cannabisnews.com: Panel Rejects Pot Limits





Panel Rejects Pot Limits
Posted by FoM on April 06, 2000 at 10:29:30 PT
Johannessen Sought Clarity on Medicinal Marijuana 
Source: Record Searchlight
A Senate committee Wednesday threw out a bill by Sen. Maurice Johannessen that sought to inject two-plant limits and other restrictions into the medicinal marijuana Compassionate Use Act.Johannessen, D-Redding, proposed the bill Feb. 25 at the urging of Shasta County Sheriff Jim Pope and District Attorney McGregor Scott, whose arrests and prosecutions of medical marijuana patients have been controversial and resulted in some acquittals.
The lawmen argued that Proposition 215, approved by voters in 1996, is vague because it sets no restrictions on the numbers of plants a marijuana-using patient can grow or the amount of processed pot patients can possess.Johannessen's bill would have required that doctors recommending marijuana record dosages, quantities and frequency of marijuana use in patients' records along with information on the illnesses leading to the recommendation.It also would have limited pot recommendations to a year and the number of plants grown to two indoor or six outdoor plants. No patient could possess more than 1.3 pounds of marijuana.Johannessen told the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Wednesday that Proposition 215 is ''vague to say the least,'' and that arrests and prosecutions have resulted in ''a tremendous amount of money expended ... on what has ended up being a really terrible situation.''He called his bill ''a work in progress.''I'm merely trying to set some kind of parameters — movable — not cast in stone'' to solve a situation that is ''costing taxpayers millions and causing untold suffering for people caught up in the web,'' he said.Scott, Pope and sheriffs from Butte and Modoc counties were among the half-dozen bill backers who offered brief testimony at the hearing.Scott and the sheriffs said that they do not want to be the ones to decide how much marijuana a patient needs.''I cannot stress enough the emergency situation in the law enforcement community and the emergency situation in the patient community,'' Scott said.But committee Chair Martha Escuta, D-Montebello, asked why another pending bill introduced last year by Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, wasn't good enough. That bill, SBA 48, has made it through the Senate committees and is awaiting Assembly consideration.Vasconcellos' bill does not set growing and possession guidelines, but suggests that those limits be established by health departments.Scott said that isn't sufficient.''Isn't that where it belongs?'' Escuta shot back. ''Or is it with the DAs?''Scott and Pope have drafted Shasta County medical marijuana guidelines similar to those proposed in Johannessen's bill.''We decided last year we're not competent to make those decisions,'' said Vasconcellos, whose bill grew out of a lengthy study by representatives on many aspects of the issue.Vasconcellos also asked why Johannessen and the lawmen didn't come and talk to him if they thought SBA 48 wasn't moving fast enough.''It got stalled. I'm ready now to try to revive it,'' Vasconcellos said.Johannessen told the committee that ''if the Vasconcellos bill is corrected, we might not need mine,'' but added, ''please, we have a bad situation here.''Several medicinal marijuana users also addressed the committee.Ryan Landers, a Sacramento man who said he has suffered from AIDS for five years, said if Johannessen's bill passed, ''I'm guaranteed to go to jail and die.''He said patients' marijuana needs vary.''Some may need a half-joint a day, others 10,'' he said. ''They (law enforcement) think we're just trying to pull the wool over their eyes. I'm trying to live.''Others complained that marijuana is too expensive to buy and they are forced to grow it, but that crops are fickle and hard to predict. Landers said his crop has twice been taken at gunpoint, but police won't investigate the thefts.In discussion prior to the vote, senators noted that the Vasconcellos bill already is much further along in the legislative maze.Only two of the six senators present voted on Johannessen's SB 2089 — one for and one against. That killed the bill.Among those who abstained was Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles.''In California the voters have spoken,'' Polanco said. ''We have a bill, and once a bill is on the Assembly side, that is ahead of the others. I'd like to see the parties get together and work on this.''Johannessen said after the vote that he could work to try to collect more votes for a reconsideration of the bill, something that would have to be done before the end of April.The lack of support for his bill was ''not unanticipated,'' he said, explaining that he hopes to meet soon with Vasconcellos.''We gotta get something done and sometimes the only way to do it is to force the issue,'' Johannessen said. ''Obviously both sides need to be modified down to something useful.''Pope said he believed the session was successful.''That's the most attention we've gotten from the Legislature, so we got something accomplished,'' the sheriff said.And Scott said he is hopeful that with law enforcement backing, some form of Vasconcellos' bill might win approval from Gov. Gray Davis.Meanwhile, he said, Shasta County's own guidelines have not changed and remain in use.Vasconcellos' chief of staff, Rand Martin, said that committee agreed that Proposition 215 has problems, but said those problems wouldn't have been solved by Johannessen's bill, legislation ''not developed with all the stake holders.''But that doesn't minimize the importance of the issues,'' Martin said.He said that the soonest the Vasconcellos bill could become law would be Jan. 1.Johannessen's bill, which carried no urgency clause, could not have become law prior to that date, either.By Maline Hazle, Record SearchlightReporter Maline Hazle can be reached at 225-8266 or at mhazle redding.comSacramento:Published: April 6, 2000© 2000 Record Searchlight - The E.W. Scripps Co. Related Articles:It's About Time The State Clarifies Med. Pot Ruleshttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4492.shtmlJohannessen Seeks Restrictions On Use of Medical Marijuanahttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4435.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtmlCannabisNews Articles From The Redding Record Searchlight:http://google.com/search?num=10&q=cannabisnews+record+searchlight+site:www.cannabisnews.com
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on April 06, 2000 at 20:52:42 PT
Medicinal Marijuana: I'm Just Trying To Live
This is a similar article but it went National so I put it on my EZBoard and posted it here with a link back to this article.Medicinal Marijuana: I'm Just Trying To LiveBy Maline HazleScripps Howard News ServiceApril 06, 2000Redding Record Searchlightwww.redding.com/www.cannabisnews.com/http://pub3.ezboard.com/fdrugpolicytalkmedicalmarijuana.showMessage?topicID=278.topic
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