HIV ACTIVISTS KEEP WATCH ON VERMONT BILL TO LEGALIZE MEDICAL MARIJUANA

HIV/AIDS activists throughout the nation have their eyes on Vermont, where
the Legislature is considering a bill to legalize the medical use of
marijuana.

They see the outcome as a litmus test of Gov. Howard Dean's support of the
gay community.

Dean, a Democrat who will not seek reelection in November, has presidential
ambitions. He's formed a political action committee to raise funds for his
travels around the country to support fellow party members in the key fall
elections and is a frequent visitor to neighboring New Hampshire, site of
the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

Dean skyrocketed to national attention by signing Vermont's historic
civil-unions bill into law and in doing so won laurels from the gay
community. During his travels, the governor makes the rounds of community
groups. He was in Massachusetts most recently to keynote the annual dinner
of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Bar Association May 3.

GLBT support may have fueled the governor's presidential aspirations, but
now it's being put to the test. Even though the Vermont House of
Representatives on March 15 by a vote of 82-59 passed H.645, one of the
strictest medical marijuana measures in the nation, and the Senate Health
and Welfare Committee unanimously approved it April 25, Dean has stated
repeatedly that he's against it.

The bill, introduced by Rep. David Zuckerman, a Progressive Party member
from Burlington, would allow patients to possess no more than three ounces
of cannabis and up to seven plants, only three of which may be mature, for
their personal use. The original version of H. 645, like laws already in
effect

in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and
Washington, would protect people with AIDS and other serious diseases from
arrest and prosecution under state law if they use medical marijuana with
their doctors' recommendation. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee,
chaired by Dean political ally Richard Sears, D-Bennington, later watered
down the bill, essentially allowing law enforcement agencies to continue to
arrest people for possessing marijuana, but giving them a court defense if
they have no more than one ounce and use it medicinally.

The Senate passed the new version of the bill 22-7 on May 14. Parliamentary
maneuvering now could get hot and heavy, because the bill will be returned
to the House, where sponsors plan to move to amend the weakened version to
its original form, according to the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). The
Washington, D.C.-based organization works to remove criminal penalties for
use of the substance, particularly by those who rely on it to relieve the
pain and nausea caused by treatments for AIDS, cancer and other diseases.

The MPP criticized the weakened version of the bill because ``You could
still be arrested; handcuffed, booked, forced to spend thousands of dollars
in legal fees and then get off if you could convince the court that you were
a medical user," according to spokesperson Bruce Mirken. ``We're not
satisfied with that. Personally speaking, not just as a representative of
MPP but as a gay man who's lost more friends than I want to contemplate, I'm
offended that someone who claims to be our community's friend can put
someone through that. We know stress is an immunosuppressant. We know fear
of arrest causes stress. This is not complicated stuff."

If the House rejects the Senate version, then both bills would go to a
conference committee to work out a final version to present to the governor.
With very little time left in the legislative session, the bill may die in
conference.

Opposed by Gov. Dean

Dean has said he opposes the original House bill despite polls showing the
majority of American adults support permitting doctors to prescribe
marijuana for their patients. Organizations that have written to the
governor urging that the bill become law include Provincetown's Tri-County
AIDS Consortium, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the Gay
and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), the New York and Philadelphia
chapters of ACT UP and San Francisco's Harvey Milk Democratic Club.

``Many of us have found marijuana to be a useful adjunct therapy for
HIV/AIDS patients suffering nausea and appetite loss, often as
anti-retroviral toxicities," the GLMA wrote. ``The relatively minor risks
from using marijuana before more research is done pale in contrast with the
harm done by arresting and jailing sick people."

In an interview, GLMA Public Policy Director Pat Dunn reported that the
organization also wrote to Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin,
D-Windham. ``We decided it was a well written bill, that it has the
necessary restrictions and controls," she explained. ``It's a needed change
in the law that will allow people with HIV/AIDS and other chronic illnesses
access to marijuana for medical purposes."

NGLTF spokesperson Jubi Headley said the organization supports any bill that
would provide seriously ill persons with access to medical marijuana and
sent out an action alert to its members asking that they write to Dean
urging its adoption. NGLTF Executive Director Lorri Jean wrote in a letter
to the governor: ``As a physician, your support for this bill would be
consistent with the recommendations of medical experts. For example, in
1999, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute for Medicine released a
report, funded by the White House Office of Drug Policy, concluding that
`there are some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking
marijuana for medical uses.'"

That may not be enough to sway the governor. ``He is opposed to the bill
that passed the House," Susan Allen, his press secretary, told Bay Windows
May 10. ``He's a physician and he just feels like the scientific questions
haven't been answered. He would support an FDA [U.S. Food and Drug
Administration] study of the use of medical marijuana." Allen added that she
didn't know why the FDA hasn't done a study ? ``You'd have to ask them." She
said that if the FDA signed off or did a credible study of the medical use
of marijuana, Dean could change his position. His spokesperson denied that a
possible run for president is influencing his opposition to the bill: ``This
position goes all the way back to his days in the Vermont House in the early
1980s. He just doesn't believe that the science has been done."

``If that is truly the governor's position it reflects appalling ignorance,"
the MPP's Mirken said. Pointing out that the FDA doesn't arrest people for
using unapproved drugs and even explicitly permits people to go abroad to
buy them for personal use, he added: ``Politics is trumping science, which
has been the whole story of the suppression of medical marijuana since day
one. Howard Dean either knows better than this or should know better. I know
for a fact that he has had this explained to him by gay leaders and medical
people. He is blowing smoke. If in fact he is the community's friend, he
owes us the courtesy of not lying to us or not misleading us. Civil unions
mean nothing if you're dead and that's the bottom line as far as I'm
concerned."

Dean, however, may be softening his position. ``The governor is willing to
look at it," his spokesperson told Bay Windows May 14 after the Senate
passed the weakened version. ``He's not familiar with the specifics of the
bill, so he'd want to look at it before making a decision."

According to Mirken, if the governor has changed his position, ``it's
because he's heard from the GLBT and HIV/AIDS communities nationwide that
this is important."