N.M. Legislature considering legal medical marijuana

[Photo Illustration by John A. Bowersmith]

Editor's note: This is the first in a two-part series on medical marijuana. The state legislature is considering the bill for passage this year, for the fifth time in six years.

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Crippling nausea, painful muscle spasms and other types of medical problems can be reduced or relieved by smoking marijuana and the state legislature is considering making that legal.

Reena Szczepanski, director of the Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico program said thousands of New Mexico residents could benefit by making the use of marijuana to relieve their symptoms legal.

"Family members of patients have told me heartbreaking stories,"she said.

Szczepanski was told about an 18-year-old who had stomach cancer. Doctors and nurses told him and his family they should use marijuana to relieve the nausea and pain, but no one knew where to get it.

"The doctors and nurses were afraid of being arrested if they told the family where to get it and the family members felt that way too," Szczepanski said.

"So the 18-year old went out on the street and bought it,"she said."That family should not have been placed in that position."

Choosing between life and the law if a consideration many individuals and families are faced with because using marijuana is illegal now, regardless of the situation, she said.

The bill, SB258, was introduced Thursday by state Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque,, she said, and it has a lot of bipartisan support.

The bill was introduced last year, and also in 2001, 2002 and 2003 in various forms gaining legislative support increasingly, she said.

Last year the bill passed state Senate committees, a Senate floor vote 27-11, House committees, but because of internal problems at the state capitol, it never went to the floor for the final vote, Szczepanski said.

There are several medical conditions that the use of marijuana relieves either nausea or pain, said Dr. Ron Vorhees, chief medical officer for the New Mexico Department of Health.

He said the six conditions the bill has introduced for approval are: Cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, epilepsy and patients with HIV.

Marijuana is medically proven to control and reduce nausea caused by chemotherapy or the AIDS cocktails given to HIV patients, Szczepanski said.

"It controls pain and stimulates appetite too, especially for AIDS patients,"Szczepanski said.

"There is also evidence that it helps control seizures for people who have epilepsy,"she said.

Vorhees said he had no knowledge of whether it controlled seizures or not.

Gov. Bill Richardson has asked the legislature to consider the bill again this year, even though is a 30-day session. Some legislators said they didn't want to revisit the bill in such a short session.

There are 11 states that currently allow the use of medical marijuana. They are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Rhode Island.

A drug, "Marinol," has many of the components of marijuana, but it is poorly absorbed and it is difficult to monitor and control, according to information provided by the Alliance.

In New Mexico, about 6,400 patients are diagnosed with cancer every year, about 2,700 cancer patients die each year and about 2,800 New Mexicans are living with HIV/AIDS, according to the Alliance.

Vorhees said the state does not have any statistics on how many patients there are in the various medical categories, and that of those, how many would actually benefit from marijuana.

The health department will be required to set up rules and requirements for patients and doctors to follow for prescribing the drug as well as for issuing it to patients, Vorhees said.

He said any doctors prescribing marijuana would have to provide information on what the patient's conditions is, why the patient needs it and what drugs have not worked.

An advisory panel of physicians in various medical specialties would sit on a board and review requests for marijuana.

"The advisory panel would make recommendations on what other conditions may be included and determine a list of what is acceptable as well as how much the patient would receive," he said.

— To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jimtiffin1@msn.com.