'CURES, NOT WARS,' CHANT SUPPORTERS OF LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

Supporters of legalizing marijuana for medicinal use marched through downtown Lexington yesterday, chanting "Cures, not wars" at the federal courthouse after a rally in Phoenix Park.

Sixty to 70 people gathered at the park for speeches about marijuana's benefits in easing pain and other symptoms for people with cancer, glaucoma, AIDS and a host of other ailments.

They hope to change the federal designation of marijuana as a class 1 narcotic, meaning it has no medicinal value.  Rally organizer Gatewood Galbraith said cannabis was once common in prescriptions, and it has been used for thousands of years.

Galbraith contended that legalizing marijuana for medicinal use would solve Kentucky's budget and health-care crises through savings in prescription costs and the reduction of adverse reactions to more addictive -- but legal -- drugs.

Mary Thomas Speers of Mason, Ohio, said she uses marijuana to relieve the symptoms of emphysema, glaucoma, post-traumatic stress disorder and a neuromuscular condition called stiff man syndrome.  She said she had served time for her insistence on using the drug.

"You think that's a prison, you don't know nothing until you've stepped inside this flesh," she told the crowd.

The rally was the second in Lexington, Galbraith said.  Similar events were also planned for yesterday in Louisville, Paducah and more than 300 cities worldwide as part of "The Million Marijuana March."