New bid for medical use of pot likely to be shelved
by RACHEL ZIMMERMAN

January 20, 1998 - Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Capitol Bureau - rachelzimmerman@seattle-pi.com

OLYMPIA - Ralph Seeley, a Tacoma lawyer with terminal bone cancer, became the literal poster child for medical marijuana last fall during a failed initiative campaign.

In stark gut-wrenching television ads, Seeley implored voters to allow people like him some meager relief by smoking pot to ease the pain and nausea of slow death.

Two months after voters defeated the measure that would have allowed marijuana, LSD, heroin and other drugs for medical use, Seeley is in a coma in a Tacoma hospital.

A new, narrowly written version of the medical marijuana proposal is scheduled for a legislative hearing tonight, but it won't likely survive, according to the Republican lawmaker who is overseeing the hearing.

Sen. Alex Deccio of Yakima, who chairs the Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee, said he'll allow testimony tonight on the bill, which would permit severely ill people to use marijuana to alleviate pain and other symptoms.

But Deccio said it's unlikely he'll bring the bill up for a vote this year.

"It's too complicated and too controversial to move a bill this session," he said. "I don't want to discard the idea entirely because it's still needed. But on the heels of the failed initiative, there's a lot of public education that needs to happen."

Deccio should know.

In 1979 on the Senate floor, he silenced the chamber when he urged lawmakers to support a study on medicinal marijuana. Four years earlier, Deccio's 24-year-old daughter died of cancer and he watched her suffer the pain and nausea associated with intense chemotherapy.

"It's sad that nearly 20 years later we're still talking about the same thing," Deccio said.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl, D-Seattle, the bill's sponsor, said she hopes Deccio will be further moved after hearing from a slew of gravely ill patients tonight, as well as doctors, lawyers civil libertarians who support the use of medical marijuana.

Seeley, who suffered a heart attack Saturday night and was in intensive care at Tacoma General Hospital last night, was planning to testify but is now unable to, his wife said.

Despite the sound defeat of the initiative in November, Kohl said, there are two compelling reasons to pass SB6271 now.

First, she said, another initiative is in the works. Second, there is no reason that people like Seeley can't end their lives in relative serenity.

"It's a travesty to make criminals out of gravely ill patients," Kohl said. "We need to find a way to provide access that is controlled."

Kohl's bill would provide legal immunity for patients suffering from a range of serious illnesses, including cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. They would have to use the medical marijuana on the documented advice of a licensed doctor.

The bill would not require insurance companies to pay for medical marijuana and it would protect pharmacists from liability for providing pot for medical use.

But selling, buying and growing marijuana remain federal crimes. And Kohl's bill does not address the complicated issue of distribution.

Gov. Gary Locke, who met with Kohl yesterday to discuss the bill, also has raised concerns about how the state can legally provide medicinal marijuana to patients.

Kohl said she did not support the faded Initiative 685 because it allowed the use of too many drugs and also would have revised prison sentences for drug offenders. But she believes public support for medicinal marijuana remains strong.

"I'd rather have this go through the legislative process where we can craft and perfect it and not have a take-it-or-leave-it initiative," she said.

Rob Killian, a Tacoma physician and sponsor of the defeated initiative, said he's supporting Kohl's proposal, but if it fails he'll be back gathering signatures.

"If we don't win in the Legislature, we'll bring it to the people," Killian said.

If a bill does make it out of committee, it could emerge in a different form.

Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, a rabidly antidrug Democrat from Shelton, will offer his own recommendations at tonight's hearing for disseminating medicinal marijuana to the sick and dying.

Owen, the most visible opponent of I-685, said he would endorse a plan that allowed controlled scientific research to determine if marijuana is effective in treating people suffering from cancer, the final stages of AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and acute and chronic pain.

"We'd be finding out if there's a legitimate medical purpose for marijuana," Owen said. "This would not be helping the legalization effort."

Owen said that to qualify for the study, patients would have to try other medications first. The medical marijuana experiments would be a last resort, he said.

Killian, the Tacoma doctor, said Owen's proposal is unrealistic and simply a political opportunity to appear sympathetic.

Owen "knows the polls," Killian said, alluding to voter-approved medical marijuana laws in California and Arizona. "He wants to appear compassionate."

But treating the hundreds of Washingtonians who could qualify for the medical testing, Killian said, would cost far more than lawmakers are willing to spend.

P-I reporter Rachel Zimmerman can be reached at 360-943-3990 or rachelzimmerman@seattle-pi.com

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