My Maryland is Amazing (Medical Marijuana)
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Andrew Kaczynski ?@BuzzFeedAndrew 3m
Duuuude. RT @journosnow: WOW. Maryland Senate approves medical marijuana bill 42-4, sending the bill to Gov. O'Malley for his signature”
related:
____ Political reporter Pat Warren reports the Senate passed medical marijuana 42-4 and the bill will now go to Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is expected to sign it.
O’Malley has not personally said whether he will sign the bill. However, the state health secretary, who is a member of O’Malley’s cabinet, has expressed support for the measure.
The bill allows academic medical centers to submit applications to establish a program to dispense marijuana to qualified patients. It is expected to become available 2015, possibly sooner, according to bill sponsor Baltimore Delegate Dan Morhaim, an emergency room physician.
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"We are expressing our belief that people who are sick should be able to access the drug without civil or criminal penalties," said Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat who introduced the bill.
Patients are protected under a 2011 law that allows them to use medical necessity as an "affirmative defense" in court if caught with marijuana and drug paraphernalia. On Monday, the House of Delegates voted 92-37 to approve a bill extending that defense for patients' caregivers. The Senate has passed the same bill . . .
Under the bill, caregivers -- as well as patients -- could still be charged with a crime for possessing the drug. But the legislation spells out how caregivers could prove themselves not guilty because they had the drug and paraphernalia to help a family member who takes it for medical reasons . . .
read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/maryland-medical-marijuana_n_2996983.html
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