MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW REVISION IS A BAD ONE

Disturbing rumors are floating about SB 848,San Jose Democratic Sen. John
Vasconcellos' bill to implement the recommendations of the state Attorney
General's Task Force on Medical Marijuana. If an amendment currently being
considered is added to that bill, the final result would be not worth having.

A bit of background: California voters passed Prop. 215, exempting patients
with a licensed physician's recommendation from laws against possessing,
using and cultivating marijuana. The new law has been inconsistently
enforced and state Attorney General Bill Lockyer convened a task force with
representatives from law enforcement, medicine and other interests earlier
this spring.

The result was SB 848, which sets up a voluntary state registration and
identification system for medical marijuana patients and hands jurisdiction
to the state Department of Health Services.

SB 848 is not perfect, but it would be an improvement over the current
confusion regarding the proposition. The bill has passed the Senate, passed
the relevant committees in the Assembly and is due for an Assembly floor
vote this week.

But Gov. Gray Davis has indicated, through a spokesman, that he might veto
SB 848 because of potential conflicts with federal law, and some law
enforcement organizations still have doubts about the bill. Federal law
says citizens can't grow, possess, sell or smoke marijuana.

So Sen. Vasconcellos might introduce an amendment that some task force
members suggested earlier.

Briefly, the amendment in its present form would require doctors with
patients who have a physician's recommendation for medical marijuana to
notify the county health department, sending along the patient's name, date
of birth and Social Security number. The county health department would be
required to convey this information to the state health department, which
would place it in a database that could be accessed by law enforcement
officials.

It's not hard to see potential privacy and other troublesome aspects to
this proposal. There's a big difference between voluntarily supplying
personal data about marijuana use and being required to. A key concern
would be potential use of the list by law enforcement officials or others
to in some way to identify, target or keep tabs on admitted marijuana
users. Such a registry could violate the Fifth Amendment's guarantee
against self-incrimination - asking users to admit their marijuana use
while it's still punishable under federal law.

Too, a mandatory reporting system is different enough from Prop. 215 that
it could violate the California constitutional prohibition against the
Legislature making substantive changes to an initiative passed by the voters.

It's one thin to require doctors to report cases of infectious diseases
that could create an epidemic, or even to do a little extra paperwork when
they prescribe cocaine or morphine. But to force doctors to create a state
database of medical marijuana patients with their names and personal data
and makes no sense. The California Medical Association came out against
this proposal, obviously concerned about the breach of doctor-patient
confidentiality and the precedent that would be set.

It would be better to challenge Gov. Davis to veto a good bill, in the face
of overwhelming public support for medical marijuana, than to present him a
bad bill. If SB 848 includes this amendment it would be a bad bill.