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Medical Marijuana Gets New Life With State Legislation

Tagged with: Eric Holder, Medical Marijuana Bills, Medical Marijuana Patients, New Jersey
Friday, April 24, 2009, 10:34 Email This Post
This news item was posted in Medical Marijuana USA
ALBANY - Legalization of marijuana for medical use may have a shot at legislative approval this year because Democrats, who now control the state Senate and Assembly, are sponsoring identical bills on the issue.
State Senate Health Committee Chairman Thomas Duane and Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, both Manhattan Democrats, are backing the legislation, which would allow patients to have up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and 12 mature plants.
“There are thousands of New Yorkers with serious debilitating, life-threatening, painful ailments who would benefit from the medical use under physician supervision … of marijuana,” Gottfried said yesterday. “The medical science is very clear and very well established that there are many patients for whom marijuana will ameliorate their symptoms or help them to tolerate their treatment, where other medications do not work.”
Thirteen other states have legalized marijuana, and legislation is under consideration in New Jersey, New Hampshire and other states, Gottfried said. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the government will respect state laws on medical marijuana with regard to enforcement, Gottfried said. In the past, federal law enforcement has shut down dispensaries for medical marijuana because pot is an illegal drug.
“This is about compassion. This is about medicine. This isn’t about politics,” Duane said.
Marijuana has been used to relieve nausea, increase appetite, reduce muscle spasms and reduce chronic pain in patients with debilitating illnesses like AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma.
Duane said he believes the legislation enjoys broad bipartisan support in the state Senate, where there are 32 Democrats and 30 Republicans.
Republicans, who outnumbered Democrats from 1965 until this year, previously blocked any legalization bill from moving forward. There has been Republican support in the past for limited use of pot by allowing state-regulated growers to produce it and licensed dispensaries to distribute it. The Assembly, where Democrats hold the overwhelming majority of seats, passed the legislation in 2007 and 2008.
Duane said allowing patients to grow their own pot is a simpler way to provide access than dispensaries. Patients would need a doctor’s recommendation to possess and use marijuana.
If the bill passes both houses, Gov. David Paterson will seek input from interested parties before acting, spokesman Errol Cockfield said.
People who oppose medical marijuana think it could increase drug abuse and crime. The state Conservative Party believes legalizing it would send the wrong message to society, Chairman Mike Long said.
“We have enough trouble with the use of prescription drugs without adding another one to it,” he said, adding there are plenty of drugs available currently to relieve pain.
If people are allowed to grow it in their homes, children and others in the house may gain access to it, Long said.
Assemblyman Joel Miller, R-Poughkeepsie, said the time has come for New York to legalize medical marijuana.
“To me it’s absolutely amazing that we would deny people the benefit of a drug simply because it also has some other impact on the community,” said Miller, a dentist. “The people who need it are not going to be using it recreationally.”
Patients are going to use it so they can gain some standard of life, he said, “and everyone deserves that.”
The legislation would require plants to be kept in a secure, locked enclosure. It includes provisions for the state Department of Health to give permits to dispensaries, pending certification by the federal government that this could be done without federal prosecution.
Supporters of the legislation include the state Medical Society, the New York State Nurses Association and a long list of other groups, Gottfried said.
Joe Gamble of Onondaga County, said he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two years ago and has used medical marijuana to alleviate a lot of the tremors and neurological pain he feels. Gamble, a 33-year-old former commercial jet pilot, said he has shooting pains throughout his body all the time.
“It would be nice not to be considered a criminal just because I use marijuana for medical reasons,” he said.
Joel Peacock, 58, of Buffalo said the four pain medications he takes cost $39,000 a year. He was in a car accident in 2001 and surgery a year later to remove three discs from his neck was not successful.
Source: Journal News, The (NY)
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Author: Cara Matthews

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