by Nina Petersen-Perlman

K.K. Forss lives every day with pain so excruciating that a cocktail of a dozen or so medications fails to relieve it, pain so unrelenting he rarely sleeps and can hardly bear to move, pain so agonizing that at the best of times he registers a "6" on doctors' one-to-10 scale.

The 41-year-old Ely man has tried every treatment doctors have prescribed him in the four years since he woke up with a ruptured disc in his neck: surgery, spinal cord injections, acupuncture, chiropractics and counseling, but nothing has given him relief.

The one thing he has tried that has made the pain more manageable, allowed him to sleep and controlled the nausea brought on by his medications, Forss said, is marijuana.

State Rep. Tom Huntley, DFL-Duluth, is the chief author of a bill that would allow patients suffering from a host of "debilitating medical conditions," from cancer to chronic pain, to use marijuana as part of their treatment. The bill has already passed the Senate and is scheduled to come to the House floor in the coming weeks.

"It's a compassion thing," Huntley said. "There's some people who have horrible pain, and it seems to help some of those people. It's up to doctor and patient to decide whether it would help them."

The bill would not legalize the drug, but it would allow qualifying patients with identification cards issued by the Minnesota Department of Health to possess 2.5 ounces of marijuana and receive similar amounts from registered nonprofits on a regular basis. The nonprofits could grow up to 12 marijuana plants per patient.

If the bill is signed into law, it would make Minnesota the 13th state to allow marijuana for medical purposes. It would also put state law in conflict with federal law, one reason state law enforcement agencies oppose the bill. Gov. Tim Pawlenty will veto the bill if it remains unpalatable to them, spokesman Alex Carey said.

St. Louis County Sheriff Ross Litman said he's concerned the definition of who would be eligible to receive medical marijuana isn't narrow enough and there isn't enough proof that it's an effective medicine. The fact that the American College of Physicians has given its endorsement to the plant doesn't sway him, he said.

"If you want my opinion if it should be legalized, period, the answer is no," Litman said. "It's pretty clear that smoking marijuana can affect your judgment and motor skills."

The bill, which prohibits patients from operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of marijuana, is already narrower than in any other state, Huntley said. Colorado, a state of similar population size as Minnesota, has 500 patients on the program.

But there's also the law enforcement community to keep in mind. "No matter what we do, we can keep tightening it, but they're never going to support it," Huntley said.

Forss said he used marijuana for about a year after his first spinal surgery in the summer of 2004, when his nausea got so bad he lost 38 pounds. He has since switched to a doctor who won't treat him if he is using it. The professional photographer has had to stop working since the accident, so his medical bills cost taxpayers more than $18,000 a year, he said.

Forss insists the issue of medical marijuana is not a political one.

"I'm a registered Republican. I'm a born-again Christian," he said. "It's about people in horrible pain every day, and it never ends."