Medical marijuana group opposes limits

Friday, Dec. 29, 2000 | 10:38 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The group that promoted and gained voter approval for marijuana to be distributed to treat illnesses in Nevada is upset by recommendations of a medical group that the use be limited to patients in research programs.

Dan Hart, chief spokesman for Nevadans for Medical Marijuana, said Thursday, "It disturbs me that this self-appointed committee thinks its wisdom is greater than the voters."

He said he would carry his fight to the Nevada Legislature to allow wider access by patients to marijuana when it is suggested by a physician.

"The voters were specific," Hart said. "They didn't want a study. If they were going to have a study, they didn't have to vote."

The committee of doctors, osteopaths and pharmacists -- which was formed by three state health boards after the medical marijuana ballot initiative passed in 1998 -- released a report this week that recommended that the distribution of the drug be done through limited research programs approved by state and federal governments.

The process, the committee said, avoids the pitfalls of California, where the federal government has challenged the state initiative in court to stop the distribution of marijuana through buyers' clubs.

Voters in 1998 and this year approved a constitutional amendment to permit medical use of marijuana for such illnesses as AIDS, cancer and glaucoma. It will be up to the Legislature to fashion a system to distribute it legally.

Federal and Nevada law still consider use or possession of marijuana a felony, though the 2001 Legislature will consider a bill to change that to a gross misdemeanor or misdemeanor.

Hart said Oregon has a system for distributing marijuana that has not drawn the ire of the federal government. In that state, he said, physicians recommend the use and the patient can grow up to six plants, with three of them flowering at a time.

He suggested the state of Nevada could also cultivate its own crop of marijuana to be distributed to patients who are registered. He said the key is "registered" to make sure there is no illegal use.

But Louis Ling, counsel for the state pharmacy board and a spokesman for the Nevada Medical Marijuana Initiative Work Group, said the committee studied those other distribution plans. "The problem with all of them is they are not legal under the present law."

Under those systems, Ling said, a patient could be arrested for possession of the drug, and a doctor who prescribed marijuana could lose his license.

The health care committee -- which included representatives of the state pharmacy, medical and osteopath boards as well as the public -- considered marijuana as a medicine. "If you grow it in your back yard, it is not a medicine," Ling said.

Ling said he tried to convince Hart that the health care committee "was not the enemy." The committee, he said, believed "it was implementing the will of the people."

Hart was invited to the three meetings of the committee, Ling said, but he never showed up for any of them, though he sent a representative to one. Hart also was given a chance to suggest changes to the final report, but he didn't, Ling said.

Hart said he wrote a letter protesting the recommendations. The medical committee's proposal "involves lots of red tape" and delays because of the approval required from three federal agencies -- the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Institute of Drug Abuse, Hart complained. And then there's the question of which patients will be included in the testing program.

Ling noted the medical committee was formed on its own and is not a lobbying group. He said members won't show up at the Legislature unless asked to. On the other hand, he said, Hart is a paid lobbyist for the marijuana proponents.