MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL SQUEAKS BY HOUSE

Those who want to allow patients to use marijuana to treat certain medical
conditions won a slim but significant victory Monday when the state House
of Representatives approved a "medical marijuana" bill.

Supporters call it the "Compassionate Use of Marijuana Act," but opponents
insist the bill is a "smokescreen" for legalizing drugs.

"What kind of a message are we sending to our children?" was a rhetorical
question voiced several times by the bill's opponents during the floor
debate as well as at an anti-drug decriminalization rally held Monday
morning in the Capitol Rotunda.

The House voted 35-32 to approve House Bill 431, sponsored by Rep. Joe
Thompson, R-Albuquerque.

To that, Rep. Dan Foley, R-Roswell, responded, "What message are we
sending? The right message. The message that we care about people and that
we're not going to turn our back on them because of some scare tactic (by
people who say) someone suffering from cancer is going to become a drug
pusher because of this."

The bill is part of Gov. Gary Johnson's drug-reform package.

The vote was extremely close considering the state Senate passed a similar
bill (SB319) last week by a vote of 29-12. Unlike the House vote, a
majority of Senate Republicans present voted in favor of the bill.

On Monday, however, House Republicans voted 18 to 10 against the bill.
Democrats voted 25 to 14 in favor of the bill.

Because both the House and Senate passed their own bill on medical
marijuana, it is not clear what will happen next. If the House passes the
Senate bill - or if the Senate passes the House version - that bill would
go to Johnson to sign.

Because of the slim margin in the House, Foley said, the fastest way to get
medical marijuana approved might be for the Senate to act on HB431.

The only major difference between the two is the "sunset clause" in the
House bill.

If the House bill becomes law, the medical-marijuana program would expire
in four years and the Legislature would have to approve it again for the
program to continue.

Either bill would set up a program in the state Health Department to allow
people suffering serious medical conditions to smoke marijuana to ease pain
and nausea.

A person who thought he or she might be helped by therapeutic marijuana
would consult a doctor, who would decide whether to recommend the person
for the program.

The doctor would send his recommendation to the state Health Department,
which would approve - or deny - the patient's participation.

A panel of nine doctors nominated by the state health secretary and
approved by the Senate would oversee the medical-marijuana program. The
Health Department would decide policy questions such as how the marijuana
would be cultivated and distributed

As he did last week when HB431 was heard by the House Judiciary Committee,
Rep. Ron Godbey, R-Cedar Crest, peppered Thompson with a series of questions.

Some of Godbey's questions were technical - such as who would pay for the
photo-identification cards called for in the program. (The patient would,
Thompson answered.)

One question evoked nightmarish visions of what might happen under the
program: "Does this mean a patient using marijuana can go out and rape and
pillage?" he asked regarding one section of the bill. (Thompson assured him
this was not the case.) He asked whether a bunion could be a condition for
which marijuana could be used for treatment under the bill. Thompson said
that theoretically that could happen - if the nine-doctor panel concluded
it was a valid treatment for bunions. "But that's highly unlikely,"
Thompson added.

Godbey appeared at the Rotunda rally Monday morning along with Rep. Martha
Atkin, R-Rio Rancho, and Republican Sens. Ramsay Gorham of Albuquerque and
Shirley Bailey of Hobbs.

Speaking before a backdrop of handmade posters reading "Just Say No" and
"Marijuana is Not Medicine," Godbey said when out-of-state organizations
"spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to legalize marijuana in this
little state, there's got to be something wrong."