The organization supplies it to 20 to 50 patients a day. About 20 percent use it for symptoms of multiple sclerosis, and about 10 percent for cancer, spinal cord injuries, glaucoma and other diseases. Most smoke or ingest the drug daily. At the Green Cross Cooperative, from left, Colin Karvanek, Gabriel Rivas, Harry A. Jones Jr. and Frank Farkas Jr. discuss yesterday's Supreme Court marijuana ruling as they wait for their doses. Still, many physicians have resisted authorizing marijuana use, said Dr. Robert Killian, a Seattle family practitioner who sees mostly HIV-positive patients and led the drive to get medical marijuana approved in the state.
Doctors are still afraid to advise patients to use it.
Indeed, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle said yesterday that his federal agency supports the Supreme Court's decision but that the ruling will not change much. Initiative 692, which allows marijuana use for medical purposes, went into effect in December 1998. Since then, no county prosecutor in Washington has filed charges over a medical marijuana, said Dan Satterberg, chief of state in the King County Prosecutor's Office. He said his office has gotten two or three marijuana cases a year that are not prosecuted because of medical use. Prosecutors have trained local police on the law.