GRASS IN MASS

Medical Marijuana Could Become Legal In The Commonwealth

It would seem these are dark days for the medical-marijuana movement.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in Gonzales v. Raich that the feds
can prosecute patients even in states with laws allowing prescribed use --
a decision that would seem to be a definitive "no" on the subject handed
down by the highest court in the land. White House drug czar John Walters
even claimed the ruling "marks the end of medical marijuana as a political
issue." Not so. "The Raich decision really wasn't a setback in legal terms,
it just preserved the status quo," says Krissy Oechslin, assistant
director of communication for the Marijuana Policy Project. "Federal law
remains the same. The decision did not overturn state laws, and it didn't
prevent other states from passing laws. It also didn't prevent Congress
from changing federal law." So, even in the wake of the Raich ruling, we
see Rhode Island, our plucky neighbor to the south, poised to join Maine,
Vermont, and eight other states in passing its own medical-marijuana law.
(See "Rhode Trip," News and Features, July 8.) The state senate overrode
Governor Donald Carcieri's veto in June, and the House of Representatives
is expected to gather for a series of override votes by the end of the
year, and may well have the majority they'll need. But what about
Massachusetts, ostensibly the bluest of the blue states? Where's our
medical-marijuana law? In fact, there is legislation on the books that was
signed into law by then-governor William Weld in the 1990s. But the law
requires that the marijuana in any state-sponsored program be supplied by
the feds. Unsurprisingly, they've not provided any, so medical marijuana is
effectively illegal in the Commonwealth.

That may be changing.

In 2004, there were five non-binding medical marijuana initiatives on
ballots across Massachusetts, and all of them passed by at least
two-to-one. So public opinion is there.

The medical community is on board, too. "I sent out a letter asking for
physicians to sign saying that they support the medical use of marijuana,
and over 1000 physicians signed it," says Representative Frank
Smizik (D-Brookline), who has submitted a bill before the House Committee
on Public Health that would amend the current law. Still, he says, "I
don't see real movement in Massachusetts. There's some action in other
states that's not happening here."

In part, that can be ascribed to the chilling effect the Raich case has had
on legislators. Even though the decision doesn't proscribe the passing of
state laws, says Smizik, "it still makes it very difficult to pass a law in
Massachusetts." Lawmakers are too willing to use it as an excuse for their
own reluctance to sign on to legislation. Smizikas bill, HB 2742, which
would amend current law by allowing patients certified by the Department of
Public Health to procure their own marijuana, hasn't yet been heard before
committee. "But I'm sure they're going to be reluctant to move forward
with that decision out there."

Perhaps a more basic approach, one that steers clear of the entanglements
of state bureaucracy, stands a better chance of success.

Another bill, SB 998, sponsored by Senator Thomas McGee (D-Lynn), would
simply give a prima facie defense to patients, doctors, or caregivers who
possess or prescribe marijuana. "I'm optimistic about 998," says Whitney
Taylor, executive director of the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts,
who's lobbied for the bill. "It doesn't cost any money, it will actually
probably end up saving money.

It's not a big system. The state doesn't have to get involved with
distribution issues and regulation issues, which I think can always be a
stumbling block." Even if neither of these bills ends up signed into law,
the committee restructuring implemented earlier this year on Beacon Hill
may bode well for future proposals. "Our medical-marijuana bills had
always gone through the criminal-justice committees; this year it's being
routed through the health committee," says Bill Downing, director of MASS
CANN/NORML. "So that, for us is a big change. It means some of the
[legislators] we had trouble with, who had stalled our bills, we're bypassing."

Then, of course, there.s the issue of whether or not Governor Mitt Romney
would ever sign a marijuana bill into law. Asked about the chances for his
own bill, should it ever get that far, Representative Smizik just chuckles.
"I think he.d probably veto it." But one never knows.

A call to Romney spokesmen for comment went unreturned, but the governor
has said things in the past that indicate he's not as opposed to the issue
as one might expect a Mormon, conservative Republican to be. At a White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy summit in Boston in 2003, he
wondered aloud why medical marijuana couldn't be treated like any other
potential pharmaceutical: "Would it not be appropriate to subject marijuana
to this same [drug-testing] process?" Funny he should ask.

A "No-Brainer"

Massachusetts is at the center of a fight for marijuana testing -- a
battle that's arguably the most important front in the war since Gonzales
v. Raich. Dr. Lyle Craker, a professor of plant and soil sciences at
UMass Amherst, wants a license to grow research-grade marijuana for Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) "approved studies" and, potentially, future
prescription as an FDA-approved drug. (See "The Right To Grow," News and
Features, August 26.) This would supplant the poor-quality stuff
dispensed, stingily, by the feds from the single crop maintained by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse in Mississippi. But the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA), after three years of stonewalling, denied his
application. So, with the help of the ACLU and Belmont-based
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Research, Craker is suing the
DEA. Hearings before an administrative-law judge took place in August, and
more are scheduled for this month, but victory is far from assured.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Representative Barney Frank's States' Rights to
Medical Marijuana Act, which would reschedule the drug so that states with
medical-marijuana laws can escape federal interference, was introduced
before the House and referred to the Subcommittee on Health in May. But the
bill has been introduced many times before, and has always been voted down;
there's little reason to believe things will be different this time. So
it's up to the state to make it so.

"I think if we continue our present strategy, eventually [opposition] will
just become ridiculous," says Downing. "Our present strategy is to run
these public-policy questions in every election cycle, in as many
legislative districts as we possibly can. One by one, the legislators who
represent those districts are being told by their constituents, "This is
what we want." Two-to-one. So it becomes very difficult for those
legislators to either not lend their support or actually oppose
medical-marijuana legislative opportunities." Whitney Taylor, for one,
thinks the issue may be reaching a tipping point. "We've already had
discussions on Beacon Hill that never would have happened in the last 10
years," she says. "There's actually a willingness to learn.

The public is there.

The science is there.

To me, this should be a no-brainer."