With I-692, patients would grow their own
by David Schaefer

October 22, 1998 - Seattle Times - opinion@seatimes.com

Initiative 692 would allow people suffering from illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, AIDS, epilepsy and glaucoma, as well as nausea related to chemotherapy or other forms of "intractable pain," to use marijuana for relief.

With a doctor's recommendation, patients would be allowed to have a 60-day supply.

A caregiver could also help with the marijuana, though he or she wouldn't be able to use it or tend more than one patient. The presumption is that a patient and caregiver would grow their own supply.

It would continue to be illegal to sell or distribute marijuana, or obtain it through an agency such as Seattle's Green Cross Patient Co-op, which currently supplies marijuana to nearly 400 patients that have HIV/AIDS and other diseases. (Green Cross workers have been arrested in two cases, but not convicted.)

Proposed medical-marijuana initiatives this year in other states would give identification cards to qualifying patients, indicating that they could possess the drug legally. Washington's measure just calls for documentation from a doctor.

But exactly how these initiatives would work in practice is unclear.

None of the proposed state measures can supersede federal prohibitions on possession or sale.

When California voters legalized marijuana for medical use a few years ago, they authorized buying clubs where it could be obtained. Federal authorities recently shut down one of the buying clubs.

Initiative 692 is much more modest than a proposal rejected by Washington state voters last year.

Last year's measure would have allowed the use of a variety of other drugs. It potentially could have caused the release of convicted drug felons from prison, according to one of its principal opponents, King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng.

Though he concedes I-692 is more carefully drawn, Maleng said it would still create problems because it would still be a felony for someone who delivered marijuana to a patient. Maleng argues that the appropriate way to legalize marijuana for medical use is at the federal level, through the Food and Drug Administration.

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