Pubdate: Sat, 03 Feb 2001
Source: Portland Press Herald (ME)
Copyright: 2001 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  50 Monument Square, Suite 302, Portland, ME 04101
Fax: (207) 879-1042
Website: http://www.portland.com/
Forum: http://www.portland.com/cgi-bin/COMMUNITY/netforum/community/a/1
Author: Paul Carrier
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

BILL CALLS FOR MEDICINAL-MARIJUANA CENTER

AUGUSTA -- Cliff Hall uses marijuana to relieve his suffering from deep and 
painful muscle spasms. He has grown it and he has bought it on the black 
market. But Hall, who suffers from a long-standing spinal-cord injury, 
figures the best source has yet to be tapped. That's where the Legislature 
comes in.

A proposed bill would establish a pilot program to distribute marijuana to 
Mainers who need it for medical reasons. Supporters include the 42-year-old 
Hall, who listed his address as western Maine so the federal government 
won't zero in on him in its war against drugs.

The bill, which is still being drafted, would create a nonprofit center to 
grow and distribute marijuana within a test county. The center, to be run 
by a community board, would create and operate a registry system for 
patients, to ensure that it only sells marijuana to those who are legally 
entitled to it.

"If it was done properly, everyone would benefit from it," said Hall, who 
has a doctor's written recommendation that he use marijuana. "It would take 
the stigma away from me having to go to the black market," while ensuring 
that the quality is consistent from batch to batch.

State-sanctioned distribution is "a very necessary part of what the public 
approved in the referendum," Hall said.

It was more than a year ago that Maine voters passed a law legalizing the 
medicinal use of marijuana. The law allows Mainers who have been diagnosed 
with any of several specific conditions, including problems stemming from 
cancer chemotherapy or AIDS, to possess six marijuana plants and an ounce 
and a quarter of dried marijuana.

What the law does not provide is a distribution system for people who are 
too sick or too poor to grow marijuana, those who cannot grow it fast 
enough and those who can't or won't buy it illegally. As a result, Hall and 
other supporters of the law say, the state should sanction legally 
recognized cultivation and distribution centers.

That was one of the ideas backed by a state task force created last year to 
recommend improvements in the law. In a report released last October, most 
of the 29 people on the task force endorsed state-sanctioned distribution. 
Many members also supported creating a research program on the medical 
benefits of marijuana and allowing each legal user to grow enough for one 
other registered patient.

So far, at least, the only one of those ideas that has surfaced in the 
Legislature is the pilot distribution plan.

An early draft of the bill says the distribution center could grow 
marijuana and charge patients enough to cover costs. The center could not 
buy marijuana outside the state and it would have to work with the sheriff 
in the center's home county to set up and maintain a registry of eligible 
patients.

The bill does not specify which county would get the center. Eventually, 
the center would have to submit a report to the Legislature, which would 
then decide whether to expand the idea to other counties.

"We really haven't provided a way to (distribute marijuana) that is legal," 
so the Legislature should tackle the problem with a test program in one 
county, said Sen. Anne Rand, D-Portland, a sponsor of the bill.

"The referendum was a good step," said Elizabeth Beane of Mainers for 
Medical Rights, which promoted the referendum and supports the new law. 
"Growing your own seemed like the way to go" at the time, Beane said, but 
it has become clear since then that home growing is not practical for all 
patients who are entitled to the drug.

Hall notes, for example, that Maine's short growing season is problematic 
and growing marijuana indoors can be an expensive proposition. Moreover, he 
said, wildlife can decimate an outdoor crop and insect infestation can wipe 
out an indoor planting.

With a state-mandated limit of six plants, only three of which can be 
flowering and ready for processing, the grower has little margin for error. 
And some patients are too sick to cultivate their own plants, while others 
cannot grow marijuana quickly enough. That happens, for example, if a 
patient gets very short notice before starting chemotherapy and needs the 
drug right away.

As for the only currently available alternative, "it's not easy to find 
good quality marijuana on the black market," Hall said.

Still, the task force split on state-approved distribution, which is sure 
to face some opposition in the Legislature.

"Clearly, it presents tremendous issues," said Roy McKinney, director of 
the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and one of the dissenters on the task force.

The federal government still views marijuana as a narcotic that is easily 
abused and that has no medical benefits, McKinney said, so "the issue of 
conflict with federal law" would pose problems if the state sanctioned a 
distribution system.

In addition, McKinney said, "there would have to be a tremendous amount of 
oversight" to monitor how much marijuana the center grows, how it is 
distributed and whether all of the recipients are legally entitled to get 
it under state law.

"It would take a huge bureaucracy just to take care of those three issues," 
McKinney said. If one or more distribution centers are needed to make the 
new law work properly, he said, supporters of the referendum should have 
included such provisions in the referendum before it was submitted to the 
voters in 1999.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager