Changes to Medical Marijuana Law Debated

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The medical marijuana dispensary law passed by Maine voters last November was officially presented to the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee this afternoon. Lawmakers must now figure out how to create a regulated system for distributing marijuana to qualified medical patients. While the bill is being supported by the Baldacci Administration, along with marijuana patients, growers and some physicians, there are concerns that the bill contains gaps and will create problems for cities and towns -- and even patients themselves.

The bill being considered by Maine lawmakers is based on the recommendations of a state task force that looked at issues surrounding the cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana following Maine voters decisive vote last Fall. The bill sets no limits on the number of dispensaries that might be established but it suggests that cities and towns could impose limits through zoning regulations.

That comes as little comfort to Rep. Michael Celli, who spoke "neither for nor against" the bill on behalf of the city of Brewer. He says the dispensary system will be a disaster. "The state of California and the state of Oregon are trying to get out from under the dispensary system because it is a disaster," he said. "There's one on every corner. They cannot regulate them. So the number of dispensaries would be an issue."

Celli also says pricing and potency of medical marijuana will be problematic, since both are left up to dispensaries to determine. Celli predicts that not all medical marijuana will be created equally. Some plants will be more potent than others.
Patients will want to switch dispensaries as a result, he says, and they'll do the same thing when they find out medical marijuana is being sold for a cheaper price in one place than another.

But Rep. Anne Haskell thinks she has a possible solution to the quality control issue: an amendment that would limit the number of growers to five. They would be licensed by the Department of Agriculture for three years and sell wholesale product to dispensaries.

"I am suggesting here that we de-link dispensing from cultivation," Haskell said. "The Department of Agriculture already has a process in place that they use with agricultural products, where you determine what the need is; during the transportation there's a transportation tag that travels with that product so you know what's going where and why it's going there."

Haskell shared her family's own personal experience buying medical marijuana on the black market in the early 90s after her daughter was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Haskell says aggressive treatment for the cancer made it impossible for her daughter to keep down food. She was a state lawmaker at the time and didn't want to risk trying to buy anything illegally. Her daughter's husband worked at Bath Iron Works. So Haskell says the task was left up to her husband.

Medical marijuana activists, such as Jonathan Leavitt, think Haskell's amendment is a terrible idea. "Right now we have created the most successful job-creation piece of legislation in this history of this state, where thousands of people will now be able to legally grow a plant and create an income for themselves and pay bills for their families," Leavitt says. "With one stroke of the pen the Legislature could wipe that out by centralizing this in the hands of a few small agribusinesses, so it's wrong on every single leve."

Rep. Haskell is not the only one who wants to amend the bill. The Maine Medical Association supports the legislation, but with some changes. Executive Vice President Gordon Smith proposed an amendment that would prohibit children 12 and under from qualifying as patients under the law and set up a process for overseeing use for kids between 13 and 17.

The amendment would also give an advisory board the ability to recommend the deletion of some medical conditions under the medical marijuana law if current science doesn't support its efficacy.

"And I also call to your attention to a resolution passed this past weekend by the Maine Gastroenterology Society stating their opinion that there's no scientific evidence supporting the use of marijuana for underlying treatment of either hepatitis C or Crohn's disease, as opposed to efficacy of the treatment for the symptoms of those diseases."

Only one oganization, the Maine Civil Liberties Union, officially opposed the bill, which it says perpetuates "the misguided portrayal of medical marijuana patients and caregivers as criminals" because it requires a patient registry and invites what the MCLU says is unwarranted governmental scrutiny.


NewsHawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: mpbn.net
Author: Susan Sharon
Copyright: 2010 Maine Public Broadcasting Network
Contact: Contact MPBN
Website: Changes to Medical Marijuana Law Debated

• Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article