Pa. Medical Marijuana Bill Gets Hearing

HARRISBURG, Pa. - The growing debate surrounding the legalization of marijuana as a medicine has arrived in Pennsylvania -- although it may not go far.

The House Committee on Health and Human Services heard testimony Wednesday from patients, doctors and members of advocacy groups who say medical marijuana should be legal because it is effective in treating chronic pain, nausea and other ailments.

However, the bill, sponsored by Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, faces long odds, because it is opposed by Attorney General Tom Corbett and the Senate's Republican majority is not likely to take up the issue.

Committee Chairman Frank Oliver, D-Philadelphia, plans more hearings on the bill before a vote is taken, an aide said. The three hours of testimony at the Capitol was at times emotional, including a woman whose daughter died of a drug overdose and a young man whose mother smoked marijuana to ease the pain of terminal breast cancer.

One speaker, Brad Walter, said he smokes marijuana four or five times a day to relieve gastrointestinal pain and distress from the 14 pills he takes to counteract the effects of HIV.

Walter, of Larksville, said he takes the risk of getting pot illegally because nothing else -- including Marinol, a government-approved prescription drug that contains the active ingredient in marijuana -- helps nearly as much.

Marinol, he said, helps his appetite, but not the pain. Smoking marijuana does both, he said.

"I would not smoke it if it were not for this," Walter, 31, said in an interview.

Sharon Smith, a suburban Harrisburg resident who started the drug-treatment advocacy group Momstell after her daughter Angela died of a heroin overdose in 1998, questioned who would end up using the drug, given the instances of abuse in other states that have legalized medical marijuana.

In addition, she said, legislators are ill-equipped to decide whether any substance should be considered medicine.

"Let the medical experts make this decision, not the legislators," she told the committee.

In a letter to the committee, Corbett said he opposes the bill, warning that even the limited legalization of marijuana could compound the dangers that drugs present to society.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, said the chamber's GOP members have no plans to consider such a bill, even if were to pass the Democratic-controlled House.

Under Cohen's bill, the state Department of Health would issue ID cards to patients who have been diagnosed by a physician with a debilitating medical condition, such as cancer or HIV, and whose physician recommended the use of marijuana. Patients under 18 could use marijuana, as well, with the consent of a parent or custodian.

The department would establish or license dispensaries to grow and distribute marijuana.

For now, medical marijuana occupies a gray area of the law.

Federal law makes marijuana use and sales illegal -- even for medical reasons -- and the Federal Drug Administration has not approved marijuana for medicinal use.

However, 13 states allow the medical use of marijuana without penalty -- a doctor's recommendation is always required -- and federal agents are discouraged from arresting medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws.

Maryland law levies a maximum penalty of $100 for a defendant in a marijuana-related state prosecution who successfully claims that their use is a medical necessity, according to marijuana advocates.

Other state legislatures, including New Jersey's, are considering medical marijuana bills.