Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 11:31:23 -0600
To: [iowanor m l] at [commonlink.com]
From: "Carl E. Olsen" <[c--l] at [mail.commonlink.com]>
Subject: Votes on Medical Marijuana Stirring Debate
New York Times, November 17, 1996
Votes on Medical Marijuana Are Stirring Debate
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
[26kB gif attached with caption: "On the day after California passed a
referendum letting people use marijuana on the recommendation of a doctor,
Scott Imler of the Los Angeles Cannabis Buyers Club, left, sold the drug to
Jim Stone, who has AIDS."]
By approving initiatives to permit the use of marijuana for medical
purposes, California and Arizona voters have touched off a
nationwide battle between Americans who want to hold the line against
illegal drugs and those who think it is time to challenge other
longstanding prohibitions against drug use.
Passions are fierce on both sides and the votes have stirred a dialogue
about drugs and the potential, or risk, of broader policy changes.
The initiatives are probably the first time since the repeal of Prohibition
that the public has approved a pullback in the war on drugs, said Ethan
Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a policy institute in New
York that promotes more tolerant drug policies.
"It was made clear that the public was ahead of the politicians on this,"
said Nadelmann, who was a strategist for the referendum campaigns.
"The public is increasingly cynical and jaundiced about drug war
politicking."
But opponents are striking back. Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of
America brought 1,000 leaders of its local chapters to Washington last
week and discussed how to prevent initiatives on the medical use of
marijuana from reaching the ballot in other states. Organizers of the
California referendum have promised to get such measures on other
ballots.
On Friday, the director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, Barry R. McCaffrey, declared that the referendums in
California and Arizona are now a national concern.
"Just when the nation is trying its hardest to educate teen-agers not to
use psychoactive drugs," McCaffrey said, "now they are being told that
marijuana and other drugs are good, they are medicine. The conflict in
messages is extremely harmful."
Proponents portrayed the referendums as acts of compassion meant to
help the chronically or terminally ill by letting them use an illegal drug to
ease pain, relieve nausea from cancer treatment, or otherwise alleviate
their condition.
"I lost my lover, Jonathan West, from AIDS at 29, and I dedicated
myself to the suffering that he endured," said Dennis Peron, the
originator of Proposition 215, as the California initiative was called.
Critics contend that in passing the referendums on Nov. 5 by votes of
nearly 56 percent to 44 percent in California and 65 percent to 35
percent in Arizona, voters were tricked into approving measures that
pave the way for broader use of marijuana.
"The California proposition was a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing," said
James E. Copple, the president of Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of
America. "They're using the AIDS victims and terminally ill as props to
promote the use of marijuana."
Copple said many members of his group had found themselves in an
awkward position because of their sympathy for people with AIDS. "It's
a brilliant diversionary tactic," Copple said, "but we're going to oppose
it, punch through it."
Coalition members visited their representatives on Capitol Hill on
Thursday while prosecutors and law-enforcement officials from
California and Arizona met in McCaffrey's office to seek guidance from
him, Thomas A. Constantine, the director of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, and officials from the departments of Justice, Education
and Health and Human Services.
"I think we recognize what the implications are," Constantine said later.
"We don't yet know what are the solutions." He said federal officials
would work with legal advisers on a strategy. But he said, "Anyone who
thinks for one second that we're making a step backward on the
application of federal law would be making a very big mistake."
Richard M. Romley, the district attorney of Maricopa County, Ariz.,
who met with McCaffrey, said, "The biggest question is the conflict that
may exist with federal laws" banning the use of illegal drugs. And, he
said, he expressed fear that someone whose marijuana had been
confiscated could sue, claiming he had been deprived of medication.
The referendums' successes have encouraged those who want to
broaden the debate about illegal drugs. At a meeting in New York City
on Thursday night, Joycelyn Elders, the former surgeon general, was
applauded when she said, "I think that we can really legalize marijuana,
make marijuana legal."
Peron, who lives in San Francisco, contended that since stress relief is a
medical purpose, too, any adult who uses marijuana does so for medical
reasons. "I believe all marijuana use is medical -- except for kids," Peron
said.
But Nadelmann said legalizing marijuana was not an immediate goal of
the initiatives' promoters, because a survey showed that half of those
who voted in favor of the California referendum did so because they
supported marijuana's availability for medical uses and not its outright
legalization. A Gallup Poll taken late last year found that 85 percent of
respondents opposed the legalization of illicit drugs.
"The next step is toward arguing for a more rational drug policy,"
Nadelmann said. This included making hypodermic needles available to
stop the spread of AIDS among addicts sharing needles, increasing
access to methadone, the heroin substitute, and reversing mandatory
minimum sentences for drug offenders.
The referendum in Arizona went further than California's. It stipulates
that any prohibited drug, not just marijuana, may be prescribed with the
concurrence of two doctors. And it provides that people charged for the
first time with possession of illegal drugs be given probation and
treatment, not sent to jail.
California's referendum says people need only the recommendation of a
doctor to use marijuana, but it does not not let doctors prescribe it. It
sets no minimum age for the patient.
Its backers deny that the vague wording invites abuse.
"The first thing this doesn't do is create some sort of supply system," said
Dave Fratello, communications director of the California referendum
campaign. "It gives a specific defense to a small group of people that is
subject to scrutiny in court. That is why we feel it can't be easily
abused."
But opponents argue that the wrong signals have been sent.
"What you've got now is an enormously high-risk social experiment,
which I'm concerned is going to be detrimental to our drug prevention
efforts in California," said Andrew M. Mecca, director of the California
Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs.
Marc Burgat, the legislative director of Calpartners, a California
substance abuse coalition based in Sacramento, said some adolescents
assume they can smoke marijuana now without getting punished.
"The word that we hear in Sacramento schools from kids is, 'Gee, now I
can grow it legally, and get doctors to prescribe it,' " Burgat said. And
some adults, Burgat said, could try to use the measure as a legal defense
if they tested positive for marijuana at work or were pulled over for
driving while intoxicated. "They can say, 'My doctor told me I needed to
use this.' " he said.
In the first few days after the vote, a toll-free information line in
California attracted more than 1,000 calls about how the law will apply
to medicinal marijuana. "We have people calling and saying, 'Where do I
get it?' " Fratello said.
Peron said people with illnesses were forming clubs and designating
someone to grow marijuana.
But the next stage of the debate over the medical use of marijuana
seems destined to be the courts, since both sides vowing litigation to
buttress their cases.
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