To: Senate Health Committee March 16, 2011

Don’t criminalize patients!

I urge you to reject SB 777. This bill would recriminalize patients. Thousands of patients who now qualify for exemption from arrest and prosecution would become felons if they continue to use medical marijuana. Police would be required to enforce these changes, which would be a terrible waste of resources at a time when Oregon can ill afford it.

Don’t waste our tax dollars arresting patients!

SB 777 alters the list of conditions that qualify patients for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program eliminating conditions that now qualify patients and repeals the section of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act that creates an administrative process where the Oregon Health Authority may add to the list of conditions as scientific evidence makes this appropriate.

Under current law, severe nausea, regardless of the cause, may qualify a patient for the OMMP if their physician believes marijuana will help. SB 777 would only allow severe nausea to qualify a patient if it was a result of chemotherapy. Many patients with horrible diseases that cause nausea would no longer be protected from arrest. Even cancer patients would only be protected from arrest while undergoing chemotherapy. There is substantial information that indicates cannabinoids may play a role in curing cancer. But it would be prohibited. Why? Currently seizures, like those caused by epilepsy, are a qualifying condition. SB 777 would criminalize those patients. Currently persistent muscle spasms may qualify a patient. SB 777 would limit this to Multiple Sclerosis.

Marijuana is Medicine

These amendments to the OMMA do not appear to have any basis in science. Rather, these amendments seem to be politically motivated, responding to a misguided, knee jerk reaction that there are “just too many” patients qualifying for medical marijuana. This misconception is based on a gut reaction, not examination of the evidence. Over 3700 different Oregon physicians have qualified patients for the program. There are nearly 50,000 patients in the OMMP because marijuana works. It is not a cure-all, and there are risks, but it is safer than many pharmaceuticals and over the counter drugs.

Fix the process of determining qualifying conditions – don’t repeal it.

ORS 475.334 allows OHA to add conditions. Over the thirteen years of the OMMA there have been several petitions to add conditions. Only agitation due to Alzheimer’s disease has been added and less than 50 patients currently qualify for this condition (the exact number is not reported by OHA because revealing such a small number would pose privacy concerns for those few patients). Just what is the problem here? Repealing ORS 475.334 is going in the wrong direction.

The process for adding qualifying conditions has been too conservative. OHA has rejected petitions to add PTSD, leaving some veterans who fought for their country vulnerable to arrest. How can it be good policy to arrest veterans for something that helps reduce their nightmares? Rather than eliminating this administrative process, the legislature should find ways to improve it. Currently it bogs down because OHA allows marijuana critics who would not allow marijuana for any condition to rule on whether to add new conditions. This has created an impossible catch-22. ORS 475. 334 should be amended to require policy to follow the science.

Don’t Criminalize – Regulate !

SB 777, like most of the other medical marijuana bills introduced this session, seeks to deal with perceived problems with the OMMP by changing the law so that more patients will be subject to arrest for what they inevitably will do – continue to use a medicine that they believe relieves their suffering. This will inevitably fail. When patients lose their exemption from arrest, growing even one marijuana plant or possessing more than an ounce becomes a serious felony. This sends a message to law enforcement that stopping these prohibited acts is a high priority. The criminal justice system will spend millions more on marijuana enforcement. This is a huge waste of resources that will not deter marijuana abuse in any way.

Regulation works

Regulating medical marijuana will minimize the abuse and misuse of marijuana. Regulation requires clear cut reasonable rules that can be easily enforced. Enforcement of good rules relies on civil penalties that generate revenue rather than criminal investigation, arrest and prosecution that cost millions of dollars.

Fix the real problem –

Create a regulated medical marijuana supply system

If there is concern that there are too many OMMA cardholders, then the solution is to create a regulated supply system. The reason there are so many cardholders is because every qualifying patient is currently REQUIRED to have a marijuana garden. Because of that unreasonable requirement, every patient needs a grower and a caregiver to assist them. Prohibiting paying the grower is quaint and creates problems. There may be as many perfectly healthy growers and caregivers as there are patients. Because the OMMA lacks a regulated supply system - like selling quality controlled medical marijuana products in pharmacies or dispensaries – patients are all forced to struggle.

Please table SB 777 and hold hearings on SB 874, which explores allowing patients to buy medical marijuana at pharmacies.

Don’t raise health care costs for patients

SB 777 also requires patients to obtain qualifying paperwork from their physician every six months instead of every twelve. For many patients this will mean paying for a doctor visit that they can’t afford. Doctors are already required by administrative rule to offer follow up care.

SB 777 makes modifications to the OMMA that fail to address any misuse or abuse of marijuana. It misses the mark and should be rejected.

Marijuana penalties do not fit the “crime”

The underlying problem is marijuana prohibition. The OMMA is a band-aid on a broken law.

Please consider creating a workgroup or commission to address these issues.

Thank you,

John Sajo
Director
Voter Power