CAMM faces an even more intense battle if its proposal does land on the ballot: convincing the public that there is strong evidence marijuana is not just a recreational drug but also a substance that can help the sick. Aplin for one is firmly convinced of cannabis' therapeutic uses. "Marijuana was the second-most widely prescribed medicine in the United States until just prior to Prohibition," he says, and cites authorities in the medical community who endorse its medicinal use, such as the New England Journal of Medicine and Dr. Lester Grinspoon of the Harvard Medical School. He also cites what he says are "six state health departments that have done studies throughout the '80s and '90s in clinical trials on people with AIDS and cancer and glaucoma, and they showed smokable marijuana to be 70 to 100 percent effective."

A wide variety of anti-drug forces who consider the claims about pot's medical benefits unfounded are always ready to oppose the efforts of CAMM, ACT and others. This includes the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, whose director, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, has strongly criticized medical marijuana ballot initiatives in California, Arizona, Washington, D.C. and other locales. Those measures send "a very bad message to children that marijuana is medicine," says Brian Morton, spokesman for the ONDCP, "when just about every study that has been done shows that marijuana has over 400 compounds, many of them cancer-causing." Medical decisions should be kept out of the political arena, says Morton. "Drug policy should not be dictated by plebiscite. It's something that should be in the hands of medical institutions and scientists. We don't subject aviation procedures to popular vote. Why should we turn the United States medical process, which has been the safest in the world, up to voters, who may have the best intentions in mind, but simply aren't well informed enough to decide what is and is not medicine?"

Morton is critical of anecdotal evidence from medical marijuana advocates and individuals with AIDS, glaucoma, cancer and other diseases, who claim that smoking pot has improved their health. "Anecdotal evidence is self-selecting. Scientifically proven, peer-reviewed medical journals have done studies on these [claims], and there's a world of difference between putting people's health on the line because of anecdotal evidence, as opposed to what science and medicine have determined to be safe." Morton declined to say whether McCaffrey would get directly involved in the fight against CAMM's amendment.

Ben Markeson I'm a first-generation Floridian, a second-generation American, a college drop-out and have a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate bent. I edited and published two local "alternative" newspapers - The Orlando Collegian and The Orlando Spectator (three if you count The Orlando Reporter, which had one paper issue before becoming an e-zine), and also free-lanced for The Orlando Weekly. But I don't call myself a journalist because that sounds pretentious. Other Articles I've Written