IT'S TIME TO UPDATE AND IMPROVE STATE'S MEDICAL-MARIJUANA LAW

Sens. Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Jerome Delvin Urge the Legislature to
Pass a Medical-Marijuana Bill.

WASHINGTON easily adopted medical marijuana by initiative in 1998,
with 59 percent of the vote. That strong public support remains today.
A recent poll found that 84 percent of Washington voters favor
"allowing patients with terminal or debilitating conditions to possess
and consume marijuana if their doctors recommend it."

Unfortunately, the law is not working as the voters intended. This is
why Senate Bill 5073 - currently under consideration in the
Legislature - is so important and needs to be passed by the state
House. If it doesn't pass by Tuesday, the bill will die.

This bill would comprehensively license and regulate the production
and dispensation of marijuana for medical use, and provide clarity to
both law enforcement and patients about how to comply with the law.
Patients, law enforcement and communities all will benefit from its
passage.

Fixing Washington's medical-marijuana law is a separate issue from the
legalization debate. It is important we put our opinions on
legalization aside and fix the state's medical-marijuana law now. The
current situation - a chaotic proliferation of dispensaries,
unprotected patients and confusion for law enforcement - is simply
unworkable.

Under current law, authorized patients and designated providers
receive no protection from arrest and prosecution and may only raise
the law as a defense in court. This is a costly and inefficient system
for law enforcement and puts some patients through incredible
hardships. Individuals with terminal and debilitating illnesses are
still being arrested and prosecuted for trying to exercise their
rights under the law.

SB 5073 would fix this problem by ensuring that qualifying patients
won't be taken into custody and providing full protection against
arrest for patients who register in the state's secure registry. These
changes will also provide law enforcement with bright lines for
determining who is a legitimate patient.

Another problem is that there is no system for patients to obtain a
safe, secure and reliable source of marijuana for medical use. As a
result, patients are forced to take on the difficult and expensive
task of growing marijuana for themselves or turning to gray-market
dispensaries popping up around the state. This is bad policy and has
led to tremendous confusion.

Two recent court cases illustrate the problem. A Spokane man was found
guilty on drug charges for operating a medical-marijuana dispensary. A
week later, a Yakima man was found not guilty for operating a
collective garden at his residence. Further, several cities have set
up moratoriums prohibiting dispensaries until the Legislature passes
the bill, while others continue to allow them.

SB 5073 will end this confusion by setting up a system of
state-licensed and -regulated producers, processors and dispensaries
overseen by the departments of Agriculture and Health.

Our state is not alone in addressing this issue. Thirteen other states
plus the District of Columbia already have passed laws setting up
regulated systems for making marijuana available to qualifying
patients for medical purposes. And the federal government has let them
do it - the Department of Justice directed federal law enforcement not
to interfere in medical-marijuana states so long as the state's laws
are being followed.

Failure to pass SB 5073 would mean that Washington patients will be
forced to live another year in fear that they may be arrested and
prosecuted, and still have no reliable way to obtain their medicine.
It also means law enforcement and local governments will be faced with
unnecessarily difficult choices about allowing gray-market
dispensaries.

SB 5073 provides a comprehensive solution for dealing with medical
marijuana in our state. Let's pass it now.