Clinton acknowledged in the draft that after a period of decline in the 1980s and early 1990s, "drug abuse by children continues to rise for the fifth consecutive year."

He said, "America's youth increasingly must reject dangerous drugs, including cigarettes and alcohol." The president added, "Our primary mission is to deliver quality drug education and prevention programs" to Americans under 18.

That emphasis in the past has been challenged by conservatives, who hold that stopping drugs from entering America is a more cost-effective way to reduce the toll of drugs on America.

During last year's political campaign, Clinton was dogged by Republican charges that his shift of emphasis away from law and order programs and toward educational and prevention programs had failed.

The Clinton strategy asks for a 5.4 percent increase in the drug-fighting budget to $15.9 billion. That means, if the proposed budget passes, America will spend an extra $818 million on anti-drug efforts.

One of the biggest increases, percentage-wise, is in the federal bureaucracy detailed to lead anti-drug efforts. McCaffrey has proposed increasing the budget of his office to $351 million for 1998 - up from $289 million this year and $130 million in 1996.

By contrast, the amount spent by the military on fighting drugs will be reduced from $958 million in 1997 to $809 million in 1998.

The education budget will soar from $588 million in 1996 to $679 million in 1997 and to $747 million in 1998. Much of that money would be spent on grants to states for "drug- and violence-prevention programs" in schools.

And $175 million would be spent in 1998 on "a national media campaign targeting illegal drug consumption by youth," further described as a series of television commercials.

In a draft of Clinton's introduction of the strategy to Congress, the president backed a McCaffrey proposal to eliminate the congressional requirement to issue a new drug strategy each year, and to replace that with a 10-year strategy.

"Implementing a 10-year strategy and regularly informing Congress and the American people of our progress will allow us to execute a dynamic, comprehensive plan for the nation," the draft of Clinton's statement said.

[End of article]

The breakdown of the increases includes:

Government Releases 134,000 Convicted Sex Criminals
To Lock Up Pot-Smokers Instead, Libertarians Charge

For release: February 5, 1997

WASHINGTON, DC -- More than 134,000 sex criminals are roaming the streets of America -- preying on innocent women and children -- thanks to the War on Drugs, the Libertarian Party charged today.

"How many women and children will be raped or sexually molested because, instead of keeping sexual predators behind bars, politicians have filled our nation's jails with non-violent drug users?" asked Steve Dasbach, the party's national chairman.

His question followed a report released this week by the Department of Justice, which revealed that 134,300 violent sex criminals were released on parole or probation in 1994.

Astonishingly, only 99,300 sex criminals remained behind bars, according to the same report -- meaning the government set free more rapists and molesters than it kept in jail.

"Why were those 134,300 sex criminals released?" asked Dasbach. "Because the government's War On Drugs is filling the nation's prisons at a rapid rate -- while acting as a 'get-out-of-jail-free card' for rapists."

For example, Dasbach noted:

"Every one of those non-violent drug prisoners occupies a cell that could be used by a sexual predator instead," Dasbach noted. "If we pardoned non-violent drug users, every one of the 134,300 sex criminals the politicians released could be locked up again -- without spending one more dollar or building one more jail cell."

Instead, the politicians apparently made the decision to put tens of thousands of American women at risk, Dasbach said.

"One Justice Department study says the recidivism rate for parolees is 69%," he said. "At that rate, those 134,300 freed rapists will victimize another 92,000 American women. But, sadly, few of those victims will know that the attack could have been averted if politicians focused on preventing violence instead of punishing vice."

The 1994 exodus of rapists is partly attributable to that year's Crime Bill, Dasbach noted, which mandated life sentences for many drug law violators.

"Before the Crime Bill passed, 34 states were under court orders to reduce prison populations, often requiring the release of violent criminals," he said, "Along came the new legislation, with more mandatory life sentences for drug crimes. The longer jail terms for drug offenders compelled prison officials to set more sexual predators free.

"It's ironic that the Crime Bill, which Bill Clinton bragged would put 100,000 new cops on the beat, actually helped put 134,300 rapists on the street," he said. "It's even more ironic that politicians also passed the so-called Violence Against Women Act in 1994 -- which increased federal funding for streetlights and domestic violence hotlines -- at the same time they were turning loose tens of thousands of rapists.

"America's women are paying a terrible price because politicians would rather keep a person in jail for smoking a marijuana cigarette than for rape," said Dasbach. "Thanks to the politicians, the War on Drugs has become a War on Women."

Juror Laura Kriho Found Guilty of Contempt

Nearly four months after the end of her trial, Laura Kriho was found guilty of contempt of court Monday.

Gilpin County District Court Judge Henry Nieto released his decision in a nine-page document to a local reporter, who then informed Kriho.

Kriho was charged with contempt of court after serving as a juror in a drug possession charge. During deliberations, Kriho revealed to other jurors that she had looked up the possible sentences for the defendant. She continued to hold out as the sole dissenter in deliberations, refusing to convict the woman.

One of the jurors went to Judge Kenneth Barnhill to ask him if Kriho's conduct was permissible. Barnhill called a mistrial and, two months later, charged Kriho.

"We are disappointed in the verdict, but not surprised," said Paul Grant, Kriho's attorney.

He said the ruling makes it the first time a person has been convicted for not confessing past crimes or sins, even if she was not asked about them.

"This opinion creates a legal duty for a juror to reveal their beliefs and experience if they have any thought the court might want to know," Grant said. "It will chill deliberations in the jury room. It will encourage people to keep their mouths shut."

Kriho said she is "devastated and depressed" about the verdict. She said jurors should be advised of their rights because, "anything they say can and will be used against you."

In the decision, Nieto did not rule that Kriho had committed perjury or that she had disobeyed an order of the court. He did rule that she obstructed justice because she did not tell of her opinions on drug laws or juror rights.

Nieto cited a 1985 drug charge against Kriho and her connection with the Boulder Hemp Initiative Project as evidence of her views on drugs. Kriho was never convicted on the drug charge.

His decision stated: "Ms. Kriho deliberately and willfully withheld and concealed information which was relevant and important to selecting a fair and impartial jury, and that Ms. Kriho did so with the intent of serving on the jury for the purpose of obstructing justice..."

Grant said he intends to appeal Nieto's decision.

"I will take it as far as we can to get it reversed," he said.

Pam Russell, public information officer for the 1st Judicial District, said the district attorney's office is pleased with the decision.

"It is very thoughtful and considered," she said. She added that Nieto correctly saw the problem was in the jury selection process and not the deliberation process in finding that Kriho obstructed justice.

A sentence hearing is expected to be scheduled shortly. Kriho could receive up to six months in jail and a fine determined by the judge.

Statement From Kriho's Attorney

February 12, 1997

On February 10, 1997, Colorado 1st Judicial District Court Chief Judge Henry Nieto found Laura Kriho guilty of contempt of court, for failure during jury selection, to volunteer information concerning her opinions and experiences. The court found Ms. Kriho deliberately withheld and concealed her views on drug laws and her own prior experience with a drug arrest - despite the fact she was never asked questions on these matters.

Statement From Paul Grant, Kriho's Attorney

A new legal duty has been created in Colorado by the Court in convicting Ms. Kriho: the duty of potential jurors to volunteer information during jury selection, concerning their political beliefs and attitudes, and concerning their life's experiences, if they think the court wants the information - despite the fact they are not specifically asked pertinent questions.

Laura Kriho is the first person convicted of violating this newly minted crime of failure to volunteer information during jury selection. Evidence that Ms. Kriho harbored secret views on the wisdom of the drug laws was obtained from statements Ms. Kriho allegedly made during jury deliberations.

Ms. Kriho was acquitted of perjury during jury selection, but found guilty of concealing her beliefs. No longer is it enough to honestly answer the questions you are asked - now you also have to answer the questions you were not asked, but that you "knew" the judge wanted answered.

If this new legal duty is affirmed by Colorado's appellate courts, future jurors will need to be advised of their rights during jury selection. Even worse, jurors will need to be advised that any statement made during deliberations may later be used against them in a criminal prosecution, for failure to volunteer an opinion or experience during jury selection.

One wonders whether Colorado courts will have counsel available for jurors unable to afford a lawyer.

Laura Kriho's prosecution and Judge Nieto's vedict will have a chilling effect on jury service and jury deliberations. Fewer citizens will be willing to serve, and open and honest discussion in the jury room will be suppressed. We hope that Colorado's appellate courts will reverse Laura Kriho's outrageous conviction, and repudiate the trial court's attack on the jury system so essential to the American system of justice.

Tonight's Chicago Hope episode had a subplot about medical marijuana. One of the doctors mentioned Prop. 215. Four doctors argued about getting it for a chemo patient, then three of them tried to get it, unsuccessfully. In the end, the fourth doctor (who had been the most against it) got it for her and everyone was happy.

The segment played through all the fears and hysteria regarding medical marijuana.

It started with the cancer patient taking a bong hit. Dr. McNeil (Mark Harmon) caught her and called hospital security who removed her cannabis. This was protested by Dr. Grad (Jayne Brook) who said the patient had the right to smoke it under Prop. 215 passed in California (the patient was from California).

There was a disagreement among the doctors as to whether marijuana was an effective medicine. Dr. Kronk (Peter Berg) talked about how all his friends that used marijuana were losers. Dr. Grad countered by saying that alcohol caused far more damage and commented on the amount of beer consumed by Dr. Kronk.

Later in the program, the cancer patient spoke of how she thought that marijuana was a terrible substance but realized she was wrong when she found that it was the only substance that relieved her nausea. They named other medications [but] she said she had tried them all without results. She firmly stated that cannabis was the only thing that worked.

In the end, it was Dr. McNeil that walked into hospital security and stole the woman's cannabis back for her. Then the doctors all commented on the quality of her stash. The patient asked Dr. Harmon if he had taken any. He told her that he had taken just a little for a friend.

Toward the end of the show, Dr. Watters (Hector Elizando), was loading his pipe. He looked at it funny, took a sniff, frowned and then the show cut to a commercial.

If anyone wishes to write the producers commending them on a very fair presentation of medical marijuana, the address is:

Chicago Hope
c/o 20th Century Fox
10201 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035

Marijuana As A Medicine Finding New Support Among Older Californians

When hippies toked on joints and made love, not war, Gloria Brown was doing martinis and cigarettes. Pot was the domain of musicians and protesters, she thought.

Now, three decades after that psychedelic era, the 62-year-old Brown is about to commit her first act of civil disobedience, and not just to get high. It's because after 14 chemotherapy treatments for colon cancer, the fatigue and nausea are becoming intolerable.

"My psychotherapist suggested I try it now," said Brown, who uses a partial pseudonym to protect her identity. "I said, 'Great, how can I get it?' "

Brown could be a poster child for Proposition 215, which legalizes marijuana for medicinal use in California and has boosted activity at Bay Area cannabis buyers' clubs in Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Marin County.

Yet the reality is, fewer than 10 percent of the region's club members are elderly, first-time pot users like Brown. Part of the reason for that is their long-held belief that use of the spiky-leafed plant is illegal and immoral.

"It's still so stigmatized," said Jeff Jones, the 22-year-old co-founder of the 900-member Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Club, which has grown by about 150 members since November's passage of Proposition 215.

Feds relentless

Despite a state law sanctioning marijuana for a wide array of medical problems - from chronic pain to migraine headaches and depression - federal anti-drug warriors continue to ban the drug and threaten to penalize doctors who recommend it.

Many cancer support groups don't talk about pot as an alternative to anti-nausea drugs, and many doctors don't breathe a word about the drug to their patients.

Those bold enough to cross the threshold of cannabis buyers' clubs are mostly in their 30s and 40s. They've smoked pot before, they know its limitations, and they've decided it beats being doped up on morphine or other painkillers.

They also realize that marijuana whose sticky resin induces calm and euphoria via its main active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol - can be scary to people who have spent their lives heeding "Reefer Madness" warnings.

To be 70, and smoking a joint for the first time, you'd be taking a big leap of faith, said Helen Reading, 43, a volunteer at the Oakland club who smokes marijuana daily for an "attitude adjustment" and to help her endure chemotherapy for breast cancer.

In the dark, clandestine world of the marijuana trade, people using phony names and whispering code words meet in parking lots and elsewhere to do the deals. Stashed inside their knapsacks and briefcases are thousands of dollars.

Sometimes they "carry" everything from a five-shot, .22-caliber handgun to far more menacing 60-round, banana-clipped, automatic assault weapons.

Could Proposition 215, the medical marijuana use initiative that California voters approved by a 56-44 percent margin in November, change this seedy scene?

Supporters of the law hope it will. But, so, far, it has not.

The business of growing and supplying marijuana hasn't gotten any easier in the three months since its passage. If anything, the trade has moved deeper underground as suppliers try to avoid the controversy swirling around the controversial law.

Still, the law's strongest proponents predict an early end to cloak-and-dagger affairs. They contend Proposition 215 will clear the road to a legitimate, multimillion-dollar market in medicinal marijuana.

They envision legal greenhouses growing hundreds of pounds of cannabis. One Berkeley activist talks of delivering the marijuana in a fleet of vans painted with green-leaf logos.

"It's going to be the difference between bathtub gin and alcohol factories," said John Entwistle, legislative advocate for the San Francisco Cannibas Cultivator's Club.

State law enforcement officials do not dispute the prediction. But they promise no letup in their war against suppliers, and promise to continue torching marijuana fields, arresting traffickers and charging them with felonies.

'Exemplary prosecution'

Zimring said federal officials might even well. come the chance to put a supplier of medicinal marijuana on trial, viewing the spectacle as "an ideal case for exemplary prosecution."

The stakes are immense: The marijuana trade commands at least a $2.5 billion market nationwide that is fed by thousands of growers and distributors.

In 1995, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized 480,000 pounds of marijuana in the United States. That was conservatively worth $500 million, only 10 percent to 20 percent of the street trade, DEA officials estimate.

The size of the medicinal marijuana trade is even harder to guess. At its peak last year, the,, San Francisco cannabis club sold 100 pounds of, marijuana a week, worth roughly $250,000. About 12,000 people bought it during the year.

Entwistle said that reorients only a fraction of the demand for medicinal marijuana in Callfornia. He said legalization of marijuana for medicinal use is creating substantial competition among suppliers seeking a cut of the business from about 10 cannabis clubs in the state.

Since Proposition 215's passage, Entwistle said, the price of high-grade marijuana at the San Francisco club has dropped 20 percent, from $80 for one-eighth of an ounce to about $60.

Helping lead the charge to a more open trade is Oakland resident Ed Rosenthal, who envisions building a legal marijuana greenhouse to supply the San Francisco club. Rosenthal, a senior contributor to High Times magazine, has talked to the club about becoming its exclusive supplier.

"I'm going to grow in a controlled area in a building or in an industrial park," Rosenthal said. "I'm not talking about the black market. I'm talking about supplying medical-grade marijuana. ... It'll be like a pharmaceutical company."

Avoiding attention

Some (suppliers) are really paranoid," said Jeff Jones, president of the Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Club. "They want to meet out of town at a grocery store in the produce section, or at the pay phone next to the grocery market. Or we meet at a coffee house and then go on a walk for 10 minutes to discuss the transaction."

Like most street dealers, cannabis clubs buy from numerous suppliers who bring marijuana grown primarily in Me)dco, Oregon and Northern California's so-called "Emerald Triangle" Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties. The trade, unlike the top-down, military-style cocaine cartel operated out of Colombia, is not centralized. It consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller entrepreneurs.

Distribution usually is informal. Growers contact friends, who sell to friends. Bulk sales are avoided because they attract attention.

The cultivation of marijuana also is hard to police because the plants can be concealed so easily; Growers in the Emerald Triangle typically disperse crops in dense national forests to escape detection by police patrolling in helicopters.

Tricks of the trade

"They came and took the decoy plot and thought they were done with the area," the grower said. "It was marijuana they got, but not our good stuff." Plants also are grown in buildings under ultra ' violet lamps - a potentially risky venture given the ability of police, working with utility companies, to track large consumers of electricity.

"The grow lights require so much energy," said Michael Van Winkle of the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. "It's like running 15 t0 20 air conditioners at one time, all of the time." But for every action by law-enforcement officials, growers seemingly have a reaction. The, Berkeley grower grew his plants inside a barn connecting the lamps to a backup generator.

Such deception and secrecy likely are to remain part of the marijuana trade so long as federal officials continue their resolve to pursue all traffic in the trade -- medicinal or otherwise.

Jack L. Davis, 58, was the first to be tried of 10 current or former Ford Heights police officers accused of bribery, extortion and racketeering. A federal jury found him guilty after four hours of deliberations.

Guidelines call for a sentence in the 20- to 25-year range, said assistant U.S. attorney Jonathan Bunge.

Prosecutors said Davis gave drug dealers advice, warned them about police investigations, fixed cases and arrested rival dealers. They said he took at least eight bribes totaling nearly $8,000.

"Jack Davis ... betrayed the residents of Ford Heights and corrupted his office by selling his shield to crack cocaine and heroin dealers," Bunge said during his opening statement.

Davis' lawyer, Sergio Rodriguez, said the case against his client was based mainly on the testimony of convicted drug dealers willing to lie to exact revenge on the police chief.

Ford Heights is a community of about 4,000 residents that is deeply embedded in poverty. Sheriff's deputies and state police were sent into the community after nearly half the police department was indicted.

The Clinton Administration's controversial former top doctor told physicians at an AIDS conference on Saturday, "Marijuana never killed anybody," and doctors prescribe substances daily that are potentially more dangerous.

Elders was forced out of the Clinton administration for her controversial views on teen contraception and other practices. Elders told the doctors if her mother needed marijuana for medical purposes, she "would not hesitate to break the law to get it."

The promoter of a petition drive in the Central Texas town of San Marcos to legalize medical marijuana use said Thursday he had enough votes to put the question to a vote, and the city council next week could weigh whether to allow it on a May ballot.

Last year California passed a proposition allowing for marijuana use to alleviate the symptoms of certain ailments and diseases.

Southwest Texas State University Prof. Harvey Ginsburg said that if the San Marcos ordinance passed, it would not become legal merely to possess the drug within San Marcos city limits.

He says the measure encourages police to show tolerance in enforcing marijuana laws when people suffer from half a dozen designated diseases, including certain cancers, glaucoma and AIDS. Ginsburg suggested police would be directed to strictly enforce anti-drug laws in all other cases.

Federal law strictly forbids marijuana use.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (UPI, Feb. 12, 1997) - Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles today released findings from a state study that indicate teen smokers are far more likely to abuse alcohol and illegal drugs than non-smokers.

A state Department of Children and Families survey of more than 22,000 Florida middle and high school students found teens who smoke or use other tobacco products are three times more likely to drink alcohol, six times more likely to smoke marijuana and eight times more likely to use cocaine.

Chiles is using the survey results to push his proposed $94.4 million education program that promotes drug- and alcohol-free living for children by focusing on tobacco as a gateway to illicit drugs.

The program, called the Tobacco, Education and Child Health Project (TEACH), would be funded by a 10-cent-per pack increase in Florida's cigarette tax, which would generate an estimated $120.9 million in its first year.

Both the education program and the tax increase require approval by the Legislature.

Some 85,500 Florida children and adolescents are in need of drug and alcohol treatment, but officials say current federal and state funding lets them treat fewer than 37,000.

Chiles says the TEACH Project would provide treatment to an additional 12,771 teens.

The governor also cited a University of Chicago study that estimates each dollar spent in substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers $7.14 in future costs by reducing hospitalizations, emergency room visits and

Patrol Officer Linda Hill, 38, of Boston, faces charges of distributing cocaine in a school zone, Police Department spokesman Jerry Vanderwood said.

Boston Police Commissioner Paul Evans said Hill, an 11-year veteran of the force, will continue to be paid, but will work desk jobs pending the outcome of the charges.

Hill was arrested Saturday evening in the city's Jamaica Plain section. Evans said the arrest was not part of a sting.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - If hemp was acceptable to the founding fathers as a farm crop, it's at least good enough for a study today, North Dakota lawmakers say.

The House voted 58-30 to require North Dakota State University's agricultural experiment station to research the potential of industrial hemp as a crop.

"Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were both industrial hemp producers," said Republican Rep. David Monson.

Legislatures in several states are discussing hemp as an alternative crop, especially for tobacco farmers, whose main crop has an uncertain future because of health concerns.

If the study wins final approval, the research would have to include an analysis of possible markets, soil and growing conditions, seed availability and police concerns. A report would be due by Aug. 1, 1998.

The university estimated such a study would cost $75,000, but Monson said it need not necessarily involve growing test plots of hemp, which would make the idea much less expensive.

He believes the legislation could help attract private investment in hemp research, Monson said.

"Although lots of jokes persist, I am serious about" the bill, Monson said. "This is as American as baseball and apple pie."

After it won approval, the legislation was referred to the House Appropriations Committee, which will examine its budget impact.

Industrial hemp is a relative of marijuana, although it has very little of the substance pot smokers rely on to get high, noted Rep. RaeAnn Kelsch.

Police worry about distinguishing between the legal and illegal stuff, said Kelsch, who argued against the measure.

"We thought it was best that we just took this bill, rolled it up and smoked it," she said.

But Monson and Rep. Ron Nichols said industrial hemp could be a valuable alternative crop. Monson said it was produced in the United States until after World War II. It has been used for paper, building materials, plastics and medicine, he noted.

Nichols said farmers in North Dakota's northern tier need more options in growing crops.

"As we have more and more problems with disease and midge and those types of things with our mainstay of hard wheat and durum, we're going to need some alternative crops to work for us as well," Nichols said.

NELSON -- Hemp could be grown for commercial use as early as next year, a federal health department spokesman says.

"It's expected that commercial regulations will be in place by 1998," Steve Jeffries said from Ottawa. "The regulations are being written right now."

That's good news for Winnipeg hemp entrepreneur Martin Moravcik and Nelson resident Alan Middlemiss. Two years ago they grew nearly eight hectares (20 acres) of hemp under licence in southern Manitoba for fibre and oil research.

"It's wonderful news for Western Canada, especially for the farmer," said Middlemiss. Last year, experimental plots of hemp were grown in nearly every province but B.C., he said.

"Because of the smaller land base, I see B.C. getting into seed cultivation, research and breeding."

Moravcik is already in the seed business. He buys low-THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) seeds from Europe and China for farmers who have obtained licences.

Marijuana, illegal for recreational use, contains up to 10 per cent THC, the ingredient that gives its buds mind- altering properties, Moravcik said.

Industrial hemp -- whose stalks are used for fibre and seeds for food and oil -- contains less than half a per cent of THC. It is ineffective as a drug.

"There's going to be a new vocabulary to learn if you want to be in on this," said Moravcik. "We're going to get a chance to put our money where our mouth is."

During the early '70s, when I first ran for local office in Union Township, the wife of my running mate died of cancer after enduring seven months of agonizing pain. I will never forget that torturous ordeal and the suffering of family members who had to stand by helplessly because of the limits on medical treatment in blunting excruciating pain.

A few years later, after I was elected to the state assembly, the Carter administration convened a task force on intractable pain, a panel put together to determine if certain controlled dangerous substances, marijuana among them, could be used as weapons in the battle against pain from specific sources, i.e., glaucoma, chemotherapy, multiple sclerosis. No one claimed that schedule-one substances, defined as being highly addictive with no medicinal benefits, would cure illness, merely that they might be effective in easing pain.

My interest in investigating any possible means of easing the suffering of the desperately ill and dying prompted me to fly to Washington and meet with representatives of the National Institute of Health, which had been authorized to undertake the controlled dangerous substance therapeutic research program. I wholeheartedly supported this national effort and pledged New Jersey's willingness to participate.

Shortly thereafter, I introduced legislation in the Assembly that permitted the state's participation, through the Health Department, in the national program. Senate and Assembly members from both sides of the aisle unanimously supported the bill and it was signed into law on March 20, 1981.

Unfortunately the Legislature's eagerness to move forward was not matched by the Reagan administration, which had taken control of the White House a few months earlier. The task force and research program were put on hold; 16 years later, the question of whether marijuana and like substances are safe and effective in fighting the unpleasant side effects of serious illnesses is still unresolved. The effort to find an answer has been stalled by enthusiasm for the drug war and a determination to prevent young people from abusing drugs including marijuana.

Clearly, given Dr. Jack Kevorkian, California Proposition 215 and the millions of people who risk jail every time, they illegally obtain marijuana for medical purposes, the time has come to end the debate over whether it is an effective therapy in certain instances.

This is different than debating the issue of whether marijuana should be legalized. I oppose decriminalization.

However, I fully support the state's participation in a comprehensive and conclusive research program that can answer the question of whether certain controlled dangerous substances are safe and effective in fighting pain from specific illnesses and what dangers might be associated with their use.

Remember that up till now the claims that marijuana alleviates pain are not proven, despite a growing consensus that the medicinal benefits outweigh the dangers and the potential for the drug to become addictive and be abused. Last week's Interact column in The Star-Ledger gave the public plenty of opportunity to express a range of opinion on the subject and gave many of us more food for thought. Some excerpts:

"Just because marijuana is a widely abused drug does not mean it should be prohibited for legitimate purposes."

"Longtime medical studies in Europe, especially in the Netherlands, already have proven the medicinal value of marijuana."

"I've had cancer; I know marijuana is medicine."

But popular opinion is not the only gauge of the drug's effectiveness. Just last week, the New England Journal of Medicine, a highly respected barometer of medical opinion, declared that "federal policy that prohibits physicians from alleviating suffering by prescribing marijuana for seriously ill patients is misguided, heavy-handed and inhuman (sic)."

More and more, it appears as though government regulation and public and professional opinion are not in sync. Still, I agree with Barry McCaffrey, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, who believes it would be premature to determine that specific drugs are safe to use as medicine until they are tested.

Like Valium, Xanax and Percodan, marinol, an active ingredient in marijuana, is already available through prescription after meeting rigorous standards applied following exhaustive testing by the Food and Drug Administration.

Under terms of the law that I sponsored in 1981, a highly controlled program would be created in the state Health Department for research into therapeutic use of certain schedule-one controlled substances in certain situations. About t a dozen doctors would be asked to participates and each would be required to include a specified number of patients who meet the eligibility criteria.

The federal government would have to be involved because schedule-one substances are manufactured outside the United States and would have to be obtained by the National Institute of Health and provided to state-run programs. A federally run research program would ensure that uniform drugs are used for controlled purposes.

Patients would have to be certified by a doctor as facing a life-threatening or sense-threatening situation and not responding to current drug treatment. The identities of the patients participating in the study would be confidential.

A Therapeutic Research Qualifications Review Board would be established to certify participating physicians. Research findings would be submitted to the state health commissioner, who would report to the National Institute of Health.

This would not be a complex, expensive program. We are talking about researching a drug for medicinal purposes, not unlike the testing done for many other and, in some minds, more dangerous drugs. Morphine, for example, has been legal for therapeutic purposes for years.

For now, though, I believe we have an obligation to explore every avenue that might offer relief to many Americans, regardless of whether it is a traditional course of treatment. Only if testing proves the power of marijuana in easing pain and suffering should we open the debate over how to make it legal.

Sen. C. Louis Bassano, a Republican, represents the 21st District in parts of Union and Essex counties.

Denver, CO -- In a vote of 8 to 4, the Colorado House Agriculture Committee today voted in favor of HB 1274, the Fiber Crop Development Act, sponsored by Rep. Kay Alexander (R- Montrose). HB 1274 authorizes Colorado State University to research industrial hemp alongside two other fiber crops: kenaf and sunnhemp. The bill also establishes the Colorado Fiber Crop Development Committee to research potential markets for fiber crops and to work with law enforcement to develop regulations regarding industrial hemp.

The bill now goes to the House Appropriations Committee. If it passes Appropriations, the bill would go to two readings on the floor of the House and then on to the Senate. All bills in Colorado which originated in the House must pass through the House and into the Senate by Feb. 24. In 1996, the Colorado Senate voted in favor of a similar bill sponsored by Senator Lloyd Casey.

The passage of the bill by the House Agriculture Committed today came as a surprise to hemp proponents. The same committee killed the hemp bill in 1996, after it had passed through the Senate. The death of the hemp bill in 1996 was attributed mainly to strong opposition from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The DEA testified again this year against the hemp bill. Tom Ward, new acting Special Agent in Charge of the Rocky Mountain Region DEA, testified that industrial hemp and marijuana were the same and that in order to produce industrial hemp, federal law must be changed.

Despite this testimony, the House Agriculture Committee passed the bill 8 to 4.

What is industrial hemp?

Industrial hemp refers to genetic varieties of the Cannabis sativa plant that have no psychoactive properties but produce high fiber and seed yields. HB 1274 would authorize test plots of industrial hemp seed varieties that are registered for use in the European Union. These strains are certified to contain less than 0.3% THC, the psychoactive chemical found in Cannabis sativa.