By Carol M. Ostrom
Seattle Times health reporter
Friday, April 6, 2007

Information in this article, originally published April 6, 2007, was changed May 10, 2007. Clarification: A previous version of this story stated that a bill in the Legislature to clarify Washington State's medical marijuana law would add to the law several new health conditions for which marijuana could legally be used. While it's technically true that those conditions would be formally added to the language of the law, existing law directs the Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission to decide which qualifying conditions to allow. That board has already added the same conditions the bill would formally codify, including Crohn's disease, hepatitis C, and "diseases, including anorexia, which result in nausea, vomiting, wasting, appetite loss, cramping, seizures, muscle spasms, or spasticity." In all cases, symptoms must be unrelieved by standard treatments or medications.

A measure aimed at clarifying the state's medical-marijuana law to protect legitimate patients from arrest passed the state House of Representatives this week, but advocates can't agree whether that's actually good news for patients.

The bill has been changed significantly since its introduction. While the chief sponsor remains confident it will still end up helping a lot of patients, some of the most vocal advocates are calling the measure a "zero" that might even do more harm than good.

And the issue has created a rift among the people who have been fighting together for years for medical-marijuana rights.

"I've been crying for weeks on this," said Ric Smith, a Shoreline marijuana patient. "There are a whole bunch of hard feelings over this thing."

Addressing vagueness

The measure, Senate Bill 6032, was originally meant to address the vagueness that has plagued the state law since it was overwhelmingly passed by popular initiative in 1998. Over the years, some patients and "caregivers" who grow marijuana for them have been arrested and had their pot confiscated. As originally written, the bill would have directed police not to arrest or seize marijuana from legitimate patients. It left the 60-day supply mentioned in the law to be determined by medical need. It also would have allowed patients or suppliers to grow the plants collectively, so long as only qualifying patients got the pot.

The chief sponsor, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Wells, D-Seattle, called the original "fabulous." But it was drastically amended because law enforcement voiced concerns, she said.

Because it has never been clear how many pounds, plants or joints make up a 60-day supply, language was added directing the Department of Health - instead of doctors - to define a 60-day supply.

Gone, in later versions, were protections from arrest, along with the provision for collective grows. In the end, the support of many formerly enthusiastic medical-marijuana patients and their advocates was gone, too.

Smith, for one, said the bill's failure to allow collective growing penalizes patients and caregivers who need to group together to afford the expenses involved in growing marijuana. Smith suffers from a host of medical problems, including AIDS, a stroke, colon cancer and kidney failure. He shares a "grow" but now worries about his caregiver being arrested.

Douglas Hiatt, a lawyer who represents medical-marijuana patients, summed up the sentiment: "This is the biggest zero bill I've ever seen," he said. "There is no meaningful protection in the bill - none. That's why patients don't support it."

Bipartisan support

But some medical-marijuana patients do support the bill. They note that the measure still spells out that police aren't required to confiscate marijuana if a patient is in compliance with the law. It also says doctors need only determine that a patient "may benefit" from marijuana to use it medically. Although the Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission has already added several health conditions to the original law's list of ailments that may be treated with marijuana, the bill formally adds those to the language of the law. They include Crohn's disease, hepatitis C, and "diseases, including anorexia, which result in nausea, vomiting, wasting, appetitite loss, cramping, seizures, muscle spasms, or spasticity," when symptoms or pain cannot be relieved by standard treatments or medications.

"I believe 6032 will help protect patients and reduce the waste of police resources," Martin Martinez of Seattle's LifeVine Clinic wrote to Kohl-Welles. "Don't be fooled by the vocal minority."

Tom McBride, executive director of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said the measure as now written clarifies, but does not expand or restrict, current law.

"It does a better job of telling medicinal users how to comply with the law without opening the law to recreational users," he said.

The current version also would direct the Department of Health to evaluate the feasibility of having the government supply marijuana directly to qualified patients.

Andy Ko, director of the Drug Policy Reform Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, called the bill a first step.

"There needed to be law-enforcement support [to pass the bill]," he said. "For the first time, there was overwhelming support for fixing the medical marijuana bill and protecting patients."

Kohl-Welles acknowledged she has heard an earful from "some very vocal critics," but has been pleased about the bill's strong bipartisan support.

"They wanted a perfect bill, but we couldn't get that through," she said. "It's very rare you get a bill through the Legislature and signed into law that hasn't been amended."

The measure now goes back to the Senate, which has already passed a slightly different version. Kohl-Welles said that means there will be several opportunities to continue to improve the bill.

"I think it's important to keep working on it," she said.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Posted by Dominic Holden on April 4 at 11:10 PM

Washington's legislature went out on a limb, err, stalk to protect medical marijuana patients tonight, but you might not know it from reading this :

The state House late Wednesday passed a measure clarifying the state's medical marijuana law and addressing supply issues, but medical marijuana advocates and patients opposed to the measure argue it does nothing to help them.

The measure, which passed on a 64-30 vote, requires the state Department of Health to determine the quantity of marijuana that could reasonably be considered a 60-day supply. The bill passed the Senate last month, but since it was amended in the House, it must go back to the Senate for concurrence.

Strangely, the AP article fails to mention that medical marijuana advocates and patients who support the measure argue that it does a lot to help them. Joanna McKee, who runs the state's oldest medical marijuana organization, Green Cross , and Martin Martinez, one of Washington's foremost authorities on the medical use of marijuana , both testified in favor of the bill. They said it would help authorized patients avoid arrest by defining how much pot they can possess. Instead of quoting them, or the bill's primary sponsor, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36 Seattle), they only talked to this guy...

Steve Sarich, executive director of CannaCare, a medical marijuana advocacy group, said that doctors - not the state - should determine the supply a patient needs.

"Does the state determine how many birth control pills you take, or how much Percocet you need?" he asked.

"This bill provides no significant protection for patients whatsoever," he said.

Sarich, a rabble-rouser new to Washington with a relatively unknown organization, is partly right. The bill wouldn't provide much protection for him. He was nailed by the feds earlier this year for growing 1,500 plants . With that sort of operation, he would surely exceed the presumptive supply to be set by the Department of Health. But then again, under Washington's existing medical marijuana law, which provides patients a defense only once they get to court, patients with far less pot (i.e., complying with the law) are getting arrested anyway. So clarifying the law could provide a safe harbor for most patients.

Sarich is also little misguided about the premise that doctors should be allowed to prescribe specific amounts of cannabis like pharmaceuticals. It's a great idea, but prescriptions are overseen by the DEA - a federal agency that doesn't recognize medical marijuana at all.

Currently, as long as authorized patients don't mess with the DEA or grow so much pot they get bumped out of the state's legal system, they're protected in Washington courts. But if this bill is signed into law, as now appears likely, sick people could avoid arrest and court altogether. That's a big deal.

Somehow, the AP story missed those facts.

Weed for medicine: regulate the crop

Seattle Times
Editorials & Opinion
Monday, April 02, 2007

In 1998, nearly 59 percent of the voters of Washington approved Initiative 698, legalizing marijuana for medical uses. But our medical-marijuana regime has problems, and the bill now working its way through the Legislature solves only the lesser parts of them.

The key to this issue is the acceptance that marijuana has been shown to control pain and to help seriously ill people keep down food and medicine. Both sponsors of Senate Bill 6032 - Sens. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, and Bob McCaslin, R-Spokane - have known people close to them who have used the drug in a medical way. This page supported I-698 as a measure to alleviate human suffering, and supports a slight broadening of the allowable uses. We oppose the general legalization of marijuana, but admit its medicinal effects.

Unfortunately, the federal law has been applied by a long string of U.S. attorneys general to allow no uses of marijuana. Because of that, the state cannot do what it really should, which is to regulate the growing, testing, packaging and sale of cannabis as a prescription drug.

Instead, our voter-written state law disingenuously instructs police to ignore the possession of a 60-day supply by certain sick people, without saying how much of a supply that is or how they are supposed to get it.

SB 6032 would have the state Department of Health define a presumptive 60-day supply, telling police to ignore amounts of no more than that if held by a certified patient. The bill would tell police to ignore growing operations, providing each operation served one certified patient only.

Patient advocates say these proposals are too restrictive. The supply ought to be set by the doctor, and the law ought to allow two or more patients to get medication from the same source.

Legislators should do their best for these patients, who are too sick to worry over the details. They should pass the best bill they can.