispense the drug for cancer and glaucoma patients, and other
procedures "certified to be medically necessary." The bill was signed
into law by then-Gov. James Thompson. But political debate over the
issue at the time, as well as some restrictions that were tied to it,
essentially nullified the law, Cullerton said.

The current national fight over legalizing medical uses of the drug
can be traced to 1996, when a California referendum opened the door
to medical marijuana use in that state. In its wake, a number of
other states - Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada,
Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington - have enacted similar
laws that legally allow certain patients to use the drug, regardless
of federal restrictions.

Last year, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal laws
that ban marijuana sales take precedence over state measures.