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By Brian Vicente

Awaiting only the signature of Gov. Bill Richardson, New Mexico is poised to become the 12th state to enact a medical marijuana law, allowing seriously ill individuals access to marijuana for medicinal purposes. Colorado passed a medical marijuana law in 2000, and currently almost 1,200 residents are enrolled in this state-run program.

New Mexico’s legislation stands to improve on Colorado’s law in at least one important way. The New Mexican law charges its state health department with establishing distribution centers — or dispensaries — where patients can obtain medical marijuana.

These centers will be regulated by the Department of Health and distribute this product in secure, on-site facilities.

This stands in sharp contrast to Colorado’s law, which, while it provides real relief for many, makes no provision for dispensaries and leaves patients in a legal quandary, unsure of where to find this doctor-recommended medicine.

Finding safe access to medical marijuana has been an ongoing struggle for patients in Colorado. Since the law passed, patients have voiced concern over such important details as where and how to access medical-grade marijuana. One of the law’s more perplexing provisions allows Colorado patients to cultivate marijuana, but it provides no legal method for the purchase of the seeds necessary for such growth. More difficulty occurs when after months of labor a patient readies to harvest a garden and the usable material from even a single plant pushes a patient over the 2-ounce weight limit that state law allows him to possess. Further, many patients are simply too ill to grow their own medicine or have difficulty finding a “caregiver” whom the state can authorize to grow the plants for them.

Left without guidance on how to procure medical marijuana, ill individuals are forced to turn to the black market — often resulting in problems with law enforcement and violence.

To help stem prohibition-related violence and foster safe access, the Colorado legislature should take a note from our southern neighbors and enact strict regulations around medical marijuana that provide for regulated dispensary sites. This would provide clarity for law enforcement, which often struggles to establish if a marijuana garden is legal or not, and allow patients to access this medicine away from the dangers of the black market.

Brian Vicente is a criminal defense attorney in Denver and the executive director of Sensible Colorado, a medical marijuana advocacy group.

READER COMMENTS

BMad-

You make a very good point that people can conceivably lose their lives over illegal drug deals.

However, the operative phrase in that statement is "illegal drug sales". If I happened to accidentally misplace 500 gallons of Pete Coors beer, I would not be in fear for my life because there are legal avenues for Pete to seek the return of his beer. It is only when things are illegal and people have no legal recourse that personal safety becomes an issue. Remember alcohol prohibition? It didn't work.

I agree with you that inhaling noxious gasses into your lungs is inherently dangerous, but none the less, it is a personal choice. Much like skiing is a personal choice that is inherently dangerous. People die every year in avalanches or hit their heads on trees and yet I have not heard any cries for making skiing illegal. That of course would be ludicrous.

Also, many medical marijuana patients choose to use a vaporizer or ingest their marijuana in edible forms, which greatly reduces or completely eliminates the deleterious effects of smoking while still providing both palliative and therapeutic benefits.

The bottom line is that sick and dying people are lacking safe and legal access to the very medicine that sustains them, and regulated dispensaries are the only way to overcome this injustice.

Kory -

Marijuana is dangerous to no one?

A person can conceivably lose their life over any type of illegal drug deal. Maybe purchasers of a user's quantity of pot are safer but not they are not safe altogether.

Next look at what happens when the quantity is worth thousands of dollars. You could lose your life if you accidently misplaced a 500 lbs. bale of weed that didn't belong to you.

Then there are risks for smoking it too. Smoking any plant material (whether it's tobacco, weed or poison ivy) causes very serious damage to the lungs, heart, esophagus and mouth. Second-hand smoke also has harmful side effects.

Just about the only people that can argue in favor of smoking the drug are people that are terminally ill. Not because it is not harmful to them but because with a terminal illness and a set timetable for the rest of your life on this planet, the harm is outweighed by the feelings of levity and euphoria produced by THC. Smoking anything is always harmful. No question about it.

Now where are those brownies I just made from my user's quantity? I may be on to something here!

Really, violence in Marijuana deals?! Let me guess, people are pulling guns over munchies? How come no one reports about the tru dangers of Marijuana? Like the danger f overdose, the motorists and pedestrians killed each year by "high" drivers? How about all the kids shot and killed in Pot deals gone bad? I'll tell you why, because these things just don't happen. Marijuana is dangerous to no one, and has benefits for all. God forbid common sense ever prevails over this world.

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