Pubdate: Sun, 19 May 2013
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2013 The Boston Herald, Inc
Contact:  http://news.bostonherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53
Note: Prints only very short LTEs.

'CORRECTING' POT LAW

There was a moment of truth following the recent adoption of new 
medical marijuana regulations when Heidi Heilman of the Massachusetts 
Prevention Alliance said, "The Department of Public Health tried 
their best, but they can't rewrite the statute."

This hideously flawed piece of legislation, which gives the marijuana 
industry a major toehold in the state, will surely come back to haunt 
us if the Legislature refuses to give it a second look.

For example, the Massachusetts Medical Society still isn't pleased 
with the definition of the doctor-patient relationship outlined in 
the new regs. Their aim is to prevent some doc-for-hire attached to a 
marijuana dispensary from handing out "prescriptions" for a fee. It's 
not at all clear these regs will prevent that.

Physicians from Children's Hospital also voiced objections to regs 
which will allow the dispensing of marijuana to those under the age 
of 18, not merely for use by the terminally ill or those with life 
threatening diseases, but those with "debilitating" medical conditions.

Those who actually treat children know there is scant evidence of how 
marijuana impacts developing brains or at what level it could prove 
toxic. And that raises yet another issue which DPH attempted to deal 
with - the availability of marijuana in non-smokable forms and how to 
safeguard children from those. Three-year-olds don't really know the 
difference between a regular lollipop and a marijuanalaced one or 
between a regular brownie and the Alice B. Toklas variety.

The DPH rules would require all of those products to be in 
child-proof packaging. However, there's a lot of evidence that such 
products are an accident waiting to happen. Colorado, which 
implemented a medical marijuana law several years ago, has 
experienced an uptick in emergency room admissions by children who 
inadvertently got into the household stash.

Lawmakers are already taking a more careful look at the voter-passed 
bill. Now is the time to make drastically needed changes - before the 
state heads down this very thorny path.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom