Medical pot? Sheriff, former surgeon general weigh in

Palm Coast Observer
News

Flagler County Sheriff Jim Manfre knows what it’s like to watch a loved one go through painful medical treatment and wish for anything that would dull their pain. That has made him more open to the idea of a medical marijuana amendment under consideration in Florida than the Florida Sheriff’s Association, which has opposed it.

“My mom had breast cancer, and she went through a scheduled radiation treatment,” he said. “If there’s anything that a doctor could have prescribed that could have helped her with that treatment, I certainly would have wanted that for my mom.”

Manfre hasn’t come out unreservedly in favor of the medical marijuana amendment, and he doesn’t favor legalization of recreational use. But he’s open to the possibility of regulated medical use, he said, and is concerned that some on both sides of the marijuana debate have let emotion cloud their thinking.

“I evaluate things based on fact,” he said. “I’m trained as a lawyer, and I’m opening to looking at diverse sides.”

Research seems to show that “there’s nothing else out there that replaces medical marijuana for certain conditions,” he said.

The amendment has tended to divide state leaders along party lines, with Republicans, including Governor Rick Scott, opposing it, while former Florida governor Charlie Crist, who switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, has come out in favor of it.

Crist is employed by the law firm of John Morgan, which has spearheaded the Florida legalization effort through an advocacy group Morgan heads called United for Care. A statement on the law firm’s website, forthepeople.com, says Morgan’s father “found relief from the symptoms of cancer and emphysema in the last days of his life thanks to medical cannabis.”

Morgan said the amendment “is not a wink and a smile and psychologists prescribing marijuana,” according to the firm’s website. “It’s much more regulated, and it’s really for the terminally ill and chronically ill, not for somebody that’s having a bad hair day.”

A November 2013 poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found that 82% of Floridians support "allowing adults to legally use marijuana for medical use if it is prescribed by a doctor," according to the university's website.

A “pot shop on every corner”?

When the Florida Supreme Court considered the amendment in January and ruled 4-3 to allow it to be placed on the 2014 general election ballot, a sticking point that divided the court was a difference between the language of the ballot summary, which mentions the use of marijuana for “individuals with debilitating diseases as determined by a licensed Florida physician,” and the text of the amendment itself, which would permit the use of medical marijuana for "other conditions for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient."

Conservatives opposed to the amendment said the difference in language could mislead voters, and the reference to “other conditions” in the amendment’s text could let doctors prescribe it for anything.

The majority rejected that argument, writing in the ruling, “Voters are given fair notice as to the chief purpose and scope of the proposed amendment, which is to allow a restricted use of marijuana for certain ‘debilitating’ medical conditions,” and, “We therefore reject the opponents’ assertion that the amendment ‘would allow far wider marijuana use than the ballot title and summary reveal.’ ”

But House Speaker Will Weatherford, a Republican, warned the amendment could lead to unfettered recreational use.

“Make no mistake: This is not about compassionate medical marijuana,” Weatherford said in a statement. “This is about the Coloradofication of Florida, where the endgame is a pot shop on every street corner.”

The “broad” language of the amendment also concerns former Florida surgeon general Frank Farmer, an Ormond Beach resident who retired from his post at the state’s health department in March 2012 to help his wife through a struggle with breast cancer.

“The way it’s written, essentially any condition would qualify a person to get medical marijuana,” he said. “So, a person who has a stomach ache or any other condition could get a prescription.” He plans to vote against the amendment.

Policing pot and pain pills

Sheriff Manfre said abuse and over-prescription is already a problem with drugs that are, arguably, more dangerous: pain prescriptions like Oxycodone and Hydrocodone.

“Things that doctors prescribe for medical purposes can get abused,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a reason to prohibit it. If that’s the case, then we should prohibit pain pills. That’s what's really abused.”

Abuse of medical marijuana, if it became legal, would be a matter for law enforcement officers, he said.

“Like any other prescription drug, law enforcement has to make sure physicians are prescribing it pursuant to the law,” he said. “Like anything else that’s prescribed, law enforcement has to oversee whether there’s going to be abuse. We have to oversee new drugs that come into our community, and see what their effects are.”

But Farmer, the former surgeon general, said he lived through the pill-mill crisis that “made Florida a laughing stock,” and doesn’t want a repeat with medical pot.

“We were losing seven or eight people a day due to prescription drugs,” he said. If medical marijuana is legalized, he said, “I’m afraid we’d go back to where we were when we had people coming down from Indiana or wherever for Oxycodone, and getting those drugs and selling them on the street. I’m afraid we’re going go back to that category.”

The reason to permit pain pills but not pot, he said, is that with pain pills, “there’s a great need for people who have chronic pain to take those,” and the drugs have been carefully studied to establish that they work and aren’t dangerous if taken responsibly.

That’s not the case with marijuana, he said.

“I can find no medical evidence or written evidence that marijuana has a medical value,” he said. “I know there are people who have take it and claim they feel better, and I’m happy for them. But there’s no substantial literature that supports that.”

There is evidence, though, that marijuana might be harmful for children and young adults, he said, and he expects that “that’s going to be the age group that’s going to be using it the most.”

“I think there’s a great deal of harm that can be done with marijuana,” he said. “I’ve seen many reports that marijuana does damage to developing brains.”

Advocates for legalizing marijuana, medical or otherwise, often point out that fatal overdoses aren’t the kind of problem with marijuana that they are with harder drugs, alcohol or even misused prescription painkillers. Pot just isn’t a killer, they say.

Even so, Manfre, like Farmer, doesn’t want a pot shop on every corner. But at this point, he doesn’t believe limited legalization of medical marijuana would necessarily lead there.

“I don’t see it as a first step to legalizing marijuana,” he said. “Everyone who is going to vote on this issue needs to listen to medical professionals from other states that have legalized medical marijuana. That’s what the community should actually be focusing on: the facts.”