Reject Marijuana Measure

October 23, 1998 - The Olympian - olympian@olywa.net

Initiative 692, the legalization of marijuana for medicinal use, is a vast improvement over last year's ballot measure. But it still comes up short.

Residents will remember initiative 685 from one year ago. That seriously flawed initiative would have legalized 100 Schedule 1 drugs, including heroin, LSD, peyote, PCP, forms of morphine and crack cocaine. It would have thrown open the doors of state prisons to immediately release hundreds of drug offenders back into our community.

Dr. Rob Killian, a family and hospice physician, saw his initiative go down to defeat - 40 percent in support, 60 percent opposed.

Killian is back this year with a vastly improved initiative.

He no longer tries to legalize all Schedule 1 drugs.

He no longer throws open the prison doors to release felony drug users.

Initiative 692 is much more narrowly drawn. Killian bills it as a compassionate measure with a goal of providing marijuana to terminal cancer and AIDS patients to ease their nausea and pain. He is well-intentioned.

But this ballot proposition, like last year's, comes up woefully short.

The insurmountable obstacle is the federal law that prohibits physicians from prescribing marijuana.

Doctors can't hand a prescription for marijuana to their terminally ill patients and expect them to get it filled at the local pharmacy.

Prescribing marijuana is against the law. Drafters of Initiative 692 try - unsuccessfully - to find a way to get around that prohibition, yet legally distribute the drug. Even Killian admitted to us that the distribution provisions in Initiative 692 are the weakest part of his initiative.

As we understand it, a doctor would simply note in a patient's chart that marijuana may be beneficial, then give a copy of those notes to the patient. That would qualify as "valid documentation" for a patient to acquire and use marijuana.

And therein lies another problem with Initiative 692. Patients, or their ill-defined "caregiver could legally acquire marijuana, but the person who sells or provides it to them is not protected under this law.

The distributor could be charged with the illegal sale or distribution of drugs.

Another flaw in this year's initiative is the provision that allows qualified patients to possess a 60-day supply of marijuana. The initiative never defines what a 60-day supply is.

Is that 60 joints, or is it 240 joints?

We said last year that we could support a marijuana legalization measure that was both well regulated and doctor-prescribed.

Initiative 692, while a big improvement over last year's unsuccessful ballot measure, still comes up short.

We are not unsympathetic to patients who may experience some relief by smoking marijuana. But until Killian and his supporters can come up with a safe, legal and foolproof distribution system, we cannot and will not offer our blessing.

We encourage voters to reject Initiative 692, to legalize marijuana, when they go to the polls on Nov. 3.

back

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 and The Berne Convention on Literary and Artistic Works, Article 10, news clippings are made available without profit for research and educational purposes.