December 15, 2001

By Doug Mell, Managing

Eau Claire Leader-Telegram

Assembly Republicans should at least allow a floor vote on a bill that would legalize the medical use of marijuana. Or perhaps they should give voters a chance to weigh in on the issue.

It didn't take long after two Democratic legislators introduced the bill for a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen to throw cold water on it.

"This topic has been a perennial loser here in the Assembly that has done a lot to define Madison liberals but not much to impact the debate," said Steve Baas, a spokesman for Jensen, R-Waukesha.

But people like Jacki Rickert aren't Madison liberals. Far from it. She's just a woman from Mondovi who believes that smoking marijuana gives her the kind of relief from disease that other drugs can't.

Rickert only weighs 90 pounds, due to the effects of two diseases, but that is an improvement from the 68 pounds she used to weigh before she started smoking marijuana to stimulate her appetite and control nausea.

Rickert has fought a long and hard battle to get into a federal program to allow her legal marijuana. Some four years ago she traveled the 210 miles to Madison to push for a bill like the one introduced this week.

"We all want to live life to the fullest," Rickert said in a statement this week. "not having to worry if our doors are going to be rammed in .."

The bill, she said, "would allow sick and/or dying patients a quality of life rather than merely existing."

The authors of the bill are Reps. Frank Boyle, D-Superior, and Mark Pocan, D-Madison. The have signed up the Wisconsin Nurses Association for support.

The bill would allow people to grow or buy marijuana if their doctor gave them a statement consenting to its use for medical purposes. The bill also would allow nonprofit corporations to produce and distribute medical marijuana if they were licensed and regulated by the state Department of Health and Family Services.

While some politicians may balk at the bill, it has garnered popular support all across the country. Voters in Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have approved ballot initiatives allowing the use of medical marijuana. Only one state, Hawaii, got a medical-marijuana bill passed by the Legislature, and it was used as the framework for the current Wisconsin proposal.

Besides the GOP leadership in the Assembly, the bill also faces the formidable opposition of the Wisconsin Medical Society. The doctors group supports ending the legal barriers to clinical trials involving medical marijuana but not going the step farther and legalizing its use in a medical setting.

Some doctors believe that its effectiveness has not been proved and the bill carries too many risks, such as increased illegal drug use.

Of course that risk is there. But an assortment of drugs that are prescribed every day in Wisconsin are abused, and the Medical Society doesn't advocate that they be banned.

If the Assembly Republicans can't bring themselves to at least vote on the Boyle-Pocan bill, why not schedule an advisory referendum in Wisconsin asking residents what they prefer?

The referendum would foster a good debate on this topic and could give lawmakers some direction on how to proce