cannabisnews.com: State's Medical Marijuana Plan Hits Snag





State's Medical Marijuana Plan Hits Snag
Posted by FoM on April 26, 2001 at 07:26:27 PT
By Gregory Kesich, Portland Press Herald Writer
Source: Portland Press Herald 
Top health and law enforcement officials on Wednesday came out against a plan to distribute medical marijuana to people permitted to have it under state law. The proposal would create an opportunity for illegal distribution of marijuana if it became state law, said Dr. Dora Ann Mills, director of the state Bureau of Health at a special legislative hearing.More research, Mills said, and not the compelling personal stories of medical marijuana users, is needed before the illegal drug can be considered a medicine.
"It is really hard to listen to the anecdotes and say we have to wait," Mills said. "But if the research isn't done thoroughly, we lose time rather than gain time." For more than two years, people who are fighting cancer, AIDS and certain other conditions have been permitted to have small amounts of marijuana for personal use. But there is no legal way for them to get it if they are too sick or lack the skills to grow it themselves.That leaves only the underground drug market, which patients say is unreliable and dangerous. People who might benefit from medical marijuana do without because they can't or won't buy it that way.A task force set up by the Attorney General convened last summer and the majority of the members supported creating distribution centers to grow and distribute marijuana to people qualified to have it.A bill sponsored by Sen. Anne Rand, D.-Portland, would create a single non-profit center as a pilot program. The center would be managed by a community board and would be self-supporting.The center would also keep a registry of people receiving marijuana and the doctors who recommended it to them, Rand said, which would control its distribution and create clear evidence of how many people actually benefit from marijuana use. Since most medical marijuana use is illegal and secret, it is hard to prove its effectiveness, advocates say. Mike Lindey, a retired veterinarian in his 60s, never thought he would break the law. But when his chemotherapy treatments for bladder cancer made him too sick to eat, he was desperate enough to try, said his daughter Becky Sentementis."We watched him lose his hair, his weight and his strength," Sentementis said. "It was really hard to watch him go through this long painful process."Lindey found that when he smoked marijuana his appetite returned. He regained his strength, survived chemotherapy and defeated his cancer. "When he was cured, he never smoked it again," Sentimentis said.Lindey became a leading advocate for legalized medical marijuana during the 1998 referendum campaign. His cancer came back last year, and he died in February.Others told the two committees that growing quality marijuana is hard work, involving expensive equipment. They also pointed out that the six plants allowed under state law would produce far more that the one and one quarter ounce allowed under state law.Several lawmakers expressed frustration with the King administration for not moving more quickly to provide the drug to qualified people. "The voters of the state of Maine passed the bill and we have had to to come up with some enforceable rule to handle it. I can't remember a time when the voters have spoken so clearly and we have responded so slowly," said Rep. Patricia Blanchette, D- Bangor, a member of the Criminal Justice Committee.While the issue has been popular with voters, it has not with Gov. Angus King. He spoke out against the medical marijuana question in 1998, and this year cited it as an example of abuse of the citizen-initiated referendum process, because most of the funding for the campaign came from out of state.In addition to Mills, Roy McKinney, director of the bureau of drug enforcement, opposed the bill because he thought it would result in legal marijuana falling into the wrong hands. "This would invite more health and safety problems than it would solve," he said. The Attorney General's office took a neutral position, cautioning legislators to hold off on action until a federal court case challenging marijuana distribution in California is resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. A ruling could affect Maine's medical marijuana law.The two committees did not schedule a work session on the bill, which would be needed before it could go to the full Legislature for a vote. Source: Portland Press Herald (ME) Author: Gregory Kesich, Portland Press Herald WriterPublished: Thursday, April 26, 2001Copyright: 2001 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. Contact: letters pressherald.com Website: http://www.portland.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:Mainers For Medical Rightshttp://www.mainers.org/AIDS Patient Faces Trial in Rare Marijuana Casehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8530.shtmlMedicinal Marijuana Law Under Review http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6853.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by John Adams on April 30, 2001 at 06:34:49 PT:
Barking up the wrong tree
I don't understand why the people in Maine are pushing co-ops. They are sitting ducks for the feds, and the Supreme Court is almost certainly going to back the feds. They don't help many (any) people if they are shut down like the Oakland operation. If this is just "symbolic" well, that don't mean much to a patient who needs their medicine. I wish advocates would be a little more realistic about what is going to work.
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Comment #5 posted by lookinside on April 28, 2001 at 17:37:05 PT:
sanity?
frances expresses many opinions with no statisticalbackup...i invite her/him/it to sit with my wife and i inthe oakland cannabis buyers co-operative and watch the illcome through the door...ALL of these folks have already had marijuana recommendedfor them by a licensed MD to treat a variety ofailments...HIV wasting syndrome, the nausea fromchemotherapy, arthritis, fibromyalgia, glaucoma, migraines,panic attacks(for those who have experienced "paranoia" whenstoned, clinical anxiety is actually alleviated by the useof marijuana!), depression, post traumatic pain(severe backinjuries and amputees for example) and many other less wellknown illnesses are helped by this weed...my wife has had cancer 3 times...she has fibromyalgia...shehas arthritis...she gets migraines...panic attacks anddepression are also a part of her existence...6 months agoshe was diagnosed with liver problems associated with thedevil's brew of PHARMACEUTICAL medications she was taking tohelp alleviate her symptoms...MMJ is a godsend for her...it has allowed her to reduce ordiscontinue use of ALL the 8 medications she was previouslyusing...FRANCES! WAKE UP! your sheltered existence is causing you tomake STUPID comments where others can read them...better toeducate yourself...once educated, you will find yourselfspeaking the reverse of today's statements unless you aredevoid of empathy, sympathy, and common sense...
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Comment #4 posted by observer on April 28, 2001 at 10:41:26 PT
Do Do-Bees Do Doobies?
Would someone please explain to me how a CIGARETTE can be a medicine. First, you (as an ill person, an adult, etc.) hold the lit cigarette to your lips. (Be careful to hold the non-lit end to your lips, Frances! This is important!) Then, you (if you're not Bill Clinton) inhale the cannabis smoke into your lungs. . . Exhale, repeat as indicated, until desired effect is reached. Don't take too much, especially if you're not experienced. see:http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+use+medical+marijuana Smoking marijuana cigarettes, bowls, and bongs ``To meet the substantial nineteenth- and early twentieth-century medical demand for marijuana, fluid extracts were marketed by Parke Davis, Squibb, Lilly, Burroughs Wellcome, and other leading firms 29 and were sold over the counter by drugstores at modest prices. Grimault and Sons actually marketed ready-made marijuana cigarettes for use as an asthma remedy. 30 As medicine progressed after 1903, marijuana's use declined, but its therapeutic value remained unchallenged, and doctors continued to prescribe it.'' http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cu54.html``In the 1920s, marijuana cigarettes were sold legally in drug stores as a treatment for such ailments as asthma, migraine headaches and to ease the pain of childbirth.'' http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n030/a09.html``The debate about legalising cannabis for medical use was reignited in 1998 when the House of Lords science and technology committee acknowledged that part of the cannabis plant seemed to alleviate asthma as effectively as conventional treatments. '' http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread9114.shtmlhttp://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1576/a01.html - and eating brownies as medicine defies reason.Not at all!See: Reason Magazine, As with alcohol, people use it for a variety of purposes: "to relax," to enhance social occasions, to stimulate creativity, to heighten their enjoyment of food, music, or movies. They even bake it into brownies "for the pleasure of the taste."Prohibition's Past and Present, Reason Magazine, Jacob Sullum, 1997http://www.reason.com/9707/bk.jacob.html etc. There are over 2000 toxic chemicals when marijuana is lit and 483 when it's not lit. see:http://www.google.com/search?q=marijuana+myths+toxic+chemicalsAnyway, aren't there more than 2000 "toxic chemicals" in the smoke from the average campfire? I'm not convinced that taking small amounts of cannabis, even by smoking it, is any more dangerous for the body than attending a weenie roast, or toasting marshmellows on an open fire. Sick people need a snoot full of hot carbon and other toxins? I DON'T THINK SO.Frances, that taking a few inhalations of cannabis smoke might be 'devastating' on the 'developing bodies' of 'Our Children', due to the "toxic chemicals" etc., is indeed deeply, deeply disturbing. But don't you think that the fact that marijuana causes "murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries, and deeds of maniacal insanity . . . especially among the young" is far worse than those toxic chemicals? ``THE sprawled body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk the other day after a plunge from the fifth story of a Chicago apartment house. Everyone called it suicide, but actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic known to America as marijuana, and to history as hashish. It is a narcotic used in the form of cigarettes, comparatively new to the United States and as dangerous as a coiled rattlesnake.How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries, and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can be only conjectured. The sweeping march of its addiction has been so insidious that, in numerous communities, it thrives almost unmolested, largely because of official ignorance of its effects. . . ''-- An Important government Official; an Expert and an Authority on the dangers of Mari-huana.http://www.redhousebooks.com/galleries/assassin.htm 
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Comment #3 posted by dddd on April 28, 2001 at 08:23:22 PT
whos' business is it?
Wonderful Frances.Are you saying that you have complete trust in the FDA?Doyou think the FDA has approved drugs that kill?Do you knowhow many people have died from Marijuana?Do you care?dddd
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Comment #2 posted by Frances on April 28, 2001 at 08:14:39 PT:
doobies as medicine is mind boggling
Gentle tokers:Would someone please explain to me how a CIGARETTE can be a medicine.Smoking marijuana cigarettes, bowls, and bongs - and eating brownies as medicine defies reason.There are over 2000 toxic chemicals when marijuana is lit and 483 when it's not lit.Sick people need a snoot full of hot carbon and other toxins? I DON'T THINK SO.
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Comment #1 posted by lookinside on April 26, 2001 at 20:57:08 PT:
sanity?
another power hungry(and bought and paid for by thepharmaceutical industry) criminal drug warrior...the peopleof oregon need to hammer the governor to dismiss her fortreason against the people of oregon...
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