Source: Wire Pubdate: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 WASHINGTON SENATE PANEL HEARS TESTIMONY By HAL SPENCER The Associated Press OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- Two months after voters rejected a measure to permit the medicinal use of marijuana, a Senate panel Tuesday night took up the issue despite the chairman's warning that the bill was going nowhere. "I don't intend to move the bill out of this committee," Senate Health and Longterm Care Committee chairman Alex Deccio, R-Yakima, said before opening testimony on SB6271. Saying he was sympathetic to the bill's aim -- to make marijuana legally available to sick people who benefit from it -- Deccio said he nevertheless believed his colleagues "must be educated" about the drug's value before trying to get a bill out of the Legislature. "This is not the year to do it," he said. The measure, which drew strong testimony for and against, is far narrower than Initiative 685, which was defeated by voters last November. The initiative also would have legalized medicinal use of heroin and LSD. The current proposal, sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Kohl, D-Seattle, would provide legal immunity to patients who use marijuana, physicians who recommend it and pharmacists who provide it. The bill also would create a campaign to inform youth that marijuana use is illegal, except in cases involving authorized use by seriously ill people under a physician's care. Deccio limited testimony only to marijuana's value as a medication. He said law enforcement problems and other concerns were irrelevant until lawmakers educated themselves on the drug's efficacy as a medication. Among other things, the drug is used to combat nausea caused by chemotherapy, loss of appetite among gravely ill people such as AIDS patients and intractable pain among people with disorders of the nervous system. Some physicians and patients swear by it, but others say its effects are exaggerated or unproven. Dr. Rob Killian, a Tacoma physician and sponsor of the failed initiative to legalize medicinal use of marijuana and other drugs, said his "first obligation is to relieve suffering," and marijuana does that for some of his patients. "I've seen it work in patients when other drugs didn't work," he said. For AIDS patients who are wasting away because they have no appetite or cannot eat, the drug "stimulates their appetite. They eat, they perk up." But Pat Aaby, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen's chief adviser, was skeptical. He said his boss, who campaigned hard against the initiative, wanted to see more proof that marijuana is beneficial for some ailments. Owen supports more research, but not the bill, Aaby said.