Top Administration Official Against Medicinal Marijuana

(Annapolis, MD)  —   The head of the state’s Department of Mental Health and Hygiene is coming out against a bill that would legalize medicinal marijuana, striking a blow to advocates who hoped a new law would pass this year. The senate passed a similar bill last year, and there was strong support in the House of Delegates this time around.  The bill would allow doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients with chronic pain or disease, and create a highly regulated network of state-registered growers.  But Dr. Josh Sharfstein said in a legislative hearing the bill doesn’t contain meaningful limits on when and how doctors could prescribe the marijuana, and that it would cost the state millions of dollars.  Sharfstein said he’d rather see the state come up with something based off a research program pushed by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, which does far more to limit access to marijuana.

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