Maine Medical Marijuana Initiative has 55,000 signatures

If you’re thinking, “but Maine already has medical marijuana!” you’re not alone. But Maine’s medical marijuana is a strange thing: they have no medical marijuana program or medical marijuana cards. If your doctor recommends it, you can have medical marijuana… if you can find it:

Sometime in the next couple of months, Maine lawmakers will take up a bill that could revolutionize the way medical marijuana patients are treated in Maine and how they get access to the drug. If the Legislature fails to approve the Maine Medical Marijuana Act, the measure will be headed for Maine voters this fall. That’s because supporters have gathered more than 55,000 valid signatures to get it on the ballot.

Maine, along with 12 other states including California, has had a medical marijuana law on the books for ten years. Maine voters approved it by a wide margin. But ever since the law was passed, patients have had no practical, legal way of accessing marijuana. First they have to find a doctor willing to recommend it as a treatment. Then they have to grow a few plants on their own or find someone willing to do it for them. So activists have launched a new initiative to legally distribute medical marijuana through non-profit, state-licensed dispensaries.

The initiative proposed by Leavitt and the group Maine Citizens for Patient Rights directs DHHS to issue identification cards to patients who qualify for medical marijuana. The cards are voluntary. And they would also be issued to patients’ primary caregivers, those who provide pot through the dispensaries. Each caregiver would be limited to five qualified patients and no more than six marijuana plants for each. The plants would be grown in a secure facility.

In addition to creating a dispensary system for medical marijuana, including registration and renewal fees to pay for it, Maine’s initiative also expands the list of diseases and conditions eligible for medical marijuana treatment. Hepatitis C, Crohn’s disease, ALS and chronic pain would be added.

But Roy Mckinney says the very nature of these dispensaries will make them hard to police. He points to research from the California Police Association that highlights numerous problems with California’s medical marijuana law and a white paper from the Riverside District Attorney’s Office, “that in fact stated, and I’ll quote: ‘Medical marijuana storefront businesses have allowed criminals to flourish in California.’ And I don’t think that’s anything that the people in Maine want,” he says.

Maine cops fear California dispensary attack!

Which is why the people of Maine have signed an initiative to create dispensaries nothing like what’s happening in California.  Law enforcement in other states need to understand that California’s medical marijuana law is its own creature unlike any of the other twelve medical marijuana states.  Doctors there can recommend medical marijuana for any condition they feel marijuana will help.  Dispensaries there can serve anyone with a card or recommendation.  While there are operating guidelines, there is no mandated caregiver system requiring the dispensaries to care for certain patients or limiting how many patients they can serve.  Finally, there is no statute on the production of the medical marijuana aside from the plant and possession limits.  Using any comparison of California’s dispensary system’s pros and cons to discuss the Maine dispensary bill is like pointing out a shark attack off Venice Beach, California as reason why Mainers shouldn’t set lobster traps.  What applies in California does not apply to Maine!