LISTEN TO VOTERS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

We question whether state lawmakers have the authority to create a
dispensary system. Why not put it before the voters?

Medical marijuana legislation pending in the state legislature could
legitimize hundreds of dispensaries, and we don't think that honors
the intent of voters who approved narrowly drawn access for sick
people. While state lawmakers may believe they have the authority to
create a dispensary system for medical marijuana - that is, we think,
a debatable legal question - we don't think they should. That is an
issue voters ought to decide.

The dispensary system that has sprouted of its own accord in the last
seven months looks to us like a backdoor effort to legalize marijuana.
Voters demonstrated in 2006 that they did not support legalization
when they overwhelmingly shot down a ballot question on the issue.

We're not sure how they would respond to a measure creating a
dispensary system. We hope they get the chance to weigh in on the
matter in a straightforward ballot question. That would clear up the
ambiguity lawmakers currently find themselves wrestling with in House
Bill 1284, which they took up last week in a marathon hearing.

The bill creates a state licensing authority and regulatory scheme for
dispensaries, hundreds of which have cropped up in the state since the
summer. For much of the last decade, the medical marijuana system
appears to have operated in ways that roughly comported with the
constitutional amendment voters approved in 2000.

The state limited caregivers to five patients each, and dispensaries,
which are not mentioned anywhere in the constitutional amendment, were
nowhere to be seen.

A couple of events changed that. First, the state Board of Health last
summer declined to formalize its five-patient limit. Second, the Obama
administration said it would relax enforcement of federal drug laws
where medical marijuana operations were concerned so long as they
followed state laws legitimizing them.

Those events resulted in a symbiotic explosion of medical marijuana
cardholders and dispensaries that serve them.

The result is nothing like the measure sold to voters in 2000, which
was pitched as small-scale use for very ill people.

Along with 1284, there is another, less controversial bill in the
legislature that brings clarity to the physician-patient relationship
and ensures doctors recommending medical marijuana use are
practitioners in good standing.

We like that Senate Bill 109 also gives investigators access to the
medical marijuana patient registry to determine whether doctors are
following the rules in recommending patients for medical marijuana
use. This bill is close to the finish line in the legislative process
and has not generated a lot of heat.

The bigger fight is going to be over HB 1284. In attempting to throw a
regulatory harness on the prickly issue of dispensaries, the bill
manages to alienate groups on opposite sides of the battle - those who
want dispensaries to operate with less oversight, and those, us
included, who don't think there is authority for them to exist.

We realize the bill is the result of compromise. But we think voters
ought to have a chance to be heard before lawmakers create a medical
marijuana landscape their constituents never envisioned.