HARRISBURG -- Chuck Homan, a roofer from York County, says using small amounts of marijuana is so vital for his health and peace of mind that he was willing to be arrested last year rather than stop using it.

The marijuana, which he takes for medicinal purposes, lets him sleep an hour or two per night. That may not sound like much, he said yesterday, but for someone suffering insomnia linked to severe bouts of depression, an hour or two of sleep a night is a huge blessing.

"It wasn't an easy thing to go public and say I can't function without marijuana," said Mr. Homan, 58, who stood with state Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, to support House Bill 1393, which would allow a person, with a doctor's recommendation and a state-issued card, to obtain small amounts of marijuana for legal medicinal uses.

Enacting such a law could be a challenge, since many legislators, especially Republicans who control the Senate, are social conservatives. Mr. Cohen said he has six co-sponsors so far in his effort to get rid of marijuana's decades-old negative image and replace it with "a new, honest image." He would need at least 102 votes to get the House to approve it.

He said marijuana, properly used, can be "a pain management medication that ... is not physically addictive for most people."

He said medicinal marijuana use is now legal in 13 states, and New York and New Jersey are considering it. Legitimate uses include reducing pain for sufferers of cancer or multiple sclerosis, helping people with glaucoma to retain their eyesight longer, easing pain for sufferers of Crohn's disease (inflammation of the bowels) and helping people cope with insomnia and mental disorders such as depression.

Mr. Cohen said there are 35,000 marijuana arrests in Pennsylvania a year, with many of those charged being people suffering from a painful disease. "We need to have cures, not wars" on patients, Mr. Cohen said. "We need to stop arresting people using marijuana for medical reasons."

His bill would permit a person, with a doctor's recommendation, to apply to the state Department of Health for a "registry card" that would allow the patient to purchase or grow one ounce of marijuana at a time.

"The only thing blocking this bill's passage is the old image that marijuana has from the 1930s," Mr. Cohen said. "It's time to create a new image, as a form of treatment that, when prescribed by responsible doctors, could help thousands of patients in Pennsylvania."

People with state-issued registry cards could either grow up to six marijuana plants at their home (enough to produce about one ounce) or buy it at yet-to-be-created "compassion centers," legal dispensaries of medical marijuana. The sale of marijuana would be subject to the state's 6 percent sales tax, and buyers would have to pay the state a $50 annual fee. Mr. Cohen claimed the bill would generate up to $25 million in new revenue for the cash-strapped state.

Also supporting the bill was Chris Goldstein, an advocate for Pennsylvanians for Medical Marijuana. He said marijuana use helps lessen the nausea that cancer patients receiving radiation or chemotherapy sometimes feel. The group's Web site is pa4mmj.org.