In New Mexico, medical marijuana isn't a punch line

A bill probably will be filed in the Iowa Legislature next year seeking to making it legal for people with certain illnesses that have confounded traditional treatment efforts to obtain marijuana for medical use.

And it likely won't be taken seriously. It might not even get a committee vote.

In fact, the last high-profile development in Iowa on the issue was a prank. State Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, traveled to California in 2010 and pretended to have hemorrhoids so he could show just how easy it is to get a prescription for pot. What a hoot. Even the House Ethics Committee laughed it off. Cheech and Chong and Clel. Classic.

But if Baudler had gone to New Mexico, his stunt would have gone up in smoke.

IOWAN A KEY

New Mexico approved a medical marijuana law in 2007, and an Iowa native is among the key architects of the extensive rules and regulations that followed. Dr. Steve Jenison grew up in Ames, graduated from Iowa State University in 1975 and the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 1981.

Jenison was director of infectious diseases for the New Mexico Department of Public Health, working to stunt an epidemic of hepatitis C among intravenous drug users,

when then-Gov. Gary Johnson

appointed him to a task force on drug laws. That task force, among other things, recommended legalizing marijuana for medical use. After a few years of political debate, Gov. Bill Richardson signed it into law, and Jenison was assigned to help implement it.

So the issue is no joke to Jenison, who stopped to speak with our editorial board this past week, wearing a close-cropped haircut and a coat and tie.

None of his clothes appeared to be made from hemp. Never once did he call me “dude.”

“I was pretty lukewarm to it,' Jenison said of the first time he was introduced to the issue. But then he started talking to a lot of people. Sick people.

There was the guy who suffered a high spinal injury while diving. His severe nighttime leg spasms kept him awake and drove his wife to sleep elsewhere. Not even strong pharmaceuticals worked. But a couple of hits of marijuana before bed ended the spasms.

During the legislative debate, Jenison said a Mormon Republican obstetrician/gynecologist told of how marijuana also helped two women whose severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy caused them to suffer miscarriages.

NOT CALIFORNIA

Why should the state deny people access to a treatment that works for them? The key, Jenison said, was listening to residents and crafting a responsible law.

“We're not comfortable being lumped in with California and Colorado,” Jenison said.

In New Mexico, as Jenison tells it, Baudler would have had to apply for eligibility. A clinician would have had to verify that he had one of 17 medical conditions that qualify for access to medical cannabis. Cancer, HIV, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and hospice care are on the list. Hemorrhoids are not. There are about 10,000 people in New Mexico who have qualified.

The clinicians' report goes to a state medical advisory board, which has to sign off on the application. The advisory board's decision is reviewed by the state secretary of health.

That same advisory board, which Jenison led until

earlier this year, reviews and approves applications for marijuana producer-dispensaries in the state, with the secretary of health having the final say. There are 23 dispensaries. The advisory panel also reviews applications from any certified patients who wish to grow their own pot.

“There have been raids in California,” Jenison said, referring to dispensaries. “There's never been a raid in New Mexico.”

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT

Jenison said support for medical marijuana in New Mexico is broad and bipartisan. But it's not universal. Current Gov. Susanna Martinez, a former prosecutor, ran in 2010 promising to repeal medical marijuana. But since then, Martinez has said she'll take no action to make that happen. Jenison, who appeared in a TV ad in 2010 for a group critical of Martinez's stand, was not reappointed to the medical advisory board this year.

There's also debate in New Mexico over whether post-traumatic stress disorder should remain among the 17 illnesses that qualify for marijuana use. An effort to remove it failed.

And despite passage of medical marijuana, efforts to legalize it for recreational use in New Mexico haven't gone anywhere.

I'm not expecting this to change Iowa lawmakers' minds immediately. But what it should show is that this is a real public policy issue, one that can be addressed with seriousness, and not just cheap theatrics.

Plow past the snickering and Doritos jokes, and you'll find real people looking for help. The question is: Should they have to become criminals to get it, or should there be another way? Do lawmakers have enough vision to look past tiresome slippery-slope fables and safe drug-war politics to see things

differently?

I don't know the answers. But I do know that issues such as the ban on public smoking and same-sex marriage used to draw snorts and eye-rolls. Now they're the law. No joke.