A bill amending Maine’s medical marijuana laws has passed both branches of the legislature.
The bill, which Rep. Deb Sanderson, R-Chelsea, the bill’s sponsor, describes as an effort to get closer to the citizens’ initiative passed on medical marijuana, awaits Gov. Paul LePage’s signature. Sanderson said LePage supports the bill.
“The preservation of patient privacy was the key driving force behind the amendment,” Sanderson wrote in an email to The Lincoln County News following the bill’s legislative approval. “[The amendment] rolls back to more accurately reflect the citizens’ intent in the initiative that was voted on in 2009 while still keeping in place the pieces necessary to allow law enforcement to determine who is and who isn’t participating the program lawfully.”
As approved by the legislature, the bill removes the requirement that patients register with the state and release their medical records to the Dept. of Health and Human Services. The bill also simplifies the process of adding conditions to the list approved for treatment with marijuana.
Currently, state law calls for an advisory board to determine what conditions make the list. Sanderson’s bill, as approved by the legislature, removes the advisory board, and instead leaves it up to DHHS to make the list via citizen petitions for conditions to be added.
The bill creates standardized paperwork for medical marijuana patients, whether they register with the state or not, that they can present to law enforcement. The $100 fee currently associated with registering to use to medical marijuana “will be adjusted … to a more reasonable fee,” Sanderson wrote.
The bill also directs law enforcement to seize only marijuana that is in excess of a patient’s prescription, if a patient is in possession of more than their prescribed amount of marijuana. If a patient is caught with excess marijuana twice, they will be barred from receiving medical marijuana.
Patients, whose medical information has already been provided to the state as part of the currently mandatory state registry, will be able to request that their records be purged from the state’s database.
In previous interviews, DHHS expressed their full support for the bill.
“Researching this program for the last seven months has been quite an education. I’ve read countless case studies on the benefits of [medical marijuana] for many conditions,” Sanderson wrote. “What has been most informative and moving however, has been speaking to the patients themselves. Folks who suffer chronic debilitating pain and have used opiates, often for months, are seeing better pain management results without the highly addictive results that opiates often have.”
