Pompo

Candidate favors use of medical marijuana
5/16/08|The Times - North Little Rock| by John Lyon -Arkansas News Bureau

A Pulaski County attorney who is running for circuit judge says her support for legalizing marijuana for medical use has no bearing on her qualifications to serve as a judge.

“I don’t see it as an issue in the campaign either way,” said Cathi Compton, one of three circuit judge candidates for the 6th Judicial District’s Division 11, which includes about three-quarters of Pulaski County and all of Perry County. The court hears juvenile cases.

Opponents in Tuesday’s nonpartisan judicial election are not commenting, but the state chairman of a national conservative group that opposes legalizing marijuana for medical use said Compton’s stand may not be appropriate for a judge.

Compton testified before a legislative committee in November 2005 in support of creating a state registration program that would allow physician-approved patients to obtain marijuana legally.

The Speakers Bureau of the Drug Policy Education Group of Arkansas also lists Compton on its Web site as a speaker available to give talks on the medical use of marijuana, although Compton said she no longer gives talks for the group because she does not have time.

Several states have passed laws permitting medical marijuana use, although the federal government does not recognize a legitimate medical use for it.

Marijuana remains illegal for all uses under Arkansas law.

Randy Minton of Ward, chairman of the Arkansas chapter of the Eagle Forum, said he has concerns about how Compton might rule in cases involving marijuana.

“Since she has taken that stand, you would have to question how she would handle those type cases,” said Minton, a former Republican state representative who’s campaigning to return to the state House District 48 seat in northwest Lonoke County.

Compton said her views would not prevent her from upholding the law as written.

“If I’m elected to this job, I follow the law,” she said. “I take an oath, I follow the law. Just like I do as a lawyer — I take an oath, I follow the law. I don’t have to like the law to follow it.”

Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum opposes marijuana as a medical option.

“We feel like it’s just a slippery slope, that once you do that, then there will be other issues that will be brought up that it would be all right to use ... marijuana,” Minton said. “We just don’t believe that that’s the correct direction for our country to go in.”

Compton said her support for legalization is limited to medical cases.

“I believe that if a doctor prescribes marijuana for a patient for pain control, and it’s properly controlled by the doctor and by the law, then it’s much more helpful than harmful,” she said.

She recalled that as a criminal defense lawyer in the 1990s, she once defended an elderly Calhoun County couple charged in connection with marijuana plants they had grown to make a tea for their daughter, who had stomach cancer.

Compton negotiated a plea agreement with the prosecutor, but the judge was reluctant to accept the agreement because of the amount of marijuana involved.

“As it turned out in that case, the prosecuting attorney stood up in the courtroom and gave a very eloquent speech in favor of my clients and explained to the judge why the plea agreement was a good one by explaining to him that their daughter was very ill and this was the only way that she could maintain any food, was by this tea that they made. So he ultimately did accept the plea,” Compton said.

Compton said she has not campaigned for circuit judge on the issue of legalizing medical marijuana. Asked whether she would speak out on the issue as a sitting judge, she said, “That’s a legal issue, and I’m not running for the Legislature. It would probably be more judicious of me not to express my opinions about what the Legislature chooses to do.”

Also running for the Division 11 circuit judge position are Melinda Gilbert of Little Rock and Jewel “Cricket” Harper of Sherwood. The position is now held by Rita Gruber, who is challenging incumbent Wendell Griffen for his seat on the state Court of Appeals.

Gilbert said Friday that she believed it would be improper for her to comment on the issue of medical marijuana use or on Compton’s position.

“Because the nature of the cases that we will hear will involve drugs, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on another candidate’s position or stance that they may have taken on drugs or legalization of them, because that may very well be an issue that I may have to decide when I am elected,” Gilbert said. “I am going to uphold the law based upon the facts of each individual case when I am elected.”

Harper said she believes Compton has a right to state her position on the issue, but she declined to take a position.

“I haven’t really thought it through how I would feel about that. I don’t know that it’s an issue that would come up in juvenile court,” Harper said.