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Compare SD Medical Pot Measure To Montana's
10-31-06|keloland.com

In one week, South Dakotans will decide whether to legalize marijuana for medical uses. And if history is any indication, the measure could very well pass. Nationally, medical marijuana has never been voted-down as a ballot measure.

Voters supported it in the eight states: California, Montana, Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Maine, Washington, Nevada.

And legislators made it legal in three states: Vermont, Hawaii, Rhode Island.

And one of the laws is nearly identical to the one on the South Dakota ballot. In Montana, 62 percent of voters supported a law to legalize medical marijuana in 2004.

Since South Dakota law enforcement has some serious concerns about what would happen if the same measure passes here, we did some checking to find out what kind of impact it's had in Montana.

South Dakota Law enforcement leaders believe the medical marijuana measure would make it too easy for anyone to get their hands on pot.

"It is written in the interest of those truly suffering but also to allow open access to anyone who says they suffer from chronic pain," says Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead.

But in Montana, where the same law with the same wording has already been in effect for 2 years, only 260 people are registered to use it. And Roy Kemp, the man in charge of the registry, says people without serious illness don't abuse the law because a doctor has to sign off on their medical records.

"Generally speaking, that does not occur. So no, it hasn't been a problem," Kemp says.

South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long sees the wording differently. He thinks it's vague enough that people with minor injuries could just send in medical records and get the immunity to use marijuana.

Kemp says it's as simple as making sure the doctor recommends the pot. "If there is no statement such as that in the medical record, then I cannot consider the medical record as a basis for qualifying a patient," Kemp says. "I don't think the landscape has changed because of this act."

Milstead doesn't think it's worth the risk.

"Let the proponents introduce a law that is truly medical marijuana that uses a prescription from a physician," Milstead says.

It's important to note this bill does not create "prescriptions" for marijuana. It just makes it legal for people with a doctor's recommendation to have it. They have to grow themselves or find their own way to get it and that's the biggest problem they're having in Montana.

One Case of Abuse

In the last two years, only one man has broken the law then used medical marijuana as his defense. But the jury didn't buy it.

58-year-old Gary Ashley was convicted last month of having drugs and planning to dealing them.

Police arrested Ashley in Butte, Montana, last Dember after finding more than four pounds of marijuana in his house. Ashley told officers he is registered to possess medical marijuana, but the Montana law (like the proposed South Dakota law) only allows one ounce or six plants of the drug.

Ashley faces up to 20 years in prison.

 

wondrous

Un-freakin'-believable! Physicians cannot write "prescriptions" for marijuana because the federal government has classified it as a Schedule 1 drug (meaning it is illegal to prescribe). Unless Mr. Milstead is suggesting the the DEA remove marijuana from its Schedule 1 drugs (which I'm sure he's not!), all that doctors can do is "recommend" medical marijuana to their patients.

Is it too much to expect medical marijuana opponents to at least know what they're talking about? Wait a minute...now that I think about it, I have yet to hear from any medical marijuana opponents who know what they're talking about!

Buzzby

This is typical prohibitionist BS. Only drugs listed in the US Pharmacopeia can be prescribed. That's federal law. No state can pass a law permitting the prescription of marijuana. If South Dakotans have to wait for the Food and Drug Administration to list marijuana in the pharmacopeia they'll have a very long wait!

It's too bad that the Constitution doesn't provide for any kind of nationwide referendum. That might be a worthy constitutional amendment. Eight out of eleven states that have medical marijuana got it by referendum. That might be the only way to get the feds to budge off of their Reefer Madness™ position.

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