The Senate Health Committee passed a bill Feb. 23 for the second time in the past two years that would legalize the use of marijuana for certified medical use. The bill (S.4041-b/A.9016) has now been referred to the Codes Committee.

Efforts to legalize medical marijuana have sprouted up in the Legislature for the past several years. The Assembly passed a similar form of this legislation in 2008, but the issue has yet to reach the Senate floor for a vote. The Assembly’s medical marijuana bill passed the Health Committee last month and is now sitting in the Codes Committee.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, who chair their respective house’s health committees, would legalize the possession, manufacture, use, delivery, transfer, transport or administration of marijuana by a certified patient or designated caregiver for medical use.

Gottfried said the bill has an excellent chance of passing this session as it has solid bipartisan support after a clause in the previous bill allowing the cultivation of marijuana plants by patients was eliminated.

“Some opposition towards passing the bill is political fear of doing anything someone may misconstrue as being soft on drugs,” Gottfried opined.

The assemblyman went on to say that anyone who would go through the procedure to obtain medical marijuana to break the law would be “amazingly stupid,” as they would have to go through certified physicians and the state Health Department. “If someone was willing to break the law to get marijuana, they can do so today.”

“We applaud the New York Senate Health Committee members for doing the right thing and taking this important step toward protecting sick and dying New Yorkers from arrest or jail,” said Noah Mamber, legislative analyst with the Marijuana Policy Project.

The opposition in the Senate’s Health Committee had concerns with the bill’s definition of who could prescribe marijuana and definitions for medical conditions that would allow access to the drug, said Scavone.

New York Patients First, an advocacy group that strongly supports this legislation, held a press conference in Albany Feb. 23 after the bill passed the committee. At the event several patients, some of whom suffer from Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, discussed how marijuana eases the suffering caused by their illnesses.

Adam Scavone, legislative director of New York Patients First, said after the recent amendment to the bill he believes the Senate “opposition is softening.”

Scavone said the legislation is very similar to a bill New Jersey passed on Jan. 11, which made it the 14th state in the nation to legalize medical marijuana.

A Quinnipiac University Poll released in the beginning of February reported that New York state voters support medical marijuana as a “good idea,” with 71 percent of voters favoring medical marijuana and 25 percent opposing it.

Dan Searles of Beacon suffers from Parkinson’s and chronic back pain and prefers marijuana to various pain medications, such as morphine, that were prescribed by his doctor.

“I’m presently on a half dozen medications that I would gladly trade for something more natural,” said Searles. “Life’s difficult enough without having to worry about that end of it.”

Mike Kessler from Elmira was in a motorcycle accident in 1986 that caused third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body and broke his back in six places. Kessler said he has to take 100 mg of morphine and 10 mg of Percosets three times a day to relieve the pain.

“I’ve taken them for too many years, so I can’t imagine the toll it’s taken on my liver already, and I would give up all of my medication if I was able to smoke marijuana,” said Kessler.

“It’s a life issue. Do you want a drug addict from a doctor or do you want to take care of yourself in the garden?” said Brian Kuprin of Little Falls, who still suffers neurological pain from an electrical accident injury on a job site in Nassau County that happened almost 20 years ago.

When asked about the harm marijuana smoke could have to patients’ lungs, the patients agreed that smoking is not the only way to consume the drug; it can be taken in pill form or eaten with food.

Tim Cerrone of Amsterdam was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two years ago and has felt like an outcast because of the difficulty trying to obtain marijuana used to calm the symptoms he suffers from daily.

“The only option I was given was to stab myself four times a day for the rest of my life with steroids, I wasn’t given any alternatives … I won’t stab myself,” said Cerrone.

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Tags: Adam Scavone, Brian Kuprin, Mike Kessler, Tim Cerrone