Pubdate: Thu, 5 Nov 1998
Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA)
Copyright: 1998 San Francisco Examiner
Contact:  http://www.examiner.com/
Author: Ulysses Torassa 

MEDICAL MARIJUANA GAINS MOMENTUM

Surprise victories for medical marijuana proposals in five states
Tuesday mean California's Proposition 215 was no fluke - and the
federal government will be under pressure to change its hard-line
stance, advocates said yesterday.

But officials at the White House's office of drug policy said they
were unfazed by the election results in Arizona, Nevada, Alaska,
Washington and Oregon.

"It does not cause us to believe that marijuana is a safe substance,"
said Jim McDonough, director of strategy for the Office of National
Drug Control Policy. "The bottom line: It's not science."

Initiative backers, though, said the votes - all significant
majorities - demonstrate strong mainstream support, which federal
officials will find hard to ignore.

"I don't think anybody, especially the drug office, thought every one
of them would pass," said Dave Fratello, spokesman for the Los
Angeles-based Americans for Medical Rights, which was behind the
initiatives. "This is so overwhelming, and such a rebuke. They have to
be soaking up the defeat and trying to figure out what to do next."

The Clinton administration and its drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey,
steadfastly have opposed using marijuana as a medicine, saying it is
unproved, unsafe and sends the wrong message about drug abuse to the
nation's children.

The initiatives, all tightly worded to apply only to people with
conditions such as AIDS, cancer and glaucoma, were well-funded, with
at least $2 million spent on the various campaigns. Most of the
money came from three multimillionaires, including financier George
Soros.

In each state, the measures were passing with at least 55 percent of
the vote (Oregon's absentee ballots still were being counted). In
Nevada, the law requires the initiative be voted on again in 2000
before it could go into effect.

A measure also was before voters in Washington, D.C., but a
last-minute provision added by Congress to the federal budget forbids
officials there from counting those votes. Still, supporters say an
exit poll showed it winning 69 percent to 31 percent.

Eligible patients in the states where the law goes into effect likely
will be issued cards to keep them from being arrested for possessing
marijuana. The measures don't allow people to sell marijuana to those
with medical needs, so patients still will have to go to the black
market, Fratello said.

In the long run, the group wants the government to reclassify
marijuana from a Schedule 1 drug, which means it has no medical use,
to a Schedule 2 or 3 drug that is regulated and can be prescribed by a
doctor.

Also under consideration is a federal judge's recommendation that the
government expand an obscure, decades-old program under which eight
people in the United States are getting marijuana for medical
purposes. The move could settle a class-action suit brought against
the government by people trying to gain access, but the Justice
Department has indicated it is unlikely to go along.

Fratello said he doesn't expect Tuesday's results to lead the
government to reverse itself on that lawsuit, or its larger policy
stance.

"It will be hard to turn the ship of state around on this issue," he
said. "The victory last night was overwhelming, but we know the
solution is still several years away."

The government could pin some incremental policy changes on an
upcoming report from the National Academy of Science's Institute of
Medicine. Supporters believe the report, at least, will call for more
research, and possibly for the sanctioned use of cannabis in medical
settings.

Meanwhile, the group said it expects to resurrect an invalidated
initiative in Colorado next year, and to have one on the ballot in
Maine as well. Also in its sights are Massachusetts, Florida, Ohio,
Illinois and Michigan.

"First it was California, and maybe people wrote off California as an
anomaly," Fratello said. "Now it's the entire West, which is
convincing, but it's still not the Midwest. If we're going to continue
to legitimize this, those Midwestern states are looking like the
places where we intend to go."

For supporters in California, the biggest events Tuesday were the
elections of Gray Davis as governor and Bill Lockyer as attorney
general, said Jeff Jones, director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers'
Cooperative. Lockyer supported the 1996 medical marijuana initiative,
Proposition 215. During the campaign, Lockyer said he would like to
see "clinics, not cults," while current Attorney General Dan Lungren
has worked to shut down clinics in San Francisco and Oakland. Davis
has said he would not oppose the will of the California majority in
passing Prop. 215.

The Oakland club's distribution activities were shut down by the
federal government this year, and the organization is fighting the
move in court. Meanwhile, Jones said, people are being taught to grow
their own, and he is involved in setting up a patient advocacy group
that will step up lobbying efforts among elected officials and federal
bureaucrats to turn around their positions on medical marijuana. In
San Francisco, the coordinator of the California chapter of the
National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws said he sees
momentum building for decriminalization and eventual legalization of
cannabis. Besides voting for medical marijuana, voters in Oregon also
overwhelmingly were supporting a measure to decriminalize marijuana
possession, which had been recriminalized by the state
legislature.
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Checked-by: Patrick Henry