Pubdate: Sat, 07 Feb 2015
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2015 Albuquerque Journal
Contact:  http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Dan Boyd

HOUSE COMMITTEE VOTES 7-1 TO TABLE BILL LEGALIZING POT

Backers of Proposal Vow to Keep Trying

SANTA FE - New Mexico appears unlikely - at least for now - to join 
four other Western states that have legalized recreational marijuana 
use, after a House committee on Friday voted down a proposal to 
regulate and tax the drug.

Members of the House Agriculture, Water and Wildlife Committee tabled 
the pot proposal on a 7-1 vote, making its passage highly unlikely 
during the 60-day session that ends March 21.

Opponents of the measure said legalizing marijuana use could pose a 
public safety threat and lead to more impaired employees on New 
Mexico work sites.

"You are doing no one any good by making these kind of mind-altering 
substances more readily available," Roswell Mayor Dennis Kintigh, a 
Republican former state representative, told lawmakers Friday.

But backers of relaxing or eliminating marijuana possession penalties 
vowed to keep trying.

Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Mesilla Park, the measure's sponsor, said he 
was frustrated by anecdotes about marijuana use during Friday's 
hearing - two Republican lawmakers spoke of seeing violent 
marijuana-driven behavior in Vietnam - but said he plans to try again 
next year.

"I am fully confident it's going to happen in the next 5 to 10 
years," McCamley told the Journal after Friday's vote.

Emily Kaltenbach, director of the Drug Policy Alliance-New Mexico, 
also said she considers a change in the state's marijuana laws 
inevitable, saying, "We knew going in this was going to be a 
multi-year effort."

Nonbinding ballot questions asking voters whether they favor 
marijuana decriminalization passed decisively in November in 
Bernalillo and Santa Fe counties, and the Santa Fe City Council 
decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in August.

However, pot-related legislation has faced tougher sledding at the 
Roundhouse, where previous legalization and decriminalization bills 
have stalled.

The bill tabled Friday would have allowed marijuana retail licenses 
to be granted starting in July 2017. The state Regulation and 
Licensing Department warned that the legislation, House Bill 160, 
would have necessitated that the agency hire at least 40 additional 
employees to oversee and implement the new law, according to a fiscal 
review of the legislation.

But backers of the proposal said legalizing marijuana could free up 
state resources, while also claiming the drug is less addictive than 
tobacco or caffeine.

Although New Mexico currently has a medical marijuana law for 
licensed patients, recreational use of the drug is illegal, as it is 
under federal law. Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska have all 
passed laws allowing for the personal possession and consumption of 
marijuana by adults.

Under New Mexico law, offenders can be jailed for up to 15 days for a 
first offense of possessing an ounce or less of marijuana and up to a 
year for subsequent offenses or for being caught with larger amounts 
of up to 8 ounces.

In a Journal Poll of statewide registered voters in September, 50 
percent of those surveyed opposed marijuana legalization, while 44 
percent favored it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom