cannabisnews.com: Marijuana: Legislature Wades Into Dicey Issue Marijuana: Legislature Wades Into Dicey Issue Posted by FoM on November 26, 2000 at 07:21:50 PT By Ed Vogel, Donrey Capital Bureau Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal Oregon medical marijuana advocate Barry Stull figures he knows what will happen when Nevada legislators try to carry out the wishes of voters and devise a way for patients to smoke pot. "The people opposed to marijuana will try to make it fail, no matter what you do," he said. "Police have been taught to oppose it. It is going to be a struggle. "It is hard to get the `Reefer Madness' mentality out of the way," he continued, referring to the 1930s film on the purported dangers of pot-smoking that has become a cult classic. Stull heads Medi-juana, a program in Portland where he grows legal marijuana for some of the state's 1,000 people registered to use the drug for AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and other ailments. Oregon's medical marijuana program has been touted as one of the most successful among the seven states where patients with a doctor's authorization can smoke pot. In August, Dr. Martin Wasserman of the Oregon Health Division said the program was working as it was intended. "A substantial number of qualified patients and their physicians are using it, and only a very few inquiries from law enforcement officials regarding registered patients have occurred," he said. The state allows people to grow their own. Each registered patient can grow seven plants, of which three can be flowering and ready for harvest. Despite the success of the program, Stull said problems abound. Plants grown in gardens of registered patients often are stolen. Police uprooted plants belonging to one patient because there was a single-digit mistake in his address in the state's medical marijuana registry. A lawsuit was filed in Oregon over its medical marijuana program, when police in Portland at first refused to return marijuana that had been confiscated from a registered patient. "It won't be easy in Nevada," Stull said. A voluntary task force of 12 Nevada doctors and pharmacists believes it has found a better way to avoid the legal hassles of states with medical marijuana laws. The Medical Marijuana Initiative Committee proposes that the University of Nevada Medical School, with branches in Reno and Las Vegas, create a marijuana research program. Pot could be grown on a university farm and given to patients. Doctors would track whether the marijuana helped alleviate their pain, nausea or other medical symptoms. And furthermore, the research project might secure approval of federal drug authorities. "The feds have recently reopened the door and started approving research projects like this," Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said. "It would be 100 percent legal." Del Papa thinks it would be foolish for Nevada to set up a medical marijuana distribution program without federal approval. Marijuana remains against federal law, regardless of what actions states have taken. Nevada and Colorado became the eighth and ninth states with medical marijuana laws on Nov. 7 when their voters passed initiative questions. In Nevada, 65 percent of the voters supported Question 9, which allows patients -- upon advice of their physicians -- to smoke marijuana. Patients with cancer, glaucoma, AIDS, epilepsy, nausea, multiple sclerosis and other conditions approved by law could use the drug. Like Oregon, the Nevada Legislature must create a registry of patients authorized by their doctors to use the drug. Only police could check the registry. The state also must set up a distribution system to get pot to patients. In deciding how to carry out the Question 9 mandate, legislators will not receive specific recommendations from their lawyers when they go into session Feb. 5. Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes will give lawmakers information on how medical marijuana laws were carried out in California, Oregon and Washington. "I will say, `Here are your options,' " Erdoes said. "It appears Oregon and Washington actually have implemented this with fairly small amounts of litigation." Dan Geary, one of the leaders of Nevadans for Medical Rights, said the doctors' medical marijuana research project violates the wishes of voters. He favors a grow-your-own program. "The people have spoken," said Geary, whose organization led the effort to pass the medical marijuana initiative. "But this unofficial task force wants to turn a mandate from the people into a research project that would limit access to marijuana." Kelly Paige, manager of the Medical Marijuana Program, has said in published reports that the chief complaint in her state is that users figure growing seven plants is not enough. Most patients grow their pot indoors under grow light systems that cost $300 to $500. None of the 1,068 patients in the Oregon program as of August had been convicted of any marijuana-related offenses. The typical patient is 46. Seventy percent are males and two-thirds of patients are using the drug to control pain. Del Papa maintains legislators are asking for trouble if they establish a marijuana distribution program without federal consent. "You can sue until the cows come in," she said. "But none of it gets you around the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution." She foresees the potential for doctors to be arrested if they recommend marijuana for patients and that, at the least, the program would be challenged on legal grounds. But in Oregon, 468 physicians had recommended that their patients be allowed to use marijuana by the end of August. None had been arrested. Under federal drug laws, physicians cannot "prescribe" marijuana for patients. Nevada's law states only that a patient can acquire marijuana "upon the advice" of a physician. Del Papa does not feel Nevada should rush into a marijuana law that could be challenged by federal and state authorities. She pointed out the U.S. Supreme Court may decide soon whether the Oakland, Calif., Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative can distribute marijuana to its members. In August, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the organization not to resume dispensing marijuana as medicine, at least until it decides whether to review a lower court's ruling on the matter. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, had allowed the cooperative to distribute marijuana to qualified patients. The Justice Department appealed that decision. But the high court's 7-1 decision is not the final ruling on whether state medical marijuana laws can coexist with the federal Controlled Substance Act banning all marijuana. The final decision may come before the Nevada Legislature adjourns in June and could help guide lawmakers in formulating a distribution program in Nevada, Del Papa said. Keith MacDonald, the state Board of Pharmacy's executive secretary, agrees that a physician-run university research program is the best tactic for the Legislature. "Why have the election results in Florida done all over again in Nevada?" he asked. "Why get it bogged down in the courts. It could go on forever if we pass a distribution plan that the feds oppose." MacDonald, who co-founded the task force, anticipates a university farm of a few acres could grow all the marijuana needed by Nevada patients. He also expects physicians will be reluctant to recommend marijuana to their patients if a state distribution program lacks federal approval. "Legislators will have to come up with a way of reducing their fear," MacDonald said. "That's why we need a research project." Although the Nevada research proposal may look promising to legislators, Stull insists it is based on an erroneous one-size-fits-all way of thinking. From his experience growing pot in Oregon, he has found marijuana's potency varies from plant to plant. One patient also may need a half ounce a day, while another uses an eighth of an ounce per month. "There is not just one kind of marijuana," he said. "You can grow the wrong kind. One plant may work great for someone and not for another. We have got to cut through a lot of the social crap about marijuana before we can really help people."Note: Many obstacles to implementing law.Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)Author: Ed Vogel, Donrey Capital BureauPublished: Sunday, November 26, 2000Copyright: Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2000Address: P.O. 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