Marijuana Policy Project

A Senate panel has endorsed medical marijuana legislation over the opposition of a White House official who said it had no medical value and was part of a broader agenda to legalize drugs.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill 7-3 on Friday, sending it to the full Senate for a vote as early as Tuesday.

The bill creates a program in the state Department of Health to which doctors could refer patients with debilitating medical conditions such as cancer or AIDS. Patients who were certified by the department could possess marijuana without risk of state prosecution, although they could not grow it.

David W. Murray, special assistant to the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, contended that medical marijuana proponents were engaged in a "manipulative and cynical" effort, using suffering patients to promote their agenda.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, there is "no sound evidence that smoked marijuana is safe and effective for any medical condition," Murray testified before the committee.

Medical marijuana legislation is being promoted not by the medical community but by advocates of drug legalization, he contended.

But Sen. Rod Adair, a Roswell Republican, said "the regular dope-smoker is not sitting around hoping we would pass this."

"This whole issue is about feeling better for people who are terminal," said Adair, who voted for the bill.

In written comments he submitted to the panel, Murray who is assistant to drug czar John Walters said medical marijuana proponents have offered testimonials, but not scientific data, that smoked marijuana helps patients suffering from painful diseases feel better.

"Endorsing smoked marijuana through the political process turns our modern, hundred-year-old medical system on its head, allowing politics rather than medical judgment to determine what is safe and effective," he said in his written testimony.

Murray said the proposed state program was too open-ended since a medical advisory board could add to the list of medical conditions for which use of the drug was allowed and did not appear to have sufficient funding to effectively monitor it.

Murray also said the legislation posed a dilemma for New Mexico because the drug's use is illegal under federal law.

The measure's sponsor, Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque chairman of the judiciary panel acknowledged that New Mexicans participating in the proposed program could be subject to federal prosecution.

But the bill restricts patients to a three-month supply of the drug not likely to invite federal intervention, McSorley said.

Sen. William Payne, R-Albuquerque, who voted against the measure, said it appeared to be a challenge to the federal government's right to regulate controlled substances.

Payne said he couldn't support a bill that "I believe … is illegal on its face."

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, bristled at Murray's suggestion that the patients who testified to the committee about how marijuana alleviated their suffering were being used. And he disputed Murray's contention that with marijuana the most widely used illegal drug in America, especially among teenagers, that the proposed program would be harmful to New Mexico's teens.

The best message to send to children, Sanchez argued, "is to be compassionate, to understand suffering."

The medical marijuana bill is SB258.