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Olympia, WA: Washington Gov. Chris
Gregoire signed Senate Bill 6032 into law last week, amending the state's nearly
nine-year-old medical cannabis measure. Fifty-nine percent of state voters
initially approved the law in 1998, which enacts statewide legal
protections for patients who use cannabis under the supervision of their
physician.
The amended law, which takes effect on July 22, 2007,
mandates the state Department of Health to "adopt rules defining the quantity of
marijuana that could reasonably be presumed to be a sixty-day supply for
qualifying patients." The Department is instructed to report its findings to the
legislature by July 1, 2008.
Currently, patients may legally possess or cultivate up
to a sixty-day supply of marijuana for therapeutic purposes. Lawmakers have
never clarified how much cannabis legally constitutes a "sixty-day" supply,
instead leaving the issue to be interpreted subjectively by local law
enforcement.
As amended, patients who possess larger quantities of
cannabis than those approved by the Department will continue to receive legal
protection under the law if they present evidence indicating that they require
such amounts to adequately treat their qualifying medical
condition.
Senate Bill 6032 also affirms
changes previously recommended by the state's Medical Quality Assurance
Commission to expand the state's list of qualifying conditions to include
Crohn's disease, hepatitis c, and any "diseases, including anorexia, which
results in nausea, vomiting, wasting, appetite loss, cramping, seizures, muscle
spasms, and/or spasticity, when these symptoms are unrelieved by standard
treatments or medications."
The new law also limits the ability of police to seize
medicinal cannabis that is "determined ... [to be] possessed lawfully [by an
authorized patients] under the ... law."
Though SB 6032 was approved overwhelmingly by the
legislature, Washington's medical marijuana patient community was strongly
divided over the proposal - with
many patient groups actively opposing the bill.
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