See
California Taskforce On Prop 215 Reportedly Recommends Registration System
To Protect Patients Against Rogue Law Enforcement

Medical marijuana law revision is a bad one

From The Orange County Register
www.ocregister.com

August 31, 1999

Disturbing rumors are floating about SB 848, San Jose Democratic Sen. John Vasconcellos' bill to implement the recommendations of the state Attorney General's Task Force on Medical Marijuana. If an amendment currently being considered is added to that bill, the final result would be not worth having.

A bit of background: California voters passed Prop. 215, exempting patients with a licensed physician's recommendation from laws against possessing, using and cultivating marijuana. The new law has been inconsistently enforced and state Attorney General Bill Lockyer convened a task force with representatives from law enforcement, medicine and other interests earlier this spring.

The result was SB 848, which sets up a voluntary state registration and identification system for medical marijuana patients and hands jurisdiction to the state Department of Health Services.

SB 848 is not perfect, but it would be an improvement on the current confusion over the proposition. The bill has passed the Senate, passed the relevant committees in the Assembly and is due for an Assembly floor vote this week.

But Gov. Gray Davis indicated, through a spokesman, that he might veto SB 848 because of potential conflicts with federal law, and some law enforcement organizations still have doubts about the bill. Federal law says citizens can't grow, possess, sell or smoke marijuana.

So Sen. Vasconcellos might introduce an amendment that some task force members suggested earlier.

Briefly, the amendment in its present form would require doctors with patients who have a physician's recommendation for medical marijuana to notify the county health department, sending along the patient's name, date of birth and Social Security number. The county health department would be required to convey this information to the state health department, which would place it in a database that could be accessed by law enforcement officials.

It's not hard to see potential privacy and other troublesome aspects to this proposal. There's a big difference between voluntarily supplying personal data about marijuana use and being required to. A key concern would be potential use of the list by law enforcement officials or others to in some way identify, target or keep tabs on admitted marijuana users. Such a registry could violate the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against self-incrimination -- asking users to admit their marijuana use while it's still punishable under federal law.

Too, a mandatory reporting system is different enough from Prop. 215 that it could violate the California constitutional prohibition against the Legislature making substantive changes to an initiative passed by the voters.

It's one thing to require doctors to report cases of infectious diseases that could create an epidemic, or even to do a little extra paperwork when they prescribe cocaine or morphine. But to force them to create a state database of medical marijuana patients and their doctors makes no sense. The California Medical Association has come out against this proposal, obviously concerned about the breach of doctor-patient confidentiality and the precedent that would be set.