March 19, 2015

New Mexico Medical Marijuana Growers Sue The State

March 19, 2015
legalize marijuana in new mexico

new mexico marijuanaNew Mexico was the 12 state to legalize medical marijuana in America. In 2007 New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed the medical marijuana bill that created the law in New Mexico. Since then, many other states have legalized medical marijuana via the legislative process, but at the time New Mexico did it, it was rare. Earlier this year the State of New Mexico changed the rules that govern the program, which hasn’t been well received by members of the New Mexico medical marijuana community. Some medical marijuana growers have even filed a lawsuit against New Mexico. Per Santa Fe New Mexican:

A majority of the nonprofits licensed to grow medical marijuana for the state are suing the state Department of Health and Secretary Retta Ward over new rules adopted last month for the state’s Medical Cannabis Program. They claim the new rules are arbitrary and capricious, are not evidence-based and are unenforceable because they exceed the department’s authority.

Organized under the name Cannabis Producers of New Mexico Inc., 19 producers say in documents filed in District Court late Monday that they want the court to declare the new administrative rules void, stop the department from enforcing them and require that patient forms published after the rule conform to state statute.

The state currently has 23 licensed nonprofit growers producing marijuana for patients in the program.

The new rule changes were strongly opposed by the medical marijuana community prior to being adopted. Some of the complaints about the new rules include requiring ‘patients to provide a release of medical information, allow for cancellation of a patient’s registration for reasons not contained in statute and limit the maximum quantity of marijuana a patient could possess in a 90-day period.’ The program was working just fine before the changes, so I’m not exactly sure why the changes were proposed in the first place. I’m very curious to see how this plays out.

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