Pubdate: Wed, 16 Mar 2011
Source: Providence Journal, The (RI)
Copyright: 2011 The Providence Journal Company
Contact:  http://www.projo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/352
Author: Tracy Breton, Journal Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.)

REGULATIONS COVERING MEDICAL MARIJUANA VARY IN 15 STATES

Fifteen states plus the District of Columbia have legalized medicinal 
marijuana: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, 
Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode 
Island, Vermont and Washington.

But the laws allowing it in three of those locations Arizona, New 
Jersey and the District of Columbia have yet to be formally 
implemented, according to Paul Armentano, deputy director of the 
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

Maryland has a law that requires a judge to consider a defendant's 
use of medical marijuana to be a mitigating factor in state 
prosecutions involving violations of the marijuana laws. If a patient 
who's arrested successfully argues at trial that his or her use of 
marijuana is based on medical necessity, the maximum penalty allowed 
by law is a $100 fine.

Most of the states that do allow medicinal marijuana do not have 
statutes that specifically provide for dispensaries.

And there are moves afoot in some states to repeal laws that are 
allowing people to use medical marijuana based on alleged abuses.

The Montana House of Representatives voted Feb. 10 to repeal the 
state's 2004 voter-enacted marijuana law. Republican House Speaker 
Mike Milburn says that many of the people who've been approved for 
medical marijuana aren't terminally ill and that the law has created 
a growing trade in illegal drugs. Marijuana grow-factories are 
prevalent in Montana. In Michigan, dispensaries have sprouted up in 
many places throughout the state even though there is nothing in that 
state's medical marijuana laws that allows for them. This has led to 
lawsuits questioning their legality.

Right now, Armentano says, there are just two states that have 
state-regulated dispensaries up and running - Colorado and New 
Mexico. Maine is about to become the third and the first on the East Coast.

Rhode Island is likely to become the fourth. The state Health 
Department on Tuesday announced it would allow three dispensaries to 
open - one in Providence, one in Warwick and another in Portsmouth.

As a result of legislation passed in Colorado last year, there are 
currently about 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries operating in 
that state. The state has just promulgated new rules that will take 
effect July 1.

State regulators in New Mexico have licensed 25 private entities to 
produce and dispense medical marijuana. But some of the state's 
politicians are against medical marijuana. The new governor, 
Republican Susana Martinez, pledged during her campaign to rescind 
the law. Freshman Rep. James E. Smith, a high school teacher, 
introduced a bill Feb. 17 to repeal the medical-marijuana law, saying 
it "sends a bad message to kids that somehow marijuana is good for you."

But, Smith has decided not to push for the legislation to be 
considered this year, replacing it with a measure that would ask the 
Department of Health to conduct a study on the program's 
effectiveness, the impact it's had on the state, "to identify lessons 
learned from implementation of the law... and whether continuation of 
the program is justified," and to deliver it to the legislature by October.

Legislation was passed in Colorado last year which is imposing state 
control on marijuana dispensary operators.

Medical marijuana dispensaries operate in other states, but they are 
not state-regulated and many are not operating legally, says 
Armentano. In California, dispensaries are either allowed or 
disallowed by municipalities so they "fall into a legal gray area," 
says Armentano. Legislation has been introduced this term to try to 
clarify what the state deems allowable and set clear regulations 
statewide for the operation of these dispensaries, he said.

The state's attorney general advised in 2008 that the distribution 
and nonprofit sales of medical cannabis is permitted by qualified 
"collectives and cooperatives" but that "storefront" businesses that 
engage in the for-profit sales of medical marijuana "are likely 
operating outside the protections" of state law.

"Of course," says Armentano, "virtually all operating California 
dispensaries operate as the latter and not the former."  
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake