BITTER PILL TO SWALLOW

A Spat Between Medical-Pot Allies

Medical marijuana advocates aren't interested in swallowing cannabis in
pill form. Instead, they want to stick to their pipe dreams. And they were
super bummed to read that one of their favorite lawmakers was tinkering
with their plan.

Youngstown area state rep. Ken Carano told The Other Paper last week that
he was planning to introduce a bill that would allow for the medicinal use
of marijuana.

In a move aimed at giving the measure broader support, the 58 year-old
Democrat said the bill would be crafted to allow a medical marijuana pill
to be swallowed, rather than legalizing the medicinal smoking of pot.

That was news to medicinal pot advocates who drew up the original draft of
the bill that Carano is still tweaking. And they made it clear this week
that they don't support pill popping.

"Honestly, I would still be lobbying to find a sponsor if I knew that was
the case," said Deirdre Zoretic, director of patient advocacy for the Ohio
Patient Network. "The pill isn't acceptable to us."

Carano said a bill that allows marijuana to be smoked for medicinal reasons
has no chance of gaining approval from Ohio lawmakers where Republicans
dominate both legislative bodies.

"The bill they want won't even get one hearing at the Statehouse," he said.
"I'm trying to find something that has bipartisan support."

Zoretic, who once smoked pot to help a degenerative medical condition but
stopped three years ago after a marijuana conviction, said a marijuana pill
would be too similar to Marinol, a pill with synthetic THC (the active
ingredient in marijuana) that some people have difficulty swallowing.

"We have people right now that have been prescribed that pill and they
can't take it," she said. She said her group is open to legislation that
would allow alternative ways of ingesting marijuana - such as a new
European inhaler similar to what asthma patients use or a marijuana spray
extract now available in Great Britain. But she said federal law would have
to first be changed to allow their use in Ohio or any other state.

At minimum, Zoretic said proponents want to see Ohio reinstate a medical
defense for marijuana use that existed briefly in 1996. Back then,
lawmakers inadvertently passed a provision allowing people to defend
themselves against a pot possession charge by showing they needed the weed
for medicinal purposes. Months later, after lawmakers realized the
provision had been tucked in a larger bill, they voted to take it out.

"At the very least, people need to be able to tell the judge not only that
they had marijuana but also about the circumstances and that they had it
for health reasons," Zoretic said. "It's not fair to anyone the way that
the law is now.