cannabisnews.com: Legality of Medical Marijuana Addressed Legality of Medical Marijuana Addressed Posted by FoM on February 24, 2000 at 08:09:45 PT By Mike Kalil, Review-Journal Source: Las Vegas Review Question 9 seems to have no answer. The ballot initiative, which would allow Nevada doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients with a variety of illnesses, will likely be reapproved by voters in November and sent to the 2001 Legislature to become law. But what about its legality? No matter what state marijuana easements the Legislature makes, possession or distribution of the drug remains a federal felony. "The serious question would be whether a state constitutional amendment would outweigh federal drug regulations," said Kimberly Morgan, chief deputy counsel to the Legislature. Morgan said that state lawmakers will be legally compelled to follow voters' Question 9 initiative demands by amending the Nevada Constitution to make medical marijuana use lawful next year. According to Morgan, the Legislative Counsel Bureau has yet to determine how it will advise lawmakers to deal with Question 9 without breaking federal drug regulations, since voter initiatives in Nevada must gain majorities twice before being brought to the Legislature. But since 59 percent of voters gave the measure their support in November 1998, medical marijuana is expected to pass overwhelmingly when it again appears on the ballot this November. "Well, Nevada has a history of challenging the federal government on issues like this," Morgan said. "I mean, in how many other places in the U.S. are gambling and prostitution legal?" The legal conundrum surrounding the marijuana initiative has stimulated a concerned band of pharmacists and physicians to address the issue before it arrives on Carson City's Capitol steps. The Medical Marijuana Initiative Committee, a 12-member group with representatives from the state boards of pharmacy and medical examiners, the attorney general's office and the UNR School of Medicine, met for the first time Feb. 8 in hopes of hammering out a way for lawmakers to set up medical use of the drug without violating federal laws. For many members of the committee, it was their first preview of a problem that could mire state lawmakers in controversy when they meet to discuss medical marijuana in spring of next year. Louis Ling, Nevada's senior deputy attorney general and co-founder of the committee, said the group should be able to help lawmakers with the initiative since the committee doesn't have to operate under the Nevada Legislature's 120-day time limit. "After being in the attorney general's office for five legislative sessions, I know controversial issues like this one can get tangled," Ling said. State laws definitely tangled with federal jurisdiction in California three years ago when voters passed Proposition 215, a medical marijuana initiative allowing California doctors to recommend the drug for patients with AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and a number of other health problems. After the measure passed, California marijuana advocates formed buyers' clubs for distribution -- a move legal under the new state law -- but most of the clubs have been shut down by a federal judge. When Proposition 215 advocates appealed U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's May 1998 injunction that closed the clubs, the Court of Appeals sent the case back to Breyer for reconsideration in September 1999, a victory for medical marijuana advocates. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno then stepped in, asking for another hearing to keep the clubs closed. Robert Raich, the Oakland attorney who appealed Breyer's decision, says a major battle in the legal war between California medical marijuana advocates and the federal government will likely be decided next month, when Reno's appeal is expected to be denied. The attorney says Nevada can learn from what has happened in California. "In Proposition 215, it said the state government should provide a distribution system, but it doesn't say exactly how patients are supposed to obtain the marijuana," Raich said. "Things might be a little easier in Nevada since you have a committee looking at how the Legislature can deal with the initiative before it actually becomes law." But legal battles are a prospect likely to be repeated in Nevada if the Legislature doesn't handle medical marijuana with kid gloves. According to Ling, the Legislature will likely be sued by Nevadans for Medical Rights, the petitioning group who lobbied voters to get the initiative passed, if lawmakers don't implement laws that allow for some kind of state distribution system for medical marijuana. "One of the reasons we've formed this committee is that we want Nevada to be able to avoid some of the problems that California has had with (medical marijuana distribution)," said Keith MacDonald, the Nevada Board of Pharmacy executive secretary who co-founded the committee with Ling. At their first meeting, committee members decided to investigate whether they will be able to get exemptions from the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Food and Drug Administration to conduct a state clinical study of marijuana's effectiveness in treating several illnesses. "Even if the legislation does pass through, doctors are not going to want to prescribe marijuana to patients," said Rudy Manthei, an osteopathic doctor on the committee. Manthei believes doctors will continue to be hesitant to recommend marijuana as a treatment for anything because there are no definitive reports on how well the drug works and what kind of medical effects it produces. With so little medical investigation into marijuana, Manthei contends the drug presents a number of other problems. "Can all doctors prescribe it? How will they know how much to prescribe? How will they know who to prescribe it to? How will we be able to tell when a physician is overprescribing it?" If the federal agencies sign off on the committee's proposal, a clinical study in which marijuana-seeking patients could participate would satisfy voters' wishes as put forth in Question 9 without violating federal law, according to a report Ling prepared for the committee. Backers of the Nevada initiative think the public might have a false idea about how the federal government regulates medical marijuana. "No one involved in this fight really believes the federal government is going to swoop down on Nevada and start arresting people who are using marijuana for medical reasons," said Dan Hart, leader of Nevadans for Medical Rights, the group that collected 73,000 signatures in 1998 to put medical marijuana on the ballot. "This is a battle that's primarily fought between medical marijuana distributors and the government." Dave Fratello, head of Americans for Medical Rights, the group that gathered support for Proposition 215 in California, agrees with Hart. "The feds generally have shown that they don't have the resources or the interest to prosecute individuals using pot. It's only heavy trafficking they're interested in." Besides working with Hart on the Nevada battle, Fratello has overseen medical marijuana fights in several other states over the past two years. While Nevada citizens were making their initial approval of Question 9, voters in three other states passed similar medical marijuana measures. Since the summer of 1999, patients in Alaska and Oregon have been placed on a registry and issued identification cards to obtain medical marijuana. At last count, Oregon had 700 legally approved marijuana users. Washington state passed Initiative 692 in November 1998, permitting patients and caregivers to possess and cultivate up to a 60-day supply of the drug. How much a two-month supply might be is determined on a case-by-case basis, taking the severity of patients' diseases into account. Medical marijuana passed with its largest majority in the District of Columbia in 1998, but Congress overturned the initiative last September, specifying in a vote that the district law "shall not take effect." The results of a 1998 marijuana vote in Colorado are unknown because there was a dispute over whether petitioners ever had enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot in the first place. The activist is optimistic about medical marijuana succeeding in the Silver State. "What makes Nevada's initiative unique is that you have a very forward-looking group of people from the pharmacy board and the attorney general's office wanting to help before this gets to the Legislature," Fratello said. "That should simplify things a bit."For comment or questions, please email: webmaster lvrj.comPublished: Sunday, February 20, 2000Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2000Related Article:State Studies Ways to Distribute Medical Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread2711.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: