SFR File Photo
SFR's analysis shows that almost 60 percent of New Mexico's 2016 first quarter 1.2 ton yield was harvested by five growers.
An interim state legislative committee last week endorsed legislation calling for a study of the benefits of medical marijuana.
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The memorial, which is not legally-binding, asks the Department of Health to look into the impact medical marijuana has on treating illnesses and medical conditions. Nat Dean, a Medical Cannabis Program patient and advocate, says she wrote the memorial at the request of state Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Bernalillo.
Dean says a political climate against medical cannabis, starting with Gov. Susana Martinez statements against the program during her 2010 campaign, prompted her to write the memorial.
"When [state Rep.] James Smith [R-Bernalillo] put up a bill to question the program, that was pretty scary," Dean tells SFR.
Smith's bill died in committee during the last general session.
The Legislative Health and Human Services committee endorsed the joint memorial last week, which moves it to the regular legislative session. Speaker Ben Luján, D-Santa Fe, can assign it to a House committee in January.
If passed by the legislature, the memorial still wouldn't force the state to do anything. But McSorley, a prominent advocate of medical cannabis, says it could move New Mexico in the right direction. He says he's getting a lot of "anecdotal evidence" that the program is reducing health costs across the state.
"If we do a good study, it could be huge in terms of finally getting people to realize from doctors and patients the actual cost [of the program]," McSorley tells SFR.
Dean, who became a Medical Cannabis Program patient three years ago after meeting multiple qualifying conditions, says its helped her visit the doctor less and lower her prescription drug intake. She's suffered from brain trauma ever since a 1984 car accident severely injured her head. For the next two decades, Dean dealt with daily visits to the doctor and loads of drug prescriptions.
"I was at a point when I was on 27 pharmaceutical medications," she tells SFR."I essentially became addicted to narcotic prescription drugs."
But now Dean says she takes seven prescription drugs and visits the doctor about once a week.
"I wouldn't have been able to be doing what I'm doing now without [medical cannabis]," she says.
The memorial:
