ANNAPOLIS — Medical marijuana will not be legalized in Maryland as long as Gov. Martin O’Malley is in office, even though a bill legalizing the drug for medicinal use has broad support among state lawmakers.
Advocates of legalizing marijuana as a prescription drug say many debilitating symptoms that accompany progressive and life-threatening illnesses cannot be treated by any other drug but pot.
But O’Malley has threatened to veto any medical marijuana legislation, for fear that state workers engaged in the program could be prosecuted by the federal government, as long as marijuana is illegal on the federal level.
“This is really about compassion and care,” said Del. Dan Morhaim, D-Baltimore County, who is sponsoring a bill that would allow trained doctors to prescribe marijuana. “Let’s not forget about our hearts as we go along [with this].” Morhaim said the goal of the legislation is to “relieve suffering by thousands of Marylanders.”
The Maryland Senate approved the legalization of medical marijuana in a 35-12 vote in 2010, but the House never voted it out of committee. Last year, the House appeared poised to pass a bill legalizing the drug, with 61 co-sponsors on the bill — just 10 votes short of the 71 votes needed for passage.
But the bill was tabled after state Health Secretary Joshua Sharfstein raised concerns over the funding and regulation of the drug. The General Assembly created a committee, on which Sharfstein served, to come up with a measure that would pass those tests.
One measure that the committee drafted would allow for Maryland colleges and universities to administer medical marijuana to certain patients for research. Another would additionally allow for trained physicians to prescribe marijuana.
Sharfstein said he approved of the first bill, which he helped craft, but he told lawmakers that he couldn’t support it for the reasons that O’Malley claimed.
“As policy, [the bill] with some minor modifications represents a reasonable approach to the investigations use of marijuana for medical purposes,” Sharfstein said. “However, because of the potential for federal prosecution of state employees, we are unable to support [the bill] at this time.”
Former talk show host Montel Williams, who is a strong advocate of marijuana legalization, called that reasoning an agenda-driven “excuse.”
“The governor seems very concerned about the fact that this would put state employees in a tough position,” he told state lawmakers. “That’s an excuse. … Who knows what the agendas may be.”
He said that no state employees have been prosecuted for involvement in state-administered medical marijuana programs.
