Pubdate: Tue, 3 Jun 2008
Source: Daily Star, The (NY)
Copyright: 2008 The Daily Star
Contact:  http://www.thedailystar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/557
Author: Denise Richardson

PATIENTS TO PUSH FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW

Two area men with serious, chronic medical conditions will join an 
assemblyman in Albany today to urge passage of a Senate bill allowing 
the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

"We're hopeful," said Bruce Dunn, of Morris, from a hotel in Albany 
on Monday night.

He and Richard Williams, of Richmondville, will join other patients 
and Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried, 
D-Manhattan, who will announce a television advertising campaign 
seeking Senate approval of a bill before the lawmakers adjourn June 
23. Later, patients will lobby their senators, according to a media 
advisory from Gottfried and the Marijuana Police Project in Washington, D.C.

"We want to see an effective law that's going to help people," 
Williams, 46, who has had HIV for 20 years and also has hepatitis C, 
said from his home Monday.

The men said separately they don't want to be criminalized because 
they use marijuana for their medical conditions. Dan Bernath, 
assistant director of communications for the Marijuana Policy 
Project, said the possibility of arrests are a fear among patients 
and today's lobby efforts are to inform senators of the importance of 
the issues.

The Assembly passed a bill last year, Bernath said, and the Marijuana 
Policy Project wouldn't ask patients to lobby for passage if there 
were no chance senators would approve the bill.

However, a local senator expressed doubt.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said the issue is a matter of federal law, 
said James Seward, R-Milford, and it is up to Congress to clarify 
whether states are empowered on the matter.

"I don't anticipate the Senate will take up this issue until the 
federal government tells us we can," Seward said. The Assembly is 
creating some false hope about an issue that isn't clearly in the 
state's jurisdiction, he said, and the fact that some other states 
have moved forward to approve laws "isn't a road that New York should go down."

Seward said he personally supports the use of medicinal marijuana for 
patients with chronic or terminal conditions if the drug is approved 
by the Federal Drug Administration and prescribed by a physician. The 
drug, like morphine, could be used for pain relief, he said.

"I could support legislation that is very, very tightly controlled," 
Seward said. But until federal and state jurisdictions are clarified, 
Seward said he has a responsibility to abide by the U.S. Constitution.

The Assembly bill sponsored by Gottfried legalizes the possession, 
manufacture, use, delivery, transport or administration of marijuana 
by a patient or designated caregiver for a certified medical use and 
directs the Department of Health to monitor uses. In its 
justification, the bill refers to the National Academy of Sciences' 
Institute of Medicine 1999 report that "nausea, appetite loss, pain 
and anxiety ... all can be mitigated by marijuana."

Doctors and patients have documented that marijuana can be an 
effective treatment _ where other medications have failed _ for some 
patients with HIV/AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis and other 
life-threatening or debilitating conditions.

A Senate bill regarding proposed medicinal use of marijuana is in 
committee, according to the 
http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menuf.cgi website.

Dunn said he has tried many therapies and medicines since his 
accident in 1988 and he needs the drug because it eases pain, softens 
muscles and motivates him. Marijuana is a safe drug that should be 
available to those who would benefit, he said.

"There are people who need that - no other drug serves them as well 
with as few side effects," Dunn, 61, said. "I'm in it for others as 
well as myself."

Bernath said the TV ad is a new step in seeking passage of a law by 
the Senate. Burton Aldrich, a quadriplegic father of five from 
Kingston, is featured in the ads to be broadcast on CNN and CNN 
Headline News, among other channels, starting Wednesday, Bernath 
said. Montana, Vermont and Rhode Island are among states that have 
passed medicinal marijuana laws since 2004 and after TV ad campaigns, he said.

Bernath said he spoke Monday with Barbara Jackson, a cancer survivor 
from the Bronx, who expressed gratitude that she didn't go to jail 
after her arrest last year for using marijuana to treat appetite 
loss. The charges were dropped, Bernath said, but Jackson still faces 
the threat of arrest.

"This is not a theoretical problem," he said. 
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