(Photo: Kristin Callahan/Ace Pictures/Newscom)

Was Eliot Spitzer suffering from short-term memory loss when he voiced his opposition to medical marijuana? In his July debate with Tom Suozzi, Spitzer, apparently eager to disagree with his opponent during the “lightning round,” shocked members of his own staff by saying he was against using marijuana for medical purposes. His former boss and confidant, Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau, supports it, as does cancer survivor and conservative Republican Joe Bruno. Perhaps the most stunned were activists at the Marijuana Policy Project. Their lobbyist, Vince Marrone, had been in discussions with Spitzer’s campaign staff before the debate and was under the impression Spitzer was all aboard the ganja (for-medical-purposes-only) train. In an e-mail to supporters afterward, Marrone placed the blame on Spitzer’s senior policy director, Paul Francis, who he says copped to not preparing Spitzer properly. A Spitzer spokeswoman says the candidate’s not “ideologically opposed, but scientifically opposed” to medical marijuana use because his brother, a neurosurgeon, has told him other drugs work better. Spitzer is open to analyzing the issue further though, she said.

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Geoffrey Gray
• Table of Contents: Aug 14, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!