The D'Alliance: Personal Views on Drug Policy

Maryland's Medical Marijuana Law Lacks Substance

Friday, September 04, 2009

I was pleased to hear some refreshing news come out of Montgomery County, Maryland last week - judges in two medical marijuana cases handed down light sentences to patients convicted on possession charges.

William York walked out of the courthouse with a $100 fine, and Winnie Gesumwa had her fine waived, due to Maryland's medical marijuana law, which caps the sentence for marijuana possession at a $100 fine if defendants can prove they use the drug for medical purposes.
While assuring, theses rulings have also drawn attention to the tremendous shortcomings of the Maryland law, particularly its ambiguity and lack of essential protections for patients and caregivers.

The Darrell Putman Compassionate Use Act does not require the state to maintain a registry of medical marijuana patients, a resource that would help keep people using the drug for medical purposes out of the criminal justice system. The law contains no safe access provision, so patients still have to buy marijuana off the street rather than from dispensaries. And if patients are prosecuted for possession, they have no recourse to seek refunds for legal fees.

Essentially, the law is useless to most of its intended beneficiaries.

Currently, the sentences meted out to Maryland's medical marijuana patients convicted on pot charges depend entirely on the legal representation available to them and the individual judges assigned to their cases. Those who've received fines have generally benefited from lawyers familiar with medical marijuana law and capable of mounting a trenchant argument that marijuana is a medical necessity for their clients. They've also been lucky enough to have their cases heard by judges willing to show leniency toward medical marijuana patients. Not all judges are, and lawyers knowledgeable about the Compassionate Use Act are hard to come by.

Without a law that clearly outlines protections for patients and caregivers, these inconsistencies in sentencing will continue, but the Maryland legislature has been maddeningly hesitant to improve the current law. Last year, legislators failed even to pass a bill that would have created a taskforce to assemble a set of best practices for medical marijuana law that could guide reforms in Maryland.

There's a good chance another taskforce bill will be introduced this fall, and I hope lawmakers will reconsider. It's a small step toward much needed reforms, but a step forward nonetheless. Maryland owes its medical marijuana patients a law with some substance.