Igisomar wants to tweak medical marijuana bill

Igisomar

Sen. Sixto Igisomar (R-Saipan) is looking to make revisions on Senate Bill 19-06, which proposes to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana in the CNMI. He said his revision will focus more on the controlled personal use of the psychoactive drug.

The medicinal use of marijuana supposedly treats glaucoma, epilepsy, chronic pain, muscle spasms, and reduce nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy, and improve the appetite of people with HIV/AIDS.

Igisomar said the bill is temporarily set aside for the moment as he works to include the comments that was gathered during the public hearings and the initiatives that he received from pre-personal use groups in the CNMI.

“From my point of view, the bill needs more work. It might need a major overhaul, since the more we work on it, the more we see loopholes. I want to make sure that when it becomes a law, that it actually works, that it would benefit the patients,” said Igisomar.

He added that the Senate had to focus their attention to other issues like the Internet outage and helping people recover from Typhoon Soudelor. The Senate also helped in creating the drug court and supported the administration’s programs on the war on ice.

Igisomar said he wanted people who are suffering to have continuous access to cheap medicinal marijuana. “I want it to be practical and cost-efficient where people who are sick and suffering from debilitating pain are able to access it for medicinal use as cheap and easy as they can.”

Igisomar added that he doesn’t want a half-baked bill where it was put hurriedly together, passed by the Legislature, and signed into law but it doesn’t work. They also made some analyses and learned that legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana is cost prohibitive.

“We don’t think it’s going to make enough money that would be needed to hire more officers to enforce it. I believe that if you make the medicinal use of marijuana legal, the access for our youth will also be so big.”

“That even though it is helping out the people that are sick, there will be greater impact to the students and the kids who will have access to it. If we refocus our attention and move away from medicinal and move toward personal use,” Igisomar said.

“The legalization of personal use is really like, ‘I want you to be able to take marijuana, plant it, and boil it.’ I don’t want you to go to the pharmacy and buy marijuana pill that would cost you hundreds of dollars. And that totally defeats the purpose.”

He added pro-personal use groups in the CNMI did their research before giving him the documents so he could review them and then include recommendations from people behind the medicinal marijuana bill.

“The Legislature will not support the bill if there are groups who are fighting and pushing for their own agenda. We need a unified stand,” said Igisomar.