FEDERAL POT PATIENT VISITS CAPITOL

George McMahon, one of only seven people in the U.S. who can smoke
marijuana legally, said Thursday that Arkansas needs a law to allow
pot-smoking for medical purposes.

"This is not about recreational smoking," the 51-year-old Tyler,
Texas, man told a small crowd on the steps of the state Capitol.
"This is about sick folks."

McMahon said he suffers from several medical conditions, including a
neurological disease. He receives 300 marijuana cigarettes from the
federal government every month and smokes the drug to ease pain as
well as control nausea, he said.

McMahon was in Little Rock to show support for the Northwest
Arkansas-based group, Alliance for Reform of Drug Policy in Arkansas,
which is working to change state law to allow chronically-ill people
to smoke the illegal drug for medicinal purposes with a doctor's
prescription.

The organization has collected nearly 6,000 signatures and must
collect about 56,000 by July 1 to get the proposed initiative on the
November ballot. The group also is lobbying the Legislature to change
state law.

One state senator has already said he will propose such a law during
the next legislative session.

McMahon cited results from a recent poll by the University of
Arkansas' political science department that showed two-thirds of the
767 state respondents supported allowing seriously ill patients to
use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Sen. John Riggs, D-Little Rock, has said that if he is re-elected he
will sponsor a bill that would allow a chronically-ill person to
smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes with a doctor's permission.
The law is patterned after an Oregon law and would be regulated by
the state Health Department.

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and
Washington allow people who are ill and suffering to receive,
possess, grow or smoke marijuana for medical purposes without fear of
state prosecution.