Medical Marijuana List Tops Out At 17 Registration

JUNEAU - The state's new registry of people allowed to smoke marijuana for medical reasons includes only 17 people, the Department of Health and Social Services says.

Al Zangri, head of the department's Bureau of Vital Statistics, which keeps the registry, said the agency has rejected seven or eight applications. He would say only that they didn't meet the requirements of the law approved by voters last year and modified by the Legislature this spring. The law allows registered users to grow, possess and smoke limited amounts of marijuana if they have a doctor's recommendation that it will help a short list of ailments including AIDS, cancer and chronic pain.

Some patients probably haven't made it through all the steps to register, said David Finkelstein of Alaskans for Medical Rights, a group that advocated legalizing medical marijuana.

Others, like Bill Kozlowski, a 27-year-old Juneau hemophiliac who uses marijuana daily to control pain caused by internal bleeding, have no intention of signing up.

Though the law does not give federal agencies access to the confidential registry, Kozlowski believes registering could expose him to prosecution under federal laws that don't sanction medical marijuana. "I'm not going to register," he told the Juneau Empire for a story in Monday's edition. "Nobody I called in either the governor's office or the state agencies could guarantee that registry would not be accessed by the federal government."

Though the initiative made registration optional, lawmakers changed the law to require users to sign up, arguing that it would prevent abuse of the system and protect legitimate users from harassment.

Mike Maze, a 43-year-old Valdez construction worker, said he received a card to use marijuana for a seizure condition and lower back pain without "any problem at all."

But Maze, like many medical marijuana advocates, resents the requirement.

"I feel like they're discriminating against us," he said. "Why don't they make everybody who uses codeine or barbiturates register?"

The law does not give federal agents access to the list, allowing access only in limited cases to local and state law enforcement agencies, said Cynthia Cooper, the deputy attorney general in charge of the Department of Law's Criminal Division.

Though the initiative's backers opposed the mandatory registry in the Legislature, they now urge patients to register.

"It gives those folks a get-out-of-jail-free card," Finkelstein said.

Applying for the registry costs $25. A card protects patients from state and local prosecution for growing or possessing as much as an ounce of marijuana in usable form and six plants.

Buying and selling pot remains illegal, and the law does not address how patients would acquire seeds to grow it.

Copyright 1999 The Anchorage Daily News

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