Pubdate: Mon, 11 Oct 1999
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
Contact:  P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378
Feedback: http://extranet1.globe.com/LettersEditor/
Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/
Author: A.J. Higgins, Globe Correspondent
Cited: Mainers for Medical Rights http://www.mainers.org/

VOTERS TAKE MELLOW APPROACH TO POT VOTE

PORTLAND, Maine - For the last five years, the debate over the medicinal
use of marijuana has rocked the country from coast to coast.

Who should be entitled to the drug's reputed benefits or whether marijuana
even has any therapeutic value are questions that have pitted state
legislatures against governors and produced competing verdicts in the
nation's courts.

This year, Maine is the only state where the medicinal use of marijuana
will be decided by voters in a statewide referendum. And while the issue
has generated dueling campaigns in other states, Maine's lack of public
debate on the controversial issue has left many election watchers perplexed.

''I'm stunned,'' said Christian Potholm, a Bowdoin College political
science professor and part-time pollster. ''I've never seen a contentious
national issue get less recognition than this.''

Nearly 70 percent of Mainers support the limited medical use of marijuana
according to a telephone survey of 400 residents conducted in September by
Critical Insights, a Portland polling firm. There is no organized
opposition to the initiative, and Potholm predicted that in the absence of
public debate, the marijuana question is likely to attract the support of
at least 60 percent of those casting ballots in the Nov. 2 referendum.

Mary Ellen Fitzgerald, who manages Critical Insights, said favorable
responses on the initiative span the political spectrum. Seventy-five
percent of unenrolled voters, 72 percent of Democrats, and 54 percent of
Republicans polled support the measure.

Should the measure pass, members of Americans for Medical Rights and the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws say Maine would
become the first New England state and the sixth in the nation to legalize
possession of small amounts of marijuana for certain medical conditions.

''I suspect Mainers will affirm this for the rest of the country,'' said
Allen St. Pierre, a former Belfast, Maine, resident who now works as a
spokesman for NORML in Washington, DC. ''One-fifth of the US population in
five states have already affirmed these medical initiatives.''

Still, there are those in Maine concerned that the narrow application of
the proposal may be a smokescreen for organizations that would like to see
marijuana legalized for recreational use. Critics claim marijuana is a
''gateway drug'' that leads to the use of harder and more addictive
narcotics like cocaine and heroin.

''This is a ruse,'' said Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood. ''The real
reason they're doing this is to legalize marijuana for trafficking.''

Meanwhile, Maine Governor Angus S. King announced his opposition to the
initiative last week along with the Maine Medical Association, which
approved a condemnation of medical marijuana use last month.

But law enforcement associations that have traditionally taken front-line
positions on drug issues in Maine have remained silent on the referendum
question.

''Clearly as an organization, the Maine Chiefs of Police Association should
have stepped up to the plate and taken a strong stand,'' Chitwood said.

''I don't understand why either,'' said Michael Povich, district attorney
in Maine's Washington and Hancock counties. ''The Maine Prosecutors
Association has taken positions in the past on legislation, although not
usually on referendums. Maybe we really weren't aware of it. But I can tell
you that I'm against it.''

Recent events nationally seem to suggest that opponents like Povich and
Chitwood are losing ground in the national debate over access to marijuana
by those suffering from debilitating illnesses commonly associated with a
condition known as ''wasting syndrome.'' Last year, the Journal of the
American Pharmaceutical Association concluded, marijuana should be
available to those patients who ''do not adequately respond to current
available therapies.''

In March, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine said
''short-term use'' of the drug was ''appropriate'' under certain
conditions, adding that no evidence existed to suggest availability of
medicinal marijuana would increase drug abuse. Last month, the 9th Circuit
US Court of Appeals ordered a lower court judge to reconsider a 1998 ruling
that closed down so-called cannabis clubs in California.

The Drug Free America Foundation has tried to organize opposition in all of
the states where the measure has passed. Katherine Ford, who oversees
activities at the group's headquarters in St. Petersburg, Fla., said her
organization is frequently out-financed and out-maneuvered by advocates
like Americans for Medical Rights and National Organization for the Reform
of Marijuana Laws. She said she was perplexed by the lack of opposition in
Maine.

''I can't explain it,'' Ford said. ''It's been the darndest thing. We
haven't seen things happening in Maine. I don't know if people in Maine are
just naturally laid-back or what.''

Craig Brown, who is spearheading the referendum effort for Mainers for
Medical Rights, estimates his organization will have raised nearly $500,000
in its two-year effort to put the question on the ballot. As proposed, the
law would not subject Maine patients to criminal prosecution for marijuana
possession as long as they have their doctor's consent to use the drug.

The law stipulates patients must suffer from persistent nausea, vomiting,
or severe loss of appetite to get a physician's approval. Those ''wasting
syndrome'' conditions are frequently associated as side effects from
treatment for AIDS, chemotherapy, and some glaucoma treatments. Patients
experiencing severe seizures or persistent muscle spasms associated with
other debilitating diseases would also be eligible to possess marijuana.

Patients could possess no more than 1 ounces of marijuana at any one time
and could have six marijuana plants, with no more than three being mature
enough to produce a usable drug.

Ford, of the Drug Free America Foundation, said the Maine initiative is
fraught with loopholes that allows virtually anyone to say they have a
condition justifying the use of medicinal marijuana. Because the word
''approve'' is substituted for ''prescribe'' in the initiative, Ford said a
physician's approval of the drug's use falsely implies the control one
expects from a written prescription.

Passage of the referendum would place doctors in a difficult position,
according to Gordon Smith, executive director of the Maine Medical
Association. He emphasized that while doctors would not actually be writing
prescriptions, they would need to make medical assessments for a drug that
has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

But federal approval of a drug for the terminally ill is not likely to be a
pivotal factor in the minds of Maine voters, according to Potholm.

''I would say Mainers have a tradition of live and let live,'' the Bowdoin
professor said. ''I think that in the abstract - forgetting all other
arguments - when you think of someone dying of AIDS or cancer, I'm not
surprised 70 percent of those people polled would want to ease their
suffering. Of course they would. Who wouldn't?'
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