MISSING DETAILS BLUNT CHANCES OF MARIJUANA BILL

Police officers and doctors made a strong case for allowing severely ill
patients to use marijuana as medicine.

And it seemed HB 48 was a sure winner with the House Consumer and Public
Affairs Committee on Thursday afternoon.

But Rep. Joe Thompson's bill was snuffed out, at least temporarily, when he
could not provide details surrounding a key question from skeptical
legislators: Who will grow the stuff and sell it?

"We haven't defined who is going to be cultivating yet," said Alex Valdez,
secretary of the state Health Department.

The missing details led to the committee's decision to table the bill,
despite members' support of the concept.

Committee members made it clear that they want issues such as cultivation
and distribution written into the law. They oppose allowing those issues to
be set through a regulatory process.

Thompson, an Albuquerque Republican, and committee members Reps. John
Sanchez, an Albuquerque Republican, and Al Park, an Albuquerque Democrat,
said they plan to work out amendments before the bill is heard again on
Tuesday.

Thompson said he knew of the concerns over cultivation beforehand, but the
amendments weren't ready on Thursday, which was also the final day to
introduce bills in the 60-day session.

"My entire motivation for carrying this legislation is to help people who
are sick," Thompson told the committee.

The bill is part of package of drug-related measure being pushed by
Republican Gov. Gary Johnson. Thompson is a former member of the Johnson
administration.

An impressive array of citizens, lobbyists and public officials backed
Thompson's bill in a standing-room-only hearing.

Supporters included the American Civil Liberties Union, the New Mexico
Medical Society, the state Department of Public Safety and the governor's
task force

"In my judgment, this is not a law enforcement issue before you today," said
Nicholas Bakas, secretary of the Department of Public Safety.

Dr. Steve Jenison, a physician with the Health Department, said the issue
was a matter of science. Marijuana, he said, can help several sufferers:

Cancer patients in severe pain.

AIDS patients with no appetite, who are literally wasting away.

Epileptics with severe seizures.

Patients with muscle spasms caused by injury or disease.

But how do patients get the drugs?

"I don't want . . . the 80-year-old grandmother growing her own marijuana
seeds," Park said.

As the bill is written now, the whole process, from growing to harvesting to
selling and finally prescribing, would be managed by a commission of doctors
and the Health Department.

The commission would also manage a list of what diseases would qualify under
the new law.

But the committee was not interested in passing a law and letting the
department fill in the details.

"I'd like to encourage this commission, or whoever it is, to look at the
rules very closely," said Rep. William Fuller, an Albuquerque Republican.