MEDICAL POT USE UP IN SMOKE

BOSTON -- Lawmakers effectively killed a bill to legalize marijuana
for medical use in Massachusetts, citing concerns about a recent U.S.
Supreme Court decision allowing federal agents to arrest people who
use pot to ease their pain or nausea from chemotherapy treatment.

The joint Public Health Committee sent a medical marijuana bill to
be studied on Wednesday, thus stopping it from advancing to the full
Legislature and effectively killing it this session.

"It was about the Supreme Court decision," state Rep. Peter
Koutoujian, D-Waltham, House chairman of the committee, said about
why the bill was sent to study.

The committee, he said, didn't "even really get to the issue of
whether it should be allowed or not, because it was against the
federal law and Constitution."

State Rep. Frank Smizik, D-Brookline, had filed the bill. Its
co-sponsors include state Reps. Deborah Blumer, D-Framingham, and
Ruth Balser, D-Newton.

The Supreme Court's 6-3 decision last year allows federal agents to
arrest people who use pot to treat pain regardless of whether their
states have legalized medical marijuana. Rhode Island earlier this
year became the 11th state to allow medical marijuana, joining
states including Maine and Vermont.

At the State House, separate legislation to decriminalize the
possession of small amounts of marijuana was endorsed two weeks ago
by the joint Mental Health and Substance Abuse Committee. That bill
to make possession of less than one once of marijuana a civil offense
is now before the Senate Ways and Means Committee.