Pubdate: Wed, 06 May 2015
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2015 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Author: Eric Hartley

TESTING OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA NEAR WITH RULES FINALLY OK'D

Labs, Dispensaries Have Been in Limbo for Months Awaiting Policy

After spending months in limbo, waiting for the state to hash out 
rules for testing medical marijuana, laboratories might be able to 
get to work soon. That moves patients one step closer to the first 
legal sales in dispensaries.

A state health official said Tuesday that all the rules are in place 
for labs to start testing marijuana. But in a sign of how confusing 
the process has been, that news came as a surprise to a dispensary 
owner and a lab scientist, who both expected a longer wait for the 
state to finalize some rules.

"It's been incredibly frustrating," Cindy Orser, chief science 
officer of DigiPath Labs, said of the wait. "We were hoping to be 
operational at the end of January. Or February. Or March. Or April. 
And now it's May."

Euphoria Wellness, a dispensary near Las Vegas, has 371 patients 
preregistered and received its state license weeks ago - the first 
dispensary in the state to do so. But it can't sell any marijuana 
until it's tested by a state-licensed lab.

"I have people coming to my door every day saying, ' How come you're 
not open?' " co-owner Joe Lamarca said Tuesday.

Businesses have been spending money on rent, startup costs and 
workers - money they can't begin to recoup until they open. Lamarca 
said he and his partners had to hire and train employees before the 
dispensary could get its state license.

"Now I've trained them, I'm paying them, and I still can't open," he said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, no one had been able to tell him when he 
could start selling marijuana. But Steve Gilbert, a state medical 
marijuana program manager, said dispensaries can start selling as 
soon as the plants are tested.

It was unclear when patients will be able to buy marijuana. Part of 
the delay in crafting testing rules has been due to the work of an 
outside group, the Independent Laboratory Advisory Committee, tasked 
with recommending to the state limits for pesticides, heavy metals 
and other substances.

Committee members and state officials have disagreed both publicly 
and privately, largely about pesticides. And the process has been 
agonizingly slow.

"They've only wanted to deal with one subject matter at a time," Orser said.

The committee has met four times, with a fifth scheduled today. In 
early meetings, members and state staffers struggled to figure out 
how to conduct the meetings.

Not until the fourth meeting, on April 16, did the committee vote on 
recommended pesticide rules, which led to a formal state policy 
issued Monday. Even after that vote, there was confusion about how 
exactly testing will work.

In internal emails provided to the Review-Journal, committee members 
said they worry the state's policy - which includes very low 
detection limits for pesticides - will make conducting lab tests too 
expensive. That could in turn drive up costs to patients, perhaps 
forcing people to the black market.

Gilbert said the state understands the concerns but that its hands 
are tied by state law and regulations.

Pesticide limits could be relaxed eventually. Officials have said 
some of the overly strict rules are due to a poorly worded regulation 
that can't be changed until later this year.

There were 8,925 marijuana patient cardholders in Nevada as of April, 
6,420 of them - or 72 percent - in Clark County. Another 594 people 
statewide had caregiver cards that allow them to administer marijuana 
to another person.

State officials and people in the industry have said they think the 
marijuana sold in Nevada will be safer than in other states, where 
regulations are inconsistent or nonexistent.

But with the delays, Lamarca said, the state has let the perfect be 
the enemy of the good, with patients suffering the consequences. 
Unless people are growing marijuana themselves, which is relatively 
rare, they've had to go without - or buy it illegally.

"They're now forcing people to continue to go to the open 
marketplace, where nothing is tested," Lamarca said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom