VOLUNTEERS LINING UP TO GROW MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Imagine farmers from near and far lured by the prospect of growing pot
for a new niche of medical marijuana patients in The Land of
Enchantment.

Since the New Mexico Legislature passed the Lynn and Erin
Compassionate Use Act this year, people who want to become licensed
producers of medical marijuana have called or visited the state
Department of Health. The stories that Health Department employees
tell about these characters are hilarious, though no one has been
willing to tell those stories on the record for print.

"We've had several people approach us," Dr. Steve Jenison, medical
director for infectious diseases with the Health Department, said.
"Our response has been -- we have not decided how to implement that
part of the law."

What's happening is quite unusual. In other states with medical
marijuana laws, the Health Department typically has a small role, such
as keeping a registry of patients and caregivers who are approved to
use, possess and grow marijuana for medical purposes. Colorado and
Oregon, for example, leave it up to patients to figure out where to
get their medicine.

The law in New Mexico requires the Health Department to license people
within the state to produce, possess, distribute and dispense
marijuana for approved patients -- something new that could open the
state to a legal battle from the federal government because it means
the state would be involved in an activity that the federal government
considers a crime.

"If (New Mexico's health) department distributes medical cannabis to
qualified patients, they will be the first state Department of Health
to do so," Reena Szczepanski, director of the Drug Policy Alliance New
Mexico, said.

This national group lobbied New Mexico lawmakers to support the bill,
and padded Gov. Bill Richardson's campaign coffers with $50,000 in
2006.

Szczepanski notes that seven patients receive medical cannabis from
the federal government's National Institute on Drug Abuse, the only
other government entity to distribute medical cannabis to patients.

When the law was being formulated, Attorney General Gary King said it
wouldn't change the fact that the use, distribution and possession of
marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Officially, the federal
government doesn't even recognize pot as having any medicinal properties.

And that means, New Mexico's medical marijuana law can't assure state
employees -- or anyone else involved in the medical marijuana program
- -- protection from federal prosecution. "It's still against the
federal law, so (state employees) do so really at their own peril at
this stage," AG spokesman Phil Sisneros said Thursday.

So far, no one has asked the Attorney General's Office for a formal
opinion, he said.

On Thursday, the Health Department, a representative from the AG's
office and others heard Dr. Donald Abrams, a clinical researcher at
the University of California -- San Francisco, present evidence that
supports marijuana as an effective treatment in specific clinical
situations. Those assembled also discussed the challenges of
implementing New Mexico's new law.

"This is obviously a very complicated issue," Jenison said, "and we're
(addressing) it in a very deliberate manner."

For people who have been waiting years for the state to make medical
marijuana legal, the message is: Don't be surprised if implementation
of the law gets bumpy.

Nonetheless, the Health Department will start issuing free, temporary
medical marijuana cards to patients when the law goes into effect July
1, according to Jenison. Later on, a fee will be applied.

The state is putting together an advisory board of eight physicians to
formulate rules and regulations regarding the medical marijuana
program in New Mexico. By Oct. 1, the program should be fully
implemented.

"Yes, we are the only state that has included in statute that the
Department of Health will issue regulations regarding the licensure of
production and distribution of the medicine," Szczepanski said in an
e-mail. "However, many municipalities and counties in other states
have implemented regulations about production and distribution, and
other states have chosen to promulgate regulations concerning
production and distribution though they were not expressly instructed
to do so by legislation."

Depending on how the New Mexico Department of Health writes the
regulations, card-holders could be allowed to be licensed producers of
medical marijuana, she noted.

"There are many possibilities through regulation, and right now
experts in the state and nationally are examining these many
possibilities for implementation," she said. "Many patients would
prefer to receive cannabis through a distribution system rather than
'grow their own,' but that may not be immediately possible."

New Mexico is the 12th state to legalize marijuana for medicinal
purposes.

Through a constitutional amendment, the drug became available in
Colorado in 2001. Today, the registry contains 1,300 patients,
according to Ronald Hyman, state registrar of vital statistics.

About 80 percent have been diagnosed with chronic pain. Muscle spasms
are the second most common condition of people participating in the
medical marijuana program. Notice that patients with cancer or
HIV/AIDS are not at the top of the list.

To get a medical marijuana card from the Colorado Health Department, a
patient must be diagnosed by a licensed physician in Colorado with one
of the qualifying conditions and a doctor must recommend (though
cannot officially prescribe) marijuana as a remedy. So far 315 doctors
have done so.

No background check into the patient's legal or addiction history is
required. The ID card allows the patient to use and possess marijuana,
as well as grow up to six plants at a time. But you're on your own to
find the seeds.

Every year, the patient must register for a new card with the Health
Department. This week, the Colorado Board of Health voted to drop the
registry application fee to $90 a year. That's a savings of $20.

The registry is anonymous. But if law enforcement calls the Health
Department to check on someone's status, the Health Department must
say whether the person is or isn't on the registry.

Production and distribution are left to patients and/or the
marketplace. "That is outside our purview," Hyman said. "We do not get
into how the individual obtains the substance."

In California, a statewide distribution system wasn't explicitly
written into the law, but the law was vague enough that city and
county governments have been able to license, regulate or even ban
medical marijuana dispensaries. So what you have there is a patchwork
distribution system for 13,000 card-holders.

Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project (a pro-legalization
group) said the Drug Enforcement Administration has raided some
dispensaries in California but hasn't gone after local government entities.

Tim Christie, a reporter at The Register-Guard in Eugene, Ore.,
explained how the medical marijuana program works there (via e-mail):

"Under Oregon's law, passed by voters in 1998, the only role of state
officials is to issue cards to patients who submit an application
signed by a physician stating that marijuana MAY help them with one of
a handful of conditions and related symptoms (cancer, HIV and AIDS,
Alzheimer's disease, nausea, wasting disease, pain, seizures, muscle
spasms). The card serves as a shield if police come knocking (though
of course it's a meaningless piece of paper if the Feds show up for
some reason). Once a card is issued, it is up to the patient to figure
out how to get marijuana, either by growing it themselves, finding
someone else (dubbed a caregiver, also a card-holder) to grow it for
them or to obtaining it on the black market.

"Efforts to liberalize the program (creating state-licensed
dispensaries, expanding the number of plants and amount of marijuana
that a patient can possess) have failed at the polls.

"I don't have the latest numbers, but the program has grown steadily
(thanks in part to one enthusiastic doctor who single-handedly signed
thousands of applications, many without seeing the patient, and has
since been put out of business by the Board of Medical
Examiners)."

The Web site for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program cites these
figures:

a.. Number of patients holding cards -- 14,050 b.. Number of
Oregon-licensed physicians who have signed applications -- 2,513 c..
Most common conditions of card-holding patients -- severe pain,
persistent muscle spasms and nausea. In Oregon, the annual application
fee is $100 per year. But for those who are enrolled in the state's
medical assistance program, the cost is $20.

Of course, that only gets you a card, not the pot. Insurance won't
cover the cost of this drug.

In New Mexico, people with cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis,
damage to the nervous tissue of the spinal cord, epilepsy, HIV/AIDs or
any other medical condition approved by the Health Department can seek
a doctor's recommendation for medical marijuana. So can people in
hospice care.