Senators during Tuesday’s legislative session started debating the first of several bills intended to solve problems with the island’s medical marijuana program, which was approved by voters four years ago, but still is not implemented.
In the last four years, no chronically ill patient on Guam has received a single dose of medical marijuana, said Sen. Louise Muña, R-Yigo, who introduced Bill 302, to allow patients and caregivers to instead grow their own.
Founder of the Japan Medical Marijuana Association Koichi Maeda takes a photo with Gov. Eddie Calvo after a meeting on Jan. 31 to discuss medical marijuana for Japanese patients.
No more waiting and more excuses
Muña, during debate on her bill, said the medical marijuana program first was delayed by a lack of rules and regulations, and now by a lack of public interest in starting a required testing lab for the marijuana that will be sold at dispensaries. The Department of Public Health and Social Services has estimated it would require a $1 million investment to start a testing lab. Under the rules and regulations, the testing lab is not provided by the government.
“No more waiting and more excuses,” said Muña, who described her bill as a stop-gap measure, to legalize home cultivation by qualified patients or their designated caregivers until marijuana becomes available at dispensaries. “Our patients are tired and frustrated, and some have even died waiting.”
Muña said she rejects the argument that home cultivation will allow marijuana to get into the wrong hands, stating that also is possible with marijuana sold at a dispensary. “All this bill really is saying is how qualified patients can get a grower’s permit, and the conditions of the permit,” she said.
As introduced on the floor, the bill allows eligible growers to have no more than three flowering plants and six juvenile plants at a time. Muña on Tuesday proposed increasing the number of flowering plants from three to six, and the number of juvenile plants to 12.
Sen. Fernando Esteves, R-Yona, said he supports increasing the number of juvenile plants allowed, as the odds are 50-50 that a juvenile plant will provide medicine. “Only a mature flowing plant can provide the medication. Everything else is a weed. Everything else is useless,” Esteves said.
Sen. Mike San Nicolas, D-Dededo, said he is concerned about allowing patients and caregivers to grow such as large number of plants, stating it increases the possibility that some marijuana will be diverted for non-medical use.
The bill does not place limits on the amount of harvested marijuana that can be kept, he said, with no accounting for how much marijuana is used by the patient and how much is destroyed.
“I’m concerned about moving in this direction because our people gave us a very clear mandate for medicinal cannabis. I want to honor that mandate,” San Nicolas said. “If we want to do recreational cannabis, then let’s just move forward with that and see how our people feel about it.”
A single flowering plant will produce a lot of cannabis, San Nicolas said. Esteves said there are patients suffering who need marijuana, and who don’t have much time left. “There are serious drug concerns out there, I get it,” Esteves said. “But it’s not cannabis destroying families on the daily.”
Lawmakers are scheduled to continue debating Muña’s bill 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Also on the session agenda are two bills by Sen. Dennis Rodriguez, Jr., D-Dededo, to jumpstart the medical marijuana program. One bill would allow the governor to waive the requirement for a testing laboratory, with legislative consent. The other would eliminate the requirement that a testing laboratory be at least 51 percent locally owned.
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