Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Wednesday, 2 October 1996

Opponents, who include many California law enforcement officials, allege the proposal is an attempt to legalize marijuana through the back door.

Debate is raging over "The Medical Marijuana Initiative", to be voted on by Californians on November 5. The measure would allow sick people and their "primary caregiver" to legally possess and grow marijuana for medical use when recommended by a doctor. Both possessing and growing the drug are crimes under current state law.

Supporters say marijuana often eases nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, reduces the pain of AIDS patients and lowers eye pressure in glaucoma sufferers.

"Nobody could watch a person dying, vomiting continuously, and just sit by," said Boyce, 67, a registered nurse from Mission Viejo in southern California.

She persuaded her husband John to try marijuana to combat vomiting caused by the chemotherapy he was receiving for lung cancer, leading him to lose 25 lbs. A few puffs of marijuana after chemotherapy helped her husband to eat and to regain the weight, she said. He died of cancer last year.

One of the leading backers of the medical marijuana initiative, Boyce says patients can smoke marijuana, eat it in cookies, stir-fry or salad or even drink it in a cup of tea.

Supporters gathered more than 700,000 signatures to qualify the measure, known as Proposition 215, for the ballot. If a majority of voters approves the proposal next month it becomes state law. A recent Los Angeles Times poll showed likely California voters backing the measure by 53 to 31 percent.

Opponents say the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved smoking marijuana as a treatment for any illness and they say the initiative would create legal loopholes that would protect drug dealers and growers from prosecution.

Stu Mollrich, campaign consultant for Citizens for a Drug- Free California, a coalition fighting the measure, said the initiative "would make virtually all laws against marijuana impossible to enforce."

Doctors are split on the issue partly due to a lack of conclusive studies to prove whether marijuana is safe and effective as a medicine.

George Soros, the billionaire financier who is critical of U.S. drug policy, has contributed $350,000 to the campaign in favor of the initiative.

Opponents include President Clinton's drug czar Barry McCaffrey, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, California Gov. Pete Wilson and state Attorney General Dan Lungren, both Republicans.

Wilson believes the measure sends the wrong message in the fight against illegal drugs, a spokesman for Wilson said. The measure would also conflict with federal law, he said.

Opponents say the initiative is so loosely worded, referring to "any other illness for which marijuana provides relief", that headaches, an upset stomach or a stiff neck could be cited as reasons for its use. They say the measure does not require a written prescription and that a word-of-mouth recommendation from a doctor would suffice.

Supporters say thousands of ill Californians already use marijuana despite the law and the initiative would simply give them a legal defense if they were arrested. Non-medicinal use of marijuana would still be illegal, they say.

Opponents also point to an August raid by state narcotics agents on the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers' Club, which said it supplied marijuana to thousands of sick people in defiance of the law. Lungren's office accused the club of routinely selling marijuana to children and to people with forged doctor's notes or with no medical excuse at all.
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