Republicans would be wise to support medical marijuana, too

I only recently came forward because I strongly believe that HB 648, which recently passed the House and Senate, should become law in New Hampshire.

The bill would create the most tightly crafted medical marijuana law in the country, and it would probably be used as a model for other states that want to allow access but are concerned about ensuring accountability and security.

All legitimate concerns about how the cultivation and dispensation of marijuana can be controlled are addressed in the final version of the bill, which will soon make its way to Gov. John Lynch’s desk.

If this bill does become law, New Hampshire will have a medical marijuana program that is responsible and well managed. The senators and representatives who sponsored and wrote this bill have worked tirelessly to ensure that the program will work and should be commended for their efforts.

It is wrong to think that the compassion centers called for in this bill will be like the clubs in California, where abuse of their medical marijuana law has hurt efforts to provide access in the rest of the country.

via Nashuatelegraph.com: Republicans would be wise to support medical marijuana, too.

This is the frame being constructed all around the medical marijuana issue.  California = abuse.  Grow your own medicine = uncontrolled.  Abuse = hurting efforts to provide medicine to sick people. Home cultivation = insecure and unaccountable.

For years now I’ve been warning people that medical marijuana will turn out to be a political box canyon from which legalization cannot escape.  For years we’ve opened minds by appealing to hearts, saying that legalization of marijuana for sick people is the least a compassionate person could do.  Now they will turn it back against us, saying state control of cultivation of marijuana for sick people is the least a compassionate person could do.

If you’re curious about the precedent the New Hampshire law will set, becoming a “model for other states”, here are some details from SB648:

The Good:

• Compassion centers can accept medical marijuana from other states that are allowed to grow it (not sure how you get past the interstate trafficking part to get Oregon bud to New Hampshire, though.)
• Schools and landlords can’t discriminate against medical marijuana patients (…unless it offends the Feds, then all bets are off.)
• Organ transplant patients’ use of medical marijuana doesn’t count as a “controlled substance” for purposes of kicking them off the list.
• Employers can’t discriminate against patients for their card or for their marijuana metabolites on a pee test.
• Parents can’t be discriminated against in family law for their medical use of marijuana.
• Cardholders from other states are recognized by the law, so long as their condition is recognized by New Hampshire (sorry, Californians with PTSD or Oregonians who can’t “prove” their chronic pain – see below)
• Recognition that patient and caregiver records need to be HIPAA compliant

The Bad:

• The “chronic or terminal diseases” which will qualify are the usual set: cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, Lou Gehrig’s disease, muscular dystrophy, Crohn’s disease, agitation of Alzheimer’s disease, or multiple sclerosis.  You can also get it for cachexia, spasms, seizures, nausea, and vomiting.  However, if you want medical marijuana for chronic pain, you have to prove that it “has not responded to previously prescribed medication or surgical measures for more than 3 months” (because we can all afford three months of oxycodone prescriptions or an inpatient surgery, right? because if you want to use the safest medicine available, you should have to take some dangerous addictive ones first and go under the knife first, right?)
• A caregiver has to be 21 years old, never been convicted of any drug offense, and lives in the patients’ home OR is a relative OR is a friend OR is a health care professional.  This caregiver may only care for one patient at a time (tough luck if both your mom and your wife need a caregiver – you have to choose just one.)
• Criminal background checks at the state and federal level for all caregivers and compassion center workers, including fingerprinting to be shared with the FBI.
• Patients aren’t allowed to grow their own medicine.  They must acquire no more than 2 ounces of it in a ten-day period at a licensed compassion center.  Underscore “a” compassion center, for the patient must designate the single compassion center at which they’ll shop, and may shop at no other.  This data is reported on monthly by the state which lists the particular patients assigned to a compassion center.

The Ugly:

• The department shall issue registry identification cards within five days of approving an application.  (Good luck with that one!)
• If a patient or caregiver changes address and doesn’t notify the government within ten days, they could be subject to a $150 fine.
• A compassion center may only store 6 plants, 6 seedlings (Oregon laws’ 12″x12″ non-flowering variety) and 2 ounces per patient who has registered at that compassion center.  Suppose you open with six patients, you’ve got 36 plants, 36 seedlings, and 12 ounces of medicine.  Day one, your six patients come in and each buy their 2 ounces.  Now you’ve got no medicine while you wait for your 36 plants to bud.  Ten days later your patients come in, but there’s still no medicine.
• Later, when the 36 plants bud and you’ve got four-to-six ounces per plant (Chris Conrad’s numbers, not mine), what are you going to do with that 132-to-204 ounces over your 12 ounce (six patients times 2) limit?  You’re forbidden by law to do anything but give it to another compassion center, which will also probably be over limit, and these compassion centers will be inspected by the state on a regular basis.  Compassion centers over the limit can be shut down immediately.  How is any compassion center ever going to survive harvest?
• Oh, and did we mention there will only be three such compassion centers and that new compassion centers can only open after two years, and then only two more will be allowed, if the state decides to allow them?
• All cultivation of marijuana by the compassion centers must be “in an enclosed, locked facility” which makes me wonder if a “roof” counts as part of “enclosed” and if this means all marijuana must be grown indoors.

So, if this is the “model” that is going to adopted by future medical marijuana states, look out.  You’ll have up to three dispensaries (let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?) with monopoly control over medical cannabis, where patients are locked into just one of those dispensaries to buy their $600-$900 worth of cannabis they’re allowed.  If 600 patients qualified and registered (Oregon’s first-year numbers), we’re looking at three non-profit organizations each growing 2,400 marijuana plants and selling a potential $120,000 – $180,000 every ten days.  If I don’t like the dispensary I’m signed up for, I have to go through changing my state paperwork and all that hassle to shop at a competitor.  With only two others to choose from, each with their own locked-in customers, there isn’t much incentive for them to be any better or worse than my dispensary, and any new competition is two years away, if the state allows it.  If I can’t afford $15/gram medicine, I can’t do anything about it.

These states will learn to regret their medical marijuana bills that don’t allow for home cultivation.