Migz420

Medical marijuana scores House win
05-24-07|journal-inquirer

Hartford- The fight to legalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes scored a big win Wednesday when it cleared the House of Representatives by 31 votes.

The measure, which now heads to the Senate, was approved 89-58 after more than six hours of debate.

"We have the opportunity to give relief to Connecticut residents who are sick, who are dying, who are wasting away, who are losing their quality of life," Rep. Penny Bacchiochi, R-Somers, said. "And we can tell those Connecticut residents that the state of Connecticut no longer will prosecute you."

Over the past five years, Bacchiochi has become the legislature's leading advocate for legalizing marijuana use for those suffering from certain illnesses and injuries that cause prolonged, debilitating pain, such as cancer and multiple sclerosis.

In 2003, the Somers lawmaker first disclosed that she had risked arrest in the late 1980s to buy marijuana for her former husband, who had developed terminal bone cancer. Facing chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and surgery to remove a spinal tumor, he suffered intense pain and debilitating nausea until he died, she said, adding marijuana use lessened his suffering.

Wednesday's win in the House might give legalization advocates their best chance yet of changing the law.
In 2003, the House rejected a bill to legalize medicinal use by 15 votes. One year later advocates gained a small win when a legalization amendment narrowly was approved in the House, but the bill it was attached to subsequently was scrapped and never escaped that chamber.

The marijuana legalization debate took a different route in 2005, starting in the Senate, which approved a bill by two votes. The House never took it up.

If Senate approval can be obtained for the measure before the 2007 legislative session ends June 6, the bill would go to Gov. M. Jodi Rell's desk.

"I'm very optimistic," Bacchiochi said, adding, "I think this year the message has become very clear. We are only talking about removing the possibility of criminal prosecution for a very small group of people. This is not about legalizing marijuana."

Rell said she hasn't decided whether to sign the measure, and made it clear she has some concerns with the bill as it currently stands.

If the bill limited marijuana use to terminally ill patients, "everyone would feel better about the language," Rell said.

But the governor quickly added she has mixed emotions, noting that many people have watched a family member or other loved one suffer from a painful illness.
"You would do anything in your power to alleviate that pain," Rell said.

Opponents in the House said the proposal sends the wrong message about drugs to children and could exacerbate a patient's health problems. Some also claimed the bill still has many problems that haven't been addressed.

"How do you get it?" asked House Minority Leader Lawrence J. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, referring to the marijuana seeds needed to grow the maximum four plants allowed under the bill. "You've got to buy it. How do you buy it? ... You've got to hit the streets folks - nickel bag, dime bag. You've got to make a drug deal, baby."

Still, Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee, said Connecticut's law enforcement officials already use their discretion in most instances not to arrest or prosecute those who use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

"If police and prosecutors look the other way in this situation," Lawlor said, "maybe it's incumbent on us as a legislature to say that common sense ... ought to be reflected in the laws of this state."

Rep. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, tried in vain to change the bill. She had filed about 50 amendments, but called only eight. They ranged from requiring the Department of Agriculture to set up a pilot program for medical marijuana patients to providing local police departments with the names of people using the drug for palliative purposes.
She voted against the bill.

The legislation allows a doctor to certify an adult patient's use of marijuana after determining the patient has a debilitating condition and potentially could benefit from marijuana. Patients and their primary caregivers would then register with the Department of Consumer Protection.

The patient and the primary caregiver would be limited to growing no more than four plants, each having a maximum height of 4 feet, in an indoor, security facility.

According to the national Marijuana Policy Project, 12 states allow patients to use marijuana despite federal laws against it. A 12th state, Maryland, protects patients from jail but not arrest.

Connecticut already has a medical marijuana law, one of the first in the nation. Under the 1981 law, a doctor can prescribe the illegal drug to relieve nausea associated with chemotherapy and eye pressure from glaucoma.

But the law is unworkable because, under federal law, physicians who prescribe marijuana can be sent to prison and risk having their medical licenses revoked.