| Graphic: patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com |
A bill to legalize medical marijuana in Maryland, with state-run production centers, is getting support from legislators in both parties.
“This bill will provide Maryland’s doctors and patients with another tool in the toolbox, to be used safely and responsibly like any other therapy,” said Delegate Dan Morhaim (D-Baltimore County), who is the bill’s co-sponsor and a medical doctor.
Marijuana dispensaries would be licensed by the state under the plan. The cultivation and distribution of cannabis would be monitored by Maryland’s agriculture department and health department.
Under the proposal, companies that want to grow marijuana for state-licensed dispensaries would have to bid for a growing license and agree to be regulated by the state to ensure it is being done in a “safe location” and is “properly manufactured.”
The growers would then give a portion of gross sales revenue to the state.
Maryland’s current law provides medical marijuana patients with a limited “affirmative defense” in court, but no protection from arrest. Patients can still be given a $100 fine that results in a criminal conviction on their records.
| Photo: www.msa.md.gov |
| Delegate Dan K. Morhaim, M.D.: “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for patients to have access to the medicines that work best for them” |
”I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for patients to have access to the medicines that work best for them, especially for those suffering from serious ailments like cancer and multiple sclerosis,” Morhaim said. “Marijuana may provide the greatest possible relief one that can help when other therapies are not effective.”
“It doesn’t mean it’s the first thing you use, or the only thing you use,” Morhaim told Alan Brody of Gazette.net. “Marijuana, to me, is just another medication. It has risks, it has benefits, it has side effects and appropriate uses when other things don’t work.”
“As a cancer survivor, I feel that it shouldn’t be the policy of this or any other state to arrest, prosecute or imprison a person who uses marijuana under a doctor’s advice to alleviate pain and suffering,” said Sen. David Brinkley (R-Frederick County), the bill’s co-sponsor in the State Senate.
“We don’t want the government to interfere with the doctor/patient relationship in that way,” Sen. Brinkley said. “I just watched my mother pass away from cancer as she chose to forego the only options that doctors could prescribe her to relieve her pain, because the treatments were so excruciating.”
| Photo: www.dbrinkley.com |
| State Sen. David Brinkley: “Would you call the police on a family member who confided in you that they were using marijuana under a doctor’s order?” |
”If you disagree with me, I ask: Would you call the police on a family member who confided in you that they were using marijuana under a doctor’s order to ease their suffering from cancer or MS?” Brinkley said.
Dr. Morhaim said dispensaries would sell marijuana to qualified patients with a doctor’s recommendation “after alternatives have not worked.”
The bill will be filed next week, according to Dr. Morhaim.
“Public perception has indeed been on our side,” said Michael Meno, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington, D.C. “The problem is that people are ahead of the politicians on this one, and there are still those politicians that still think it’s politically risky to come out in favor of laws that will protect sick and dying patients from arrest.”
Fourteen other states, including neighboring New Jersey, along with the District of Columbia, have passed laws giving seriously ill patients access to medical marijuana and protection from criminal prosecution.
Most medical marijuana states are in the West, with Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island being joined by New Jersey on the East Coast.