Seventeen other states and the District of Columbia have adopted medical marijuana laws, including California in 1996 and Connecticut in June.
Four years after Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative to decriminalize a small quantity of marijuana, advocates are promoting a measure on next month's ballot that would go a step farther by legalizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes.
If approved by voters, Question 3 on the ballot would allow people who have certain illnesses, including cancer, glaucoma and Parkinson's disease, to legally obtain marijuana as therapy for their symptoms. Eligible people would need to obtain a certificate from a physician to buy marijuana at centers that would be established for the first time in the state.
A marijuana plant is grown under lights at a Colorado dispensary in 2009.In 1996, California voters approved a ballot law, making the state the first to approve the use of medical marijuana. Since then, 16 other states and the District of Columbia have adopted medical marijuana laws, including Connecticut in June.
In 2008, about 65 percent of voters in Massachusetts approved a law that replaced criminal penalties for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana with a civil fine of $100, about the same as getting a traffic ticket.
A series of polls have shown that voters will probably approve the medical marijuana measure.
Opponents, including doctors, parents and law-enforcement officials, said they fear that legalizing medical marijuana would make it more available in general and easier for teenagers to abuse. They warned that medical marijuana is illegal under federal law and that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is leading a crackdown on medical pot stores in California, where about 1,000 operate in Los Angeles alone.
Dr. James BroadhurstDr. James B. Broadhurst, a Worcester doctor with a family practice who also treats people with addictions, said approval of the ballot question would be a tragedy for the state.
Broadhurst cited statistics from Colorado, which legalized medical marijuana in 2000, showing that drug violations reported by Colorado’s kindergarten to grade12 schools have increased 45% in the past four years while the combined number of all other violations has dropped.
Broadhurst said the proposed law contains a major loophole that could allow any patient to get marijuana for virtually any reason. According to the measure, a physician could prescribe a 60-day supply of marijuana to a patient with a "debilitating medical condition," including a broad category defined as "other conditions." Broadhurst said the allowance for "other conditions" is a loophole that clears the way for widespread abuse.
He said that the measure goes too far in establishing marijuana stores around the state. The law would permit up to 35 nonprofit dispensaries or treatment centers around the state, including at least one and not more than five in each county.
"I'm very concerned that this law would be bad for Massachusetts," said Broadhurst, the chairman of the Vote No on Question 3 coalition, which has created a website to educate people. "It will create many more problems than it will solve."
Lorraine KerzSupporters of the ballot question are backed by some big out-of-state money. Noted marijuana supporter Peter B. Lewis , the non-executive chairman of insurance giant Progressive Corp., has now contributed $1.022 million, including $525,000 last year, to the Committee for Compassionate Medicine, the organization leading the effort to legalize medical marijuana in Massachusetts. The committee has spent about $1 million in the effort to approve the ballot question.
Jennifer Manley, spokeswoman for the committee, emphasized the benefits of marijuana for people who suffer from debilitating diseases.
She also said the proposed Massachusetts law contains some safeguards and controls that are absent in other states. She said it would be the safest marijuana law in the country.
Matthew Allen, executive director of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance, said that unlike California, a potential patient in Massachusetts would need to have a "bona fide" relationship with a physician to obtain medical marijuana.
Before people can obain medical marijuana, they would need a written recommendation from a physician and also a registration card from the state Department of Public Health, he said.
The measure, which would become law on Jan. 1, requires the public health department to write high levels of regulations for medical pot within 120 days after passage, he said.
But until those regulations are complete, the measure also allows for a doctor's written recommendation to constitute a registration card for a patient, he said. In the period before the regulations are written, a person is likely to still be arrested if possessing more than an ounce of pot, but the recommendation could be used as a defense in court.
The measure contains enough protections to prevent marijuana from becoming any more available than it already is for youths, Allen said.
The ballot question includes "other conditions," because it is needed to cover certain illnesses or diseases that are not specified in the proposed law, Allen said.
The committee has featured a video of Lorraine E. Kerz, of Greenfield, who said that marijuana helped her son deal with anxiety and the side effects of chemotherapy before he died of cancer in 2008. Her son, Silas R. Bennett, used marijuana as a medicine to ease severe nausea and pain before he died at age 29 from cancer, said Kerz, one of the original signers of the petition for the proposed ballot question.
"Marijuana not only relieved his nausea and gave him back his appetite, it also helped alleviate the anxiety and despair he was feeling at the time," Kerz said.
In another key control, Manley said the measure calls for the state Department of Public Health to register qualifying patients, caregivers and centers that dispense marijuana. People who work at dispensaries would also need to register with the state.
She said the law would not require private insurance companies or government programs to reimburse for medical marijuana.