Marijuana Policy Project

After a 32-3 vote in the New Mexico Senate and a 36-31 vote in the House, Gov. Bill Richardson (D) signed SB523 into law, making New Mexico the 12th state to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest and prosecution. The law takes effect on July 1, and the Department of Health has until October 1 to issue rules.

The new law does the following:

• protects seriously ill patients — and, in some cases, their caregivers — from being arrested under state law for possessing (and patients using) limited amounts of medical marijuana with their doctors' recommendations;
• provides for licensed producers that can produce and distribute medical marijuana to patients according to Health Department rules;
• creates registry identification cards, so that law enforcement officials can easily tell who is a qualified patient and who is not, and establishes penalties for fraudulently pretending to be in the medical marijuana program;
• protects doctors from being punished for recommending the medical use of marijuana to their patients; and
• prohibits the public use of marijuana and driving under the influence of marijuana, among other commonsense restrictions.

A few other specifics about how the Lynn & Erin Compassionate Use Act will work:

• If a doctor certifies that a caregiver is necessary to take responsibility for assisting with the patient's medical use of marijuana, the patient may also have a caregiver.
• The Department of Health, with input from an advisory board of medical professionals, will decide how much marijuana patients can possess, which will be a three-month supply. From July 1 until 30 days after the department issues rules, patients will be able to obtain temporary medical marijuana certifications, which will have temporary limits on the amount of marijuana patients can possess.
• The Department of Health will set up requirements for licensing producers and will develop a distribution system for medical marijuana at places designated by the department.