Pubdate: Fri, 20 Jan 2012
Source: Arizona Daily Sun (AZ)
Copyright: 2012 Arizona Daily Sun
Contact: http://news.azdailysun.com/opinion/letter_submit.cfm
Website: http://www.azdailysun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1906

MEDICAL POT NEEDS STRICT ENFORCEMENT

Now that both a federal and a state judge have each told Gov. Brewer 
she lacks a legal reason to delay implementing the Medical Marijuana 
Act, it's time to focus on how to put meaningful rules in place and 
enforce them.

By meaningful, we mean rules that will ensure that only patients who 
need marijuana for medical reasons receive it and that limits in the 
act on cultivation, possession and distribution are strictly enforced.

The opposite is occurring in Colorado and Montana, where there's such 
a backlash to the explosion of recreational marijuana use far beyond 
medicinal needs that lawmakers and civic groups are seeking to repeal 
the enabling laws in those states.

The worry is that, by flouting the law, the medical marijuana 
industry is setting up young people for illegal drug use, encouraging 
the misuse of other drugs, and setting the stage for gang-style drug crimes.

The drafters of the Arizona law contend they built in numerous 
safeguards to the overcommercialization of medical pot, including 
exclusion zones near schools and tougher standards for physician 
exams that lead to medical marijuana cards.

Other backers go further, contending that marijuana should be 
legalized just like alcohol, with impairment, not possession, the new 
standard for enforcement. And legalizing it, they say, would all but 
eliminate the crime problem, along with subjecting pot to a tax that 
would beef up state and local coffers.

The law, however, is the law, and right now possession and 
distribution of marijuana under federal law is a crime. States with 
medical marijuana laws -- there are more than a dozen -- have avoided 
federal crackdowns as long as their programs focus on patients 
suffering chronic pain and on limiting the amount of marijuana grown 
and distributed for that purpose.

In California, where the limit is 99 plants at a time, federal agents 
have raided several pot farms and confiscated crops well in excess of the cap.

But at this point, no state employee anywhere has been federally 
prosecuted for administering state medical marijuana programs.

Doctors are caught somewhat in a bind -- their right to prescribe 
federally licensed drugs depends on not running afoul of restrictive 
federal rules governing medical marijuana prescriptions. Because 
medical marijuana states want less red tape and paperwork, they have 
written laws that call for physician "recommendations" not subject to 
federal prescription oversight.

But that still shouldn't result in physicians endorsing medical 
marijuana cards for anyone who complains of a stiff neck. Arizona's 
rules require an examining doctor to check a database listing other 
prescription drugs a patient is using -- and perhaps abusing. There's 
also the expectation that a physician will give a patient complaining 
of chronic pain a thorough exam before deciding on marijuana as the 
preferred treatment.

Yet state records to date suggest those rules aren't being observed. 
Of 10,000 physician recommendations for medical pot, nearly half have 
been issued by just eight doctors. Even though they are not issuing 
formal prescriptions, these practitioners should be subject to 
disciplinary standards by state medical boards, and several bills 
have been introduced to do just that.

As for what patients are supposed to do with their cards until state 
permits for dispensaries are issued, dare we suggest that they simply 
wait until the full system is implemented. Instead, several 
entrepreneurs, including one in Flagstaff, have set up medical 
marijuana "exchanges" that don't involve a direct exchange of cash, 
using fees paid to intermediaries instead.

This might sound like a creative stopgap measure while the dispensary 
system is being set up. But, once again, the law is the law, and 
Flagstaff police would be fully within the law to shut down such 
exchanges until formal dispensaries are in place. Proponents of 
medical marijuana do their movement no favors by letting their 
impatience result in a skirting of the law that risks a voter backlash.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom