28
04
Legislation to permit marijuana use by people with severe chronic pain sparked heated Senate debate Thursday between a two-time cancer survivor who supports the bill and a physician who fears doctors would “over-prescribe” the illegal drug.
Sen. David R. Brinkley, who survived Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1989 and melanoma in 1995, said marijuana provides the best and safest relief for people living with constant pain. But Sen. Andrew P. Harris, an anesthesiologist, expressed deep concern that the legislation could be abused by treating physicians or lead unethical doctors to exploit the law by starting a side business of growing marijuana for medicinal use.
The Senate is scheduled to continue its consideration of the measure Friday morning.
If the legislation is enacted, Maryland would become the 15th state that permits medicinal marijuana use without penalty. Maryland currently allows medicinal use to be asserted as an affirmative defense to a marijuana-possession charge. But the defense, if successful, merely reduces the penalty to a $100 fine.
“Whether we like it or not,” thousands of desperate Marylanders in severe chronic pain are getting marijuana illegally from drug dealers, said Brinkley, R-Carroll and Frederick. Brinkley, who said he did not use marijuana when he had cancer, would prefer that these patients receive the treatment legally and under the care of their physician rather than illicitly through the “black market.”
Harris, though expressing sympathy for those in severe pain, countered that the legislation does not place sufficient constraints on physicians. The measure also does not bar doctors from growing the drug and then recommending it to patients, he said.
“This will solve our physician shortage problem in Maryland,” said Harris, R-Harford and Baltimore counties. “Where is the oversight of the physician?”
But Sen. Jamin B. “Jamie” Raskin, a co-sponsor of the bill, defended the legislation as creating “a carefully controlled and regulated system” in which both patients and would-be growers of marijuana would have to receive prior permission from the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
“It [the legislation] is about getting the drug dealers out of the medical marijuana business and the doctors into it,” Raskin said.
Doctors would remain subject to their professional obligations, as enforced by the Maryland Board of Physicians, added Raskin, D-Montgomery.
Regulating the players
The measure, Senate Bill 627, would enable a patient’s regular treating physician to recommend marijuana for “a chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition” that causes severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, severe or persistent muscle spasms or “any other condition that is severe and resistant to conventional medicine.” Patients with these conditions would have to receive an “identification card” from the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene affirming they are qualified for marijuana treatment.
The application for the card would have to include a statement from the regularly treating physician that the patent has “a debilitating medical condition for which recognized drugs or treatments would not be effective.” The doctor would also have to state that “the potential benefits of the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the health risks for the patient.”
Growers of medical marijuana would also have to be certified by the department.
To get certification, the grower would have to cultivate the marijuana in Maryland, meet security and safety requirements set by the department and pass a criminal background check.
The certified grower, and any pharmacy dispensing marijuana, would be barred from hiring anyone who has been convicted of possessing or selling a controlled dangerous substance. The grower would also have to submit to testing of the marijuana to ensure its consistency and that it has not been adulterated or contaminated.
“I don’t think you can write a more airtight program” to permit the medicinal use of marijuana while preventing its illicit use or sale, Raskin said.
“There are thousands of our constituents” who want the General Assembly to pass this bill, Raskin told his colleagues. “They are suffering.”
But Harris reiterated the need for stricter limits in the bill to prevent doctors from over-prescribing marijuana and prohibit them from seeking the department’s authorization to grow the drug.
If passed by the Senate, the measure would move to the House of Delegates for its consideration.
The 14 states that allow marijuana use for medicinal purposes are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group that lobbies for the drug’s legalization.
The growing national movement to allow marijuana use to treat severe chronic pain received a boost in October, when the Obama administration announced it will not prosecute cases against individuals whose use of marijuana is in compliance with state law.
Write a comment!