LIQUOR REGULATORS MAY HELP OVERSEE D.C. MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM

District liquor regulators will play a lead role in the city's new
medical marijuana program when it debuts Jan. 1, according to draft
rules issued Friday by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D).

Under the regulations, the city health department would be
responsible for registering legal marijuana users. But the licensing
and oversight of the facilities that will grow and distribute medical
cannabis would be handled by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and
its enforcement arm, the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation
Administration. The prospect of having the same regulators overseeing
medical marijuana and liquor stores concerns advocates who have
fought to have cannabis recognized as a medical treatment, not just
as a drug for recreational use.

Last year, Congress removed a longstanding budget restriction that
prevented city officials from implementing a medical-marijuana
initiative that voters passed in 1998. City policymakers since have
moved to create a tightly regulated system that would forestall
future congressional interference.

Wayne Turner, who co-wrote the 1998 initiative, said Friday that he
was glad to see the city move forward but was "completely blindsided"
by the role of alcohol regulators. "Dispensaries are the front line,
and the liquor board is completely inappropriate to run this
program," he said. "Are we talking about medical marijuana Jell-O shots here?"

Turner's concerns were echoed, in somewhat less alarming terms, by
D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who said his
"preference" would be to have the health department, which regulates
pharmacies, oversee the program.

But Attorney General Peter J. Nickles said Friday that the liquor
regulators are most ready for the challenge of overseeing a new and
potentially troublesome program. "They do a terrific job in
enforcement and inspection," he said. "It was my impression in
talking to them that they could do this job."

Charles Brodsky, chairman of the alcohol board, said the challenge of
regulating marijuana is more analogous to alcohol than to
prescription drugs. "We oversee a highly regulated product in the
stream of commerce, and I think we do it pretty well," he said,
adding that he and other board officials had spent "hundreds of
hours" researching regulations from across the country.

Nickles added that having the liquor agency handle the program is the
most cost-effective option because it has a corps of administrators
and inspectors already in place.

The program could be a major revenue generator for an ailing city
budget. As many as five dispensaries would pay $10,000 per year to
register; up to 10 "cultivation centers," allowed to grow 95 plants
at a time, would pay $5,000 per year. In addition, certain corporate
officials would be required to pay a $200 annual registration fee.
Managers would pay $150 and employees $75.

Yearly registration as a medical marijuana user or caregiver would
cost $100; those earning less than twice the federal poverty level,
or about $22,000, would pay $25 and would be eligible for subsidized
marijuana on a sliding scale. Cultivators and dispensaries would be
required to devote 2 percent of their revenue to those subsidies.

The regulatory framework, laid out in an eight-page executive order
and 87 pages of administrative rules, describes the cultivation,
distribution and transportation of legal marijuana in great detail.
Under the proposed regulations:

. Doctors prescribing marijuana must be in a "bona fide
physician-patient relationship with the qualifying patient" and must
have done a physical examination no more than 90 days before
prescribing marijuana.

. Licensed users would be able to use medical marijuana only in their
homes or a medical facility where they reside, if the facility approved.

. No doctor would be allowed to locate an office at a dispensary, and
dispensaries would be prohibited from marketing themselves to doctors.

. Owners of marijuana businesses must be determined to be "of good
character" and must not have been convicted of any felony or
drug-related misdemeanor.

. Dispensaries and cultivators must obtain approval for a security
plan, must install a comprehensive video recording system, and cannot
locate within 300 feet of a school or recreation center or within a
residential area.

. Dispensaries would be prohibited from selling alcohol or engaging
in any other type of business.

Much as the liquor board can immediately shutter a bar or nightclub,
it would be able close a dispensary if it were causing "immediate
danger to the health and safety of the public." The chief of police
would be able to shut down a dispensary for 96 hours.

Nickles said the regulations were written with an eye toward avoiding
the problems seen in other states -- especially California, where
lawmakers are trying to rein in a medical marijuana industry
estimated to generate about $2 billion a year in sales. Choosing the
liquor board to oversee the industry, he said, was part of that.

Dan Riffle, a lobbyist who tracks national cannabis trends for the
Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group, called the role of a
liquor board in the District's proposed framework "novel." But, he
said, "I'm not so much concerned with who is doing the regulating as
what's in the regulations."

Turner said that when Congress is involved, the "who" matters.

"It gives our opponents, especially on Capitol Hill, reason to shut
us down," he said. "They'll say, 'This isn't about patients, it's the
liquor board doing it.' "

Catania was optimistic that the program might be modified during a
45-day review period, now underway.

"Generally speaking, I'm pleased," he said.