Re-igniting Medical Marijuana Campaign

In October 2009, the New Hampshire Senate failed by two votes to override Gov. John. John Lynch’s veto of a bill that would have legalized medical marijuana use. The bill’s prime sponsor, Democratic Rep. Evalyn Merrick of Lancaster was disappointed but said she would file the bill again for the 2011 legislative session.

Marijuana photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

Merrick, who was reelected earlier this month, has kept her promise. The cancer survivor has filed an LSR—or legislative service request, the first step in crafting a new bill—titled “relative to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.”

The 2009 measure, House Bill 648, would have established three nonprofit “compassion centers’’ to dispense two ounces of marijuana every 10 days to severely ill patients with physician’s approval. The state would have licensed the centers and issued identification cards to their staff, approved patients and caregivers. The bill had bipartisan support—one of the co-sponsors was Republican Sen. John Gallus of Berlin—and advocates said that the new law would provide relief to people with chronic or terminal illnesses.

Debate over the bill set off political fireworks and unrestrained verbal exchanges when Lynch vetoed the bill in July 2009. He said there were inadequate safeguards on the drug’s cultivation and distribution and expressed concern that the amount of marijuana allowed under the bill could prove addictive or damaging. Lynch said he was not convinced the centers would keep marijuana in the right hands, arguing the bill did not require sufficient oversight of volunteers working at the centers.

“We cannot set a lower bar for medical marijuana than we do for other controlled substances, and we cannot implement a law that has serious flaws,” he said in a statement.

Supporters like Merrick said the bill would have regulated the drug more tightly than in any of the 13 states where medical marijuana is legal. She said at the time that Lynch denied a measure that would have given relief to the state’s most vulnerable citizens and that limiting marijuana cultivation to the compassion centers would ensure its quality and security.

“This is clearly a politically directed decision, based on misinformation and lies,” Merrick said in a statement. “It appears the governor may not have thoroughly read the bill in its entirety.” House members overrode Lynch’s veto easily in 2009 but the Senate margin was only 14-10, two votes shy of the 2/3 majority needed.

We’re not sure how far supporters of medical marijuana will get in this session. But, if the bill gains any traction in Concord, it will be another interesting and provocative debate about culture, compassion, myth, liberty, law and order.

This is the first in a series that examines new bills being filed for the 2011 legislative session.

This Daily Dispatch was written by Michael McCord.

Posted by Hilary Niles on Nov 24 2010. Filed under drug law, Health, Justice, medical marijuana, prescriptions, Weekly Briefing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry