Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jan 2011
Source: Tri-City Herald (WA)
Copyright: 2011 Tri-City Herald
Contact:  http://www.tri-cityherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/459
Author: Michelle Dupler, Herald staff writer
Bookmark: http://www.drugsense.org/cms/geoview/n-us-wa (Washington)

MEDICINAL POT PATIENTS MIGHT GET PROTECTIONS

Medical marijuana patients in Washington could have protection from 
arrest in 2012 if the Legislature adopts a bill making reforms to the 
voter-approved law authorizing use of the drug for some terminal and 
debilitating illnesses.

Although the law has been in place for more than 12 years, many 
patients still complain they are harassed by police, said Sen. Jerome 
Delvin, R-Richland, a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the bill.

Delvin pushed for the bill to include a voluntary registry that would 
give medical marijuana patients a card that they can show to police 
rather than submitting to searches of their homes or property.

"It allows us to know what's going on out there," said Delvin, a 
former Richland police officer who retired in 2006. "It gives law 
enforcement an easier tool. They can have confidence in the registry. 
If someone has a card, case closed."

Philip Dawdy, spokesman for the recently formed Washington Cannabis 
Association, said one of the problems with the original medical 
marijuana initiative approved by voters in 1998 is that it lacked 
clear-cut definitions to help cities, counties and law enforcement 
agencies implement and enforce the law's intent.

Different parts of Washington have interpreted the state law in 
different ways -- some allow patients to come together in collectives 
to grow their plants. Some don't.

Some let patients obtain medical marijuana through dispensaries, 
while others have shut dispensaries down.

It's all a matter of who is reading the law, and what they read into it.

But the bill introduced by prime sponsor Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, 
D-Seattle, this week could solve some of the biggest problems 
identified by medical marijuana proponents.

"There is much ambiguity around our state's current medical marijuana 
law that is resulting in inconsistent enforcement throughout the 
state," Kohl-Welles said in a statement. "Creating a statutory and 
regulatory structure for licensing growers and dispensaries will 
allow us to provide for an adequate, safe, consistent and secure 
source of the medicine for qualifying patients, address public safety 
concerns and establish statewide uniformity in the implementation of the law."

The bill doesn't change who can be authorized to use marijuana as 
medical treatment -- the criteria includes patients suffering from 
diseases or disorders such as cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, 
epilepsy, anorexia and glaucoma, or those experiencing "intractable 
pain" that standard treatments or medications cannot relieve.

It also does not change who can authorize someone to use medical marijuana.

What it does is provide protection from arrest -- the existing law 
merely provides an affirmative defense to charges of marijuana 
possession for authorized patients -- and allows collectives and dispensaries.

The existing law doesn't address collectives or dispensaries at all, 
which has led to the varying interpretations.

Some jurisdictions -- such as Richland -- take the approach that the 
law's failure to address collectives or dispensaries makes them 
illegal. Others take the opposite approach.

The bill would create licensing systems for growing and dispensing 
medical marijuana, with growers licensed through the state Department 
of Agriculture, while the Department of Health would oversee 
dispensary licenses.  
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake