Representative Elliott Naishtat filed medical marijuana bill, HB 164 today, offering medical patients, who have their doctors’ recommendation to use marijuana, an affirmative defense in court. Included in the bill is a clause protecting doctors from disciplinary action for recommending medical marijuana to their patients. Rep. Naishtat filed a similar bill in the 80th session.
We need all supporters of Medical Marijuana to contact their Representatives and ask them to sign onto the bill. This bill would not make medical marijuana legal is only the minimum in compassion that the state can offer patients, the right to a defense.
Quick lesson for any newbies who don’t know what “affirmative defense” means. This is not like medical marijuana. Let’s say you’re an HIV/AIDS patient and you’re using cannabis to help you eat and stay alive. Under this law, you would still be subject to arrest for your less-than one ounce of marijuana. If you couldn’t make bail, you’d be sitting in a cell without your medicine until court. You’d hire an attorney and pay her a bunch of money, and you’d probably have to hire a bunch of expert witnesses to testify how cannabis helps HIV/AIDS patients with wasting syndrome. Finally, you’d get in front of a judge, with a prosecutor pressing to get the six months in jail and $2,000 fine. You’d say to the judge, “But your Honor, I have to use cannabis or I will die from wasting syndrome,” and if the judge agrees, you’re free… to go find a way to pay your tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills.
“Affirmative defense” basically means not breaking the law would cause you considerably more harm than breaking the law would harm society. It really is the least government can do to protect patients. But it is something I believe Texas voters are ready for, judging by the 11-minute not-guilty for medical use case argued by Jeff Blackburn last year in Amarillo.
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I will definitely support any action toward providing patients with the best medicine possible and giving doctors a wider range of therapuetic choices for their patients. As a resident of Texas I see that we are so far behind the times and obviously our state representatives have a groundless and misconstrued arguement against medical marijuana. Rather than doing their due diligence and investigating the health benefits of medical marijuana then making a decision based the evidence they hide behind the stigma that the “old farts” and the ignorant has placed on medical marijuana use in this great state.
Affirmative defense is definitely a step in the right direction — a baby step, but a step just the same.