AZ - New push in Ariz. for medical marijuana

[Galaxy]

New push in Ariz. for medical marijuana
Voters OK'd prior efforts only to see them blocked

by Matthew Benson - Apr. 18, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

An initiative planned for the 2010 ballot would ask Arizona voters to legalize medical marijuana, setting up a California-style network of cannabis clubs and even allow some patients to grow their own drug supply.

It's the fourth time since 1996 that state voters have been asked to decriminalize marijuana as a medical treatment. Local supporters, backed by the national Marijuana Policy Project, have their sights set on the 2010 general election and plan to submit ballot language to the Secretary of State's Office as early as next week.

The initiative would allow individuals with illnesses ranging from cancer to HIV/AIDS or glaucoma to seek a doctor's recommendation for medical marijuana, according to draft ballot language obtained by The Arizona Republic.

Eligible individuals would be able to purchase up to 2 1/2 ounces of the drug every 14 days from a series of non-profit outlets, known as dispensaries. Patients in rural areas of the state could cultivate a limited number of their own marijuana plants.

Marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug under federal guidelines, like heroin or LSD. But the initiative would shield from state prosecution the doctors who recommend marijuana for medical treatment, the dispensary workers who provide it and the patients who use it. Thirteen states already have legalized medical marijuana in some fashion, though only California has established a widespread network of dispensaries to distribute it.

Proponents of medical marijuana say it can relieve pain and suffering.

Supporters of the Arizona initiative say it would provide another treatment alternative to the desperately ill, sparing them and their family from having to brave the underground drug market and risk criminal prosecution.

"These people are facing a terrible choice," said Andrew Myers, campaign manager for the Arizona initiative. "It's either continue to suffer with debilitating effects or risk arrest and jail time."

Skeptics voice worry:

Skeptics aren't so sure. They question the drug's medicinal benefits and wonder whether efforts to legalize it for the sick and dying are a prelude to decriminalization for everyone else in the future.

"Don't get blinded by the smokescreen," warned Rick Romley, a former Maricopa County attorney. "It's still a step toward legalization of marijuana. That's what it has been since Day 1."

Romley was in office in 1996 during the state's initial medical marijuana vote.

By a nearly 2-1 ratio, voters approved a ballot proposal that OK'd use of the drug for medical purposes, but lawmakers subsequently stripped the provision from the law.

In 1998, federal authorities threatened to revoke the license of physicians who prescribed the drug.

That same year, voters rejected a ballot attempt to require that the federal government or Congress OK the use of medical marijuana before it could be prescribed by a doctor.

In 2002, Arizona voters rejected an effort to decriminalize possession of small quantities of marijuana and make the drug available free of charge to patients suffering from cancer and other diseases.

Medical-marijuana supporters think the timing is right to try once more. They believe they've solved the past licensing issue with their latest initiative, which requires that patients obtain a physician's "recommendation," rather than a prescription, to obtain the drug.

Additionally, new U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently indicated that federal authorities will not pursue cases involving medical marijuana in states that allow the practice, a reversal of Bush administration policy.

Backers of the initiative need to gather at least 153,000 valid signatures to qualify for the 2010 ballot. Myers is confident his group can do that and is girding for a multimillion-dollar campaign.

A degree of mercy:

The issue of medical marijuana is personal for Ellen Terry Friedman.

In early 1988, the Tempe woman's father, Harold, was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 70. The disease had spread to his bones.

His condition deteriorated over the next 18 months. Toward the end, Harold was no longer undergoing chemotherapy or radiation. He was under hospice care and on morphine. But he still suffered.

So, in her father's last month or so of life, Friedman said, the oncologist suggested the family obtain marijuana to dull Harold's pain and help with his nausea. She won't say how the family got the drug, but it did.

"It was a shocking position to be put in, let's put it that way," she said. "Nobody should be put in that position."

The marijuana seemed to help, Friedman said. Her father regained a bit of appetite. He found a degree of mercy.

"It was a horrible, painful death, but it was eased somewhat," she said. "We wanted him to die with the least pain, and the medical marijuana was an integral part of that."

Conflict continues:

Romley sympathizes with those who suffer. But he worries that some patients or doctors would misuse the law, especially given a provision in the initiative that would allow patients to obtain the drug if they displayed symptoms such as severe pain or seizures. What constitutes severe pain would be a matter for a doctor's judgment.

State Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, has similar concerns. But he's conflicted on the issue of medical marijuana. Although he worries "this is just the gateway to legalizing marijuana," Paton also has seen the drug used with medical benefits.

Before dying of cancer a couple of years ago, a friend of Paton's used marijuana to ease the suffering.

"He smoked pot because he was too sick," said Paton, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "He couldn't keep the (pain) pills down."

If marijuana is a legitimate medical treatment, Romley said, backers should seek its legalization through the health community and federal government, not at the ballot box.

"I just don't believe we decide what's good medicine at the ballot box," he said. "The vast bulk of the medical community has never pushed it to be a drug legalized for medicinal purposes."

Myers countered that federal drug laws continue to make medical research involving marijuana difficult.

And while he conceded that the national Marijuana Policy Project has broader aims with regard to the drug's legalization, he said the Arizona initiative is narrowly written with its intent solely on helping people fighting severe illness.

"There are 13 other states with medical-marijuana laws," Myers said. "None of those 13 has moved to total legalization."

[Galaxy]

Arizona Could Make Medical Marijuana Reality
Posted by CN Staff on May 07, 2009 at 15:09:56 PT
By Dr. Ronald Fraser
Source: East Valley Tribune

Arizona -- At long last, policymakers in Washington have begun to draw a line between illicit drug use and the legitimate use of drugs as medicine. In March, President Barack Obama's attorney general announced the federal government will no longer prosecute medical marijuana clinics that operate in compliance with state laws. This means lawmakers in Phoenix are now free to decide - without interference from Washington - if marijuana will fill a medical niche in Arizona.

Thirteen states have already removed criminal penalties for the use of medical marijuana and actively regulate how, with a medical doctor's recommendation, marijuana is made available for patients with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, severe pain, glaucoma, epilepsy and other chronic conditions. But until now, Washington has disregarded these state laws. Since California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, for example, federal agents have raided more than 100 marijuana distribution centers there.

Washington's First Step

The first step has been taken with Washington's tacit acknowledgement that closing down state-regulated marijuana clinics is a misuse of taxpayers' money and harmful to Americans coping with serious illnesses. Many thousands of ill people attest that smoking, vaporizing or orally ingesting marijuana relieves pain, nausea and other symptoms far more effectively than Marinol, a pharmaceutically available synthetic version of marijuana.

While the federal government still officially maintains - contrary to solid medical evidence - that marijuana has no medicinal value, at least it has pledged not to raid medical marijuana facilities that are sanctioned by state law.

Arizona's Next Step?

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington-based advocate for legalizing medical marijuana, Arizona currently has a medical marijuana law on the books that allows patients to possess marijuana if it is obtained through a valid prescription. But under the law there is no legal supply of marijuana to fill such prescriptions.

In addition, a 2007 survey by the Marijuana Policy Project asked registered Arizona voters if they supported an initiative to "allow Arizona residents with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and other serious illnesses to grow and use marijuana for medical purposes, as long as their physician approves." Sixty-eight percent of the respondents said they supported such an initiative.

Washington's new medical marijuana policy gives Arizona the freedom to exercise its historic role as the primary watchdog for the health and welfare of its citizens. Whether or not Arizona patients will be given greater access to medical marijuana is now up to the state Legislature or the voters.

Other Medicinal Drugs

Marijuana is not the only targeted medical drug. In all 50 states, federal raids can still close down pain clinics and arrest pain management physicians who prescribe large doses of opioids - highly effective, legal painkillers made from opium or synthetics with the properties of opiate narcotics.

Dr. Joel Hochman, director of the National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain in Houston, says the drug-war hysteria is making it too risky for many doctors to accept patients in chronic pain and that, with help from the media, federal raids on so-called "pill mills" paint a false picture that the streets are awash in drugs carelessly handed out by unprincipled doctors.

Instead, he claims, these clinics provide last-resort care to largely uninsured or under-insured blue-collar and other limited-income workers, many with work-related injuries, who can only afford a five-minute visit at high-volume, low-cost, low-profit clinics.

To stay in business these clinics must see 60 to 100 patients each day. With this level of traffic, doctors can make errors and patients can lie about their ailments _ making the clinics easy targets for federal agents. But, since these clinics provide valuable medical services, Hochman says law enforcement polices are misdirected.

His bottom line is: "Wake up America. The dope lords are making billions. The little pain clinics in the strip shopping centers sure aren't."

Instead of getting drugs off the streets, Hochman adds that closing down these pain clinics will "drive patients into the streets, seeking relief from their suffering. Their choices become: score hydrocodone off the street; score heroin off the street; drown their pain with alcohol. No one can tolerate unrelieved pain."

What to do? "End opiophobia and fantasy-driven public policies," Hochman said, "and establish publicly supported clinics so every suffering person can get relief. Confront the fact that law enforcement agencies and prisons are all strung out on the drug prohibition laws and need to be brought back to reality."

Here is a rare opportunity for elected officials in Arizona and in Washington to take a long hard look at how harsh drug laws are undermining medical care in America.

For the millions of people desperately coping with chronic ailments, let's not waste it.

Dr. Ronald Fraser writes on public policy issues for the DKT Liberty Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization.

Source: East Valley Tribune (AZ)
Author: Dr. Ronald Fraser
Published: May 7, 2009
Copyright: 2009 East Valley Tribune
Contact: [email protected]
URL: Ariz. could make medical marijuana reality | Opinion | eastvalleytribune.com (http://drugsense.org/url/tzWMRIq6)
Website: Arizona local news - Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek, Phoenix, Scottsdale | eastvalleytribune.com | eastvalleytribune.com (http://www.eastvalleytribune.com)

[Galaxy]

Friday, May 15, 2009

PHOENIX -- A initiative drive launched Thursday would give some people who are prescribed marijuana and test positive for the drug on the job the same legal anti-discrimination protections against getting fired as women and minorities.

The measure, dubbed the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, would allow doctors to essentially prescribe marijuana to patients who are suffering from any one of a specific set of conditions. It also would allow creation of a network of nonprofit shops that would sell marijuana to those who have those prescriptions and allow those not within 25 miles of a shop to grow their own.

Backers need to gather 153,365 valid signatures by July 1, 2010 to put the measure on the ballot that year.

If they are successful, it will be the fourth time Arizonans get to decide whether there are legitimate medical uses for the drug.

Voters approved a measure in 1996 allowing doctors to prescribe otherwise illegal drugs to seriously and terminally ill patients, only to have key provisions repealed by the Legislature.

That repeal was overridden by voters in 1998. But the wording of the measure -- requiring an actual written prescription - made it useless after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency threatened to revoke all prescription-writing privileges of any doctor who wrote such an order.

A 2002 measure sought to get around that by making a simple written recommendation by a doctor sufficient. But that initiative failed for several reasons, including a provision that would have made the Department of Public Safety the state's largest marijuana supplier.

This new plan, modeled after similar laws in other states, also requires only "written certification' from a doctor to get up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana every two weeks. The drugs would come from nonprofit dispensaries, though the question of where they get their plants or seeds is not addressed.

But campaign manager Andrew Meyers said there are differences in this plan designed to make it less subject to abuse than the California model, like distance restrictions of these shops from schools.

There also is a list of medical conditions that could be treated with marijuana, ranging from glaucoma and AIDS to chronic or debilitating conditions that lead to severe and chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures or severe and persistent muscle spasms.

What it also contains, though, are anti-discrimination provisions, including one that says an employer cannot make hiring, firing and disciplinary conditions based on a person's status as the holder of a medical marijuana card. Potentially more significant, that protection extends to someone who tests positive for drugs unless the person used or possessed marijuana on the job or was "impaired' during work hours.

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall said the problem is proving what constitutes impairment.

With alcohol, she said, it's easy: Tests determine a blood alcohol content. And there are standards in both state and federal laws that determine what level constitutes impairment.

That doesn't exist for marijuana.

Attorney Don Johnsen, who specializes in labor law, said the language, similar to laws that prohibit discrimination on race, religion or gender, will lead to a lawsuit every time a company fires or refuses to hire someone with a medical marijuana card if he or she positive. Johnsen said each side will hire medical experts to argue to a jury whether a specific reading of a metabolite of marijuana shows the person was impaired.

Meyers agreed the question of what happens to a worker who tests positive "becomes a question for the courts.' But Meyers said he's not concerned about employer rights in these cases.

"We don't believe that someone that is using a medication that their doctor recommends to them should be fired because they're following a doctor's advice,' he said. Meyers said marijuana should not be treated different than other prescriptions.

Johnsen, however, said that's precisely the effect. He said employers are now free to fire people for virtually any reason at all, including showing up at work under the influence of other legal drugs.

Another provision says schools could not refuse to enroll and landlords could not refuse to rent to those entitled to use medical marijuana unless they would lose dollars or licensing because of federal laws.

And the use of marijuana for medical purposes could not be taken into account in child custody or visitation disputes, nor would it be evidence of neglect or child endangerment "unless the person's behavior creates an unreasonable danger to the safety of the minor as established by clear and convincing evidence.'

Nothing in the Arizona proposal, like those approved in other states, would immunize anyone from prosecution under federal drug possession laws. But the record so far has been that federal agents have shown little interest in going after individuals for possessing small amounts of marijuana.