DON'T D.C. VOTES COUNT?

Congress should spend more time listening to the people it represents,
especially when 500,000 of them live in the District of Columbia and aren't
allowed a congressman.

U.S. senators and representatives have resisted legitimizing the medical
use of marijuana in the District, even though voters in Arizona, Alaska,
California, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington have approved
laws to that end. In fact, so have D.C. voters, but to no avail.

The U.S. Supreme Court has put more stock in laws passed by Congress than
in initiatives passed by the people, giving the former sway over the
latter. That has led to federal raids on state-approved marijuana clinics.
These served primarily persons with pain, nausea, or lack of appetite due
to chemotherapy or AIDS. And the Congress overrode a 1998 initiative by
voters in the District who had voted 69 percent to 31 percent to permit
marijuana's medicinal use.

The Marijuana Policy Project points to a recent national Zogby poll which
found that, by a 62.5 percent to 24.1 percent margin, American voters
thought Congress should let the District's medical marijuana law take
effect without interference.

All the past meddling has done is make shockingly and distastefully clear
that the half-million Americans living in the District have roughly the
same democratic rights as Iraqis.

Now as voters in the nation's capital again consider the issue of medical
marijuana usage, the MPP expects a renewed congressional effort to pre-empt
the people's will via a rider attached to the congressional appropriation,
an effort it hopes to thwart.

As it stands, groups as varied as the American Public Health Association
and the Gray Panthers support the initiative. It's time not only for
members of Congress to respect the will of the people in the District but
in the eight other states that have passed similar measures. They must not
only accept D.C. voter initiatives, they must enact federal legislation
that is more in line with the sweep of public opinion.

The nation's own Institute of Medicine acknowledged in 1999 the usefulness
of marijuana for some very ill patients. Congress should not be in the
business of withholding medicine that works.

In the first go-round the law mooting the D.C. initiative was passed by
voice vote. This year the Marijuana Policy Project is working to assure a
roll call vote that will let Americans know who's for them and who isn't.
In a tight election year, with a tanking economy imperiling incumbents,
members of Congress should think twice about thwarting the people's will.