Medical pot law set to kick in -- Use permits sought as
legal fears loom
Denver Post
Thursday, May 31, 2001
By Karen Auge
Denver Post Medical Writer
Thursday, May 31, 2001 - Jerry Ives has copied his medical records, filled out the
state's forms, checked all the right boxes and signed on all the necessary lines.
He's even scraped together the $140 application fee.
When Amendment 20 takes effect Friday, Ives' application for a place on a registry of
people permitted to use marijuana to treat a medical condition will be on its way to the
state health department, if it's not already there.
There's just one small potential glitch.
He doesn't have the required doctor's signature on the application.
And he doesn't plan to get one.
Ives said his doctors know he uses marijuana to ease the blinding, nauseating headaches
and to lessen the seizures that have plagued him since he suffered a brain injury 25 years
ago. But Ives, 44, is a disabled veteran, treated at the Veterans Administration Medical
Center.
Ives won't ask his VA doctors to endorse, on the record, his need for marijuana.
"They work for the federal government," Ives said.
But the federal government, through the Supreme Court, said in no uncertain terms just
this month that marijuana use is illegal.
Days before Colorado becomes the eighth state to legalize and regulate marijuana use
for patients with specific conditions, those patients are hopeful, their doctors skittish.
And while the state health department says the infrastructure to operate the program is up
and ready, everyone is waiting for Attorney General Ken Salazar to weigh in on what the
recent Supreme Court decision might mean to Colorado's law.
"We are ready'
Salazar is reviewing the matter and has said he will issue an opinion.
In the meantime, "We are ready," said Carol Garrett, who helped coordinate
the state health department's preparations to implement Amendment 20.
"We're just waiting for Friday."
The ID cards are ready, the applications are printed - about 75 have been sent out so
far - and the procedure to review them is in place, Garrett said.
In making preparations, Colorado turned to Oregon for advice, in part because that
state's law is very similar to Colorado's and in part because its program is highly
regarded, Garrett said.
Based on Oregon's experience, she said Colorado expects about 800 people to apply to be
included on the state registry this year.
Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 20 in November. The amendment sets up
a state registry that provides identification cards for patients with certain debilitating
conditions - cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, cachexia (a weight-loss condition), severe pain,
severe nausea, seizures and persistent muscle spasms including those characteristic of
multiple sclerosis - to possess and use small amounts of marijuana.
It costs $140 to apply, and patients must reapply every year to be included on the
registry.
The law makes no provisions for legally buying or selling the marijuana, and doctors do
not write prescriptions for the drug. Instead, doctors must verify that the applicant has
one of the specified medical conditions and sign a form stating, "Marijuana may
mitigate the symptoms or effects of the patient's condition."
How many doctors will be willing to sign their name to such a form remains to be seen,
some say.
Doctors are nervous, said Dr. Frank Sargent, a member of Coloradans Against Legalizing
Marijuana. And they have reason to be, he said.
Long-term effects of using the drug haven't been documented, he said.
"I'm not sure what liability carriers will say. And I don't think we'll know that
for the next few months."
Most doctors are compassionate, Sargent said. But the Supreme Court ruling earlier this
month, that cannabis buyers clubs in California violate federal law, has made already
nervous doctors even more uncertain, he said.
Doreen Bishop's doctor initially told her he wouldn't sign her application for medical
marijuana.
"He doesn't know anything about marijuana. It's the first time he's been in a
dilemma like this," Bishop said.
The 52-year-old said she's used marijuana to ease the pain and nausea from cancer and
cancer treatments over the past 16 years.
"I smoke, and it gets me through. It doesn't take (the pain) away; it just gets me
through it."
Tired of feeling like criminal
Bishop said she's no criminal, and she's tired of feeling like one. The possibility of
her doctor of 30 years refusing her request to endorse her marijuana use devastated her,
she said.
In the end, her doctor relented.
But in the box where the state asks for comments, he wrote that he doesn't approve of
marijuana use, except for terminal and progressive disease with pain and nausea, Bishop
said.
Ives doesn't know what his doctors would say to such a request. But he said he doesn't
think it would even be fair to ask them.
Officials at Denver's VA hospital didn't respond to a request for comment. A spokesman
at the Denver office of the U.S. attorney said he couldn't comment on whether doctors who
are federal employees could face repercussions for recommending marijuana use.
Ives won't say where he gets his marijuana but said he is going to start growing his
own.
"I'm on a fixed income; I can't afford the real good stuff," he said. Though
he's used it for years illegally, Ives said he, like Bishop, is eager to be on the right
side of the law.
"I don't think I'm a criminal, and I'm tired of being treated like one."
By Karen Auge
Denver Post Medical Writer
Friday, June 01, 2001 - Colorado doctors who recommend medical marijuana
for their patients could risk federal prosecution, Attorney General Ken Salazar warned
Thursday.
However, after more than two weeks of review, Salazar said that a recent
U.S. Supreme Court ruling does not invalidate Colorado's medical marijuana law.
"The ruling does not prevent the state from moving forward" to
implement the amendment allowing use of medical marijuana, Salazar wrote in a prepared
statement.
Amendment 20, which voters approved in November, is set to take effect
today. The new state law does not establish any legal means to obtain marijuana.
Salazar, along with Gov. Bill Owens, opposed the amendment.
The amendment allows patients who suffer from certain debilitatpetition
the state for permission to possess and use small amounts of the drug.
For that permission to be granted, a physician must sign a form verifying
an applicant suffers from one of several specific medical conditions and that
"marijuana may mitigate the symptoms of the patient's condition."
Salazar's statement said he and Owens wrote Dr. Richard Allen, president
of the Colorado Medical Society, warning that "physicians face the risk of potential
federal prosecution if they participate in the program."
Allen said Thursday that he had not yet received the letter.
But, he said, "it sounds like there are some issues here that
physicians need to be concerned about. And nobody has any answers yet."
Rich Caschette, a former federal prosecutor in Denver, said federal law
prohibiting sale and use of marijuana should cause concern.
"I certainly would be wary if I were a physician," he said.
Luther Symons, spokesman for Coloradans for Medical Rights, which backed
Amendment 20, said he was disappointed that Salazar included what Symons termed a threat
in his statement.
"He is attempting to scare and frighten Colorado doctors. It's
unfortunate that they're resorting to fear tactics."
But Symons said he didn't think the warning would effectively derail
Amendment 20. "I think once everyone steps back and sees that federal courts were
really quick and really decisive in California, it's going to give doctors here a level of
comfort that these threats won't be carried out," Symons said.
Last September, a federal district judge in California ruled that federal
efforts to bar physicians from discussing medical marijuana with patients violated the
doctors' First Amendment right to free speech.
Alan Gilbert, Colorado's solicitor general, said courts could interpret a
doctor's signature on the application as merely offering an opinion and therefore not a
violation of drug laws.
Salazar's opinion on Amendment 20 comes in the wake of a May 14 U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that said cannabis buyers clubs, which provide medical marijuana for
people in California, are illegal. In its ruling, the court said there is no scientific
basis for the medical use of marijuana. But while it outlawed the buyers' clubs, the high
court did not specifically overturn California's Proposition 215, the 1996 law that
legalized the use of medical marijuana in that state.
The ruling prompted questions about whether Colorado's Amendment 20 would
be pre-empted by federal laws barring marijuana use.
In his statement Thursday, Salazar said he and Owens had sent a letter to
acting U.S. Attorney Richard Spriggs asking him to "enforce federal law."
A spokesman for Spriggs said the office hadn't yet received the letter
Thursday afternoon.
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