Medical marijuana bill clears Delaware Senate committee
June 14th, 2009Delaware is making a step in the right direction ‘imho’
Legal Medical Pot
A bill that would make it legal for Delaware doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients with serious diseases was voted out of a Senate committee June 3 and is expected to reach the floor of that chamber in the coming weeks.
Before voting the Senate Health and Social Services Committee listened to 90 minutes of testimony in support of Senate Bill 94, authored by Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, D-Wilmington East, who also chairs the committee. No one spoke in opposition to the bill.
If passed, the legislation would allow individuals with diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma to use marijuana as part of their treatment with the consent of a doctor. Approved patients would be issued identification cards and could lawfully posses up to six ounces of the substance at a time and cultivate up to 12 plants for their own use.
The bill would also establish a network of dispensaries, known as “Compassionate Care Centers,” which would be authorized to grow a larger crop of marijuana and distribute it to authorized individuals.
The hearing drew a wide range of participants — from individuals who have used marijuana to treat epilepsy, bi-polar disorder, cancer and HIV, to representatives from the Hemp Education Awareness League and the Delaware Medical Society.
Newark resident Brian Larson told the committee that he suffers from severe pain as the result of a back injury, and that marijuana is the best way for him to deal with the pain and live a productive life.
Larson said prescription pain medications leave him feeling weak and lethargic, but marijuana relieves the pain and allows him to stay active.
“With Oxycontin, you just feel like a vegetable,” he said. “With marijuana you can still go out. I can run, I can hike or bike.”
If it becomes law, the bill would take a heavy load off those who are using marijuana to treat disease even though it is illegal, Larson added.
“It’s a matter of not making people feel like criminals,” he said. “If grown adults choose to medicate themselves in this way, then they should be able to freely.”
Bob Byrd, who spoke on behalf of the medical society, said the society’s member physicians engaged in a lengthy debate over the bill, but decided in the end to remain neutral and offer neither support nor opposition.
Byrd said many ophthalmologists argued that glaucoma should be taken out of the bill, since the condition, once a poster disease for medical marijuana, can be treated more effectively with new drugs that have been developed in recent years.
But other doctors said marijuana would be an effective treatment and far less costly than many prescription drugs, Byrd added.
“There were very articulate doctors on both sides of the bill,” he said.
Committee member Sen. Patricia M. Blevins, D-Elsmere, questioned the scope of the bill, since it lists several specific diseases as well as a myriad of individual symptoms for which marijuana can be used a treatment.
“I’m concerned about making it so broad that is won’t pass muster in the General Assembly,” she said. “We’re starting out so broadly that we might have a problem getting relief to those who need [marijuana] or are already using it illegally.”
Smyrna Clayton Sun Times Delaware
