Pubdate: Wed, 20 Nov 2013
Source: Garden Island (Lihue, HI)
Copyright: 2013 The Garden Island
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/Fyr3Cplk
Website: http://thegardenisland.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/964

NEARLY EVERY STATE TALKING MEDICAL MARIJUANA LEGISLATION

As the medical community and many Americans come to accept the use of 
marijuana to treat a range of diseases and symptoms, state 
legislators are working to keep pace with laws concerning marijuana 
for medical use.

Numerous polls have indicated that a growing majority of Americans 
believe that medical marijuana should be legal throughout the 
country. Yet among the states, and even at the federal level, the 
merits of marijuana as a medical treatment are far from settled.

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have proposed or 
enacted legislation regarding medicinal and recreational use of 
marijuana, according to a study by WestlawNext, the nation's leading 
online legal research service. While California made national 
headlines when the state legalized medical marijuana in 1996, 
Virginia was the first state to legalize marijuana for certain 
medical purposes in 1979, fully 17 years before California's law was signed.

Despite a shift toward public acceptance of medical marijuana use, 
only 24 states and the District of Columbia have made it legal. 
Legislation has been proposed in another 18 states, but not all have 
followed suit, with Idaho passing legislation reaffirming its stand 
against the legalization of marijuana altogether.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, an estimated 2.4 million 
U.S. citizens are medical marijuana patients as of December 2012. 
Where it is legal, medical marijuana is available as a prescribed 
treatment through a medical doctor, either in a smokeable or 
ingestible form (pill), and typically available through state 
administered dispensaries. An inhalable form, which technically uses 
key chemical compounds of marijuana, is legal in the United Kingdom 
and many other countries, and is in clinical trials for use in the 
United States.

Some of the more common, but very serious, medical conditions for 
which medicinal marijuana is being prescribed include: multiple 
sclerosis, terminal cancer, muscular dystrophy, inflammatory bowel 
disease (including Crohn's disease), seizure disorder (including 
epilepsy), glaucoma, and HIV/AIDS, among others.

In addition to legalizing medical marijuana for adults, 20 states 
have addressed the issue of offering medical marijuana, prescribed in 
pill form, for sick children. Seventeen states allow the use of 
medical marijuana for minors when prescribed by a doctor, according 
to the National Organization for the Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML). A 
law in New Jersey is currently being considered that would require 
the approval from both a doctor and psychiatrist. Connecticut and 
Illinois prohibit medical marijuana for sick children, while allowing 
its use by adults.

Marijuana is still classified as a Schedule I substance under 
the-Controlled Substances Act, making the distribution of marijuana, 
even for medical purposes, a federal crime, according to the National 
Conference of State Legislatures. However, in October 2009, the Obama 
Administration asked federal prosecutors to stop prosecuting people 
who possess medical marijuana in accordance with local laws.

"Many states adopt the same test for classifying a Schedule I 
substance as the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA)," said 
Michael Carlson, reference attorney at Thomson Reuters.-"Generally, a 
Schedule I drug is said to have no accepted medical use-but even a 
cursory review of proposed legislation shows that there's a general 
trend towards liberalizing marijuana laws especially for medical use. 
Authors of the first CSA commissioned study were not persuaded by 
reports from organizations such as the New England Journal of 
Medicine, which recommended legalization in 1972.-Clearly, 
legislators are rethinking the issue."

Carlson also noted that medical marijuana patients can be prosecuted 
if they possess marijuana on federal land, such as a national park or 
federally subsidized housing, even if the use of marijuana is legal 
in that state for medicinal purposes.

Medical marijuana laws also vary considerably from state to state.- 
For example, only a handful of states, such as Arizona, Delaware, 
Maine, Michigan, Nevada and Rhode Island, offer medical marijuana 
reciprocity agreements, which allow qualifying patients to use 
medical marijuana between states that have legalized its use.

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