Headline: MEDICAL POT BATTLE RAGES ON
ROMLEY: TAPE SHOWS 'DUPLICITY'

WASHINGTON A 1993 videotape shows that supporters of medical marijuana
used the issue as a cover to advance their true goal of fully legalizing
the drug, Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said Wednesday.

Romley handed the videotape to the House Judiciary Committee during a
hearing on the medical use of marijuana. On the tape, an advocate of
legalizing marijuana is seen telling a San Francisco prodrug conference
that medical access is "the key" to ultimately decriminalizing the drug.

"Once you have hundreds of thousands of people using marijuana medically
under medical supervision, the whole scam is going to be blown," Richard
Cowan says on the tape. At the time, he was the director of the National
Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, a group that supports
decriminalizing marijuana.

"Once there's medical access, if we continue to do what we have to do and
we will then we'll get full legalization," Cowan tells the prodrug
conferees.

Romley had hoped the committee would play his videotape, but the panel said
there wasn't enough time. He provided a copy to The Arizona Republic.

Romley said the tape demonstrates that the backers of last year's Arizona
and California medical marijuana initiatives used sick and dying people as
pawns in their druglegalization strategy.

"These words reveal the duplicity that underlies the drug medicalization
issue," he said.

Cowan, reached at his western Massachusetts home, said Romley had
misconstrued his words.

"It's absurd to say all of the people supporting medical marijuana are
really legalizers in some sort of great secret conspiracy," he said. Cowan
said he does favor the medical use of marijuana, as well as
decriminalization of the drug. But he denied any "cynical" strategy to use
the public health issue as a "Trojan horse" to advance the broader goal.

"In point of fact, I have said repeatedly essentially the same thing:
Medical access to marijuana will demonstrate the safety of marijuana and
then will blow the scam of marijuana prohibition. You will have a huge
amount of clinical data that will settle it once and for all," Cowan said.

Romley's testimony is part of his campaign against measures such as
Proposition 200, which was approved by Arizonans last year with 65 percent
of the vote. The initiative allows physicians to prescribe marijuana or
other controlled substances to seriously ill patients. The doctor must get
a second medical opinion and cite scientific research to justify the drug
recommendation.

The Legislature in April passed a bill suspending enactment until the Food
and Drug Administration approves the drug. However, backers of the measure
earlier this year filed enough signatures in a petition drive to suspend
the Legislature's actions until a November 1998 vote.

Romley said he obtained a copy of the videotape from Otto Moulton, a
Massachusetts man who works for several antidrug organizations.

Moulton, who was a spectator at the hearing, said prolegalization groups
made the tape readily available.

"They advertised it," Moulton said.

Cowan said he had heard that the tape existed but has not seen it. Subjects
of the taped conference included LSD and medical marijuana, Cowan said.
The event was held in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the
discovery of LSD, he said.

During Wednesday's hearing, Romley found support from Barry McCaffrey, the
national drug policy director.

McCaffrey said there has been "a cunning national effort" to legalize drugs
by connecting the issue to public health.

Backers of Proposition 200 said marijuana appears to help patients combat
glaucoma, AIDSrelated appetite loss and some epileptic seizures.

But McCaffrey said states should not be voting on health policy. "This
should not be a referendum," he said, adding that there wasn't enough
scientific data to prove the drug's medicinal value.

Copyright (c) 1997, Phoenix Newspapers Inc.