Medical pot effort plagued by feuds
by Jerry Weatherhogg

June 27, 1998 - The Olympian

SEATTLE -- The co-sponsor of an initiative that would legalize medicinal marijuana has withdrawn her support for the measure.

But backers of the initiative who are facing a Thursday deadline to qualify for the November ballot say they already may have enough signatures to send it to voters.

Seattle artist Karen Pehoushek, who co-sponsored Initiative 692 with Tacoma physician Robert Killian, said Killian, his brother Tim and the influx of nationally donated money have destroyed its effort to pass the initiative.

Pehoushek, 38, said she has used marijuana daily since 1992 to quell leg spasms and to induce sleep to relieve the symptoms of her multiple sclerosis.

Although the initiative would legalize her marijuana use, Pehoushek complained Friday of last-minute additions to the initiative's text and what she called a disorganized campaign that has left medicinal marijuana users, including Green Cross activists, in the dark.

"It's a fiasco, and I think it was a mistake signing on with the Killian brothers. With these guys, there just has been no forward momentum, no cohesiveness, no meetings called, no information, absolutely not a shred of any involvement," she said.

Pehoushek also took issue with a clause in the initiative that would effectively prohibit cooperatives similar to the pot clubs that sprang up in California after medicinal marijuana was approved by voters there. The clubs are places where patients can obtain and use the drug.

But Killian said the initiative would be a hard sell to voters without prohibiting pot clubs. He said the clause was added shortly before the initiative petition was filed on Feb. 26.

Killian said his campaign polled Washington voters four times during the past year, finding that while up to 75 percent of the people indicated they would support medicinal marijuana, two-thirds would vote against permitting "pot clubs."

"This is not about setting up places for people to smoke marijuana openly," Killian said.

While he declined to comment how Pehoushek's departure would affect the campaign, Killian said the initiative has plenty of grass-roots support.

That support, however, doesn't include members of the Green Cross - a group which distributes marijuana to about 300 patients with the written consent of a physician. Under the initiative, the group would be illegal.

"They don't have a patient's perspective on this, and the patients are the only important people in this," Green Cross co-founder Joanna McKee said.

Dale Rogers, the patient coordinator for the Green Cross, said the grass-roots effort was lost when paid signature-gatherers from California-based Progressive Campaigns were employed.

"I see 16- (to) 17-year-olds wearing hemp shirts collecting signatures and I think, 'That should be activists,' but we've been taken out of the loop," Rogers said.

Green Cross member Lee deMou said he wishes the in-fighting would end.

"This shouldn't be an internal fight made public," demou said. "This is about people being sick, not individual personalities."

Killian said the Green Cross' members make up a small portion of the state's medicinal marijuana users - many of whom prefer to remain anonymous and stay detached from the group.

He estimates that more than 1,000 people who suffer from ailments such as AIDS, multiple sclerosis, cancer and glaucoma would benefit from the initiative.

1-692 would shield from prosecution patients with terminal or debilitating illnesses who grow and use marijuana with the consent of a physician.

Unlike last year's failed medicinal marijuana measure, 1-692 doesn't mention other drugs or prison policies.

The campaign, funded by upwards of $375,000 from out-of-state donors, has received more than 200,000 signatures - well ahead of the 179,284 needed to put it on the ballot, Tim Killian said.

Jerry Weatherhogg covers Olympia for The Olympian. He can be reached at 754-5442.

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