Medical marijuana goes to vote

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

SANTA FE — The 2007 version of the long-lobbied medical marijuana bill is expected to be voted on by the state House of Representatives today.

Reena Szczepanski, executive director of the non-profit New Mexico Drug Policy organization, said this is the seventh year her organization has lobbied for the bill.

The bill passed the senate already and if it passes the House, which she said this year she thinks it will, it will then only need Gov. Bill Richardson's signature to become law. He already publicly said he would sign the bill.

The bill was supposed to be voted on Friday or Saturday but was delayed until today because of the crush of business.

Szczepanski said Sen. David Ulibarri, D-Grants, voted in favor of the bill and Rep. Kenny Martinez, D-Grants, supports it as well.

"When the bill becomes law, the state's Department of Health is charged with setting up the rules, some of which are laid out in the bill," she said.

Patients must have one of seven illnesses or qualifications, and an application must be made to a doctor, who would then forward it to the health department.

ID cards would then be issued, detailing how much and how often the marijuana could be used, much like a prescription, Szczepanski said.

The seven qualifications include patients having the following illnesses or needs: Cancer, HIV-AIDS, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, a certain type of spinal cord injury, glaucoma or admittance into a hospice, Szczepanski said.

Temporary cards could become available by July 1, but the permanent system does not kick in until Oct. 1 of this year, she said.

"Most doctors will not have a need to do this. It will be the specialists who take care of those kinds of patients who have those illnesses that will be doing most of the prescribing for medical marijuana," she said. "General practitioners will not have a need for it."

"We are not suggesting that marijuana become the only treatment or even preferred, we are just saying that it should be another tool doctors can use," she said.

"It's not better than other medicines, just another alternative and should be an option."

Eleven other states already have medical marijuana available to patients: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, Szczepanski said.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197, or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.