Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Petitions- Preface

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Saturday, September 16th 2017


New Mexico State Department of Health
Medical Cannabis Advisory Board
Medical Cannabis Program
PO Box 26110
Santa Fe, NM, 87502-6110

Preface

The Governor’s Office has highlighted the importance of such priorities like; Ensuring Transparency and Ethics in Government, and Keeping all New Mexicans Safe. In the Roundhouse, one of the state legislators’ primary functions is to represent the people who elect them, but it is by no means their only function. They help to solve the numerous problems of their constituents, they serve on interim committees and they continually study new ideas for legislation. The Department of Health’s mission is to promote health and wellness, improve health outcomes, and assure safety net services for all people in New Mexico. And the purpose of the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act is to allow the beneficial use of medical cannabis in a regulated system for alleviating symptoms caused by debilitating medical conditions and their medical treatments.

These Petitions are being provided to the State Department of Health Medical Cannabis Program so the advisory board can review and recommend to the department for approval additional debilitating medical conditions that would benefit from the medical use of cannabis with the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act.

In maintaining what Governor Martinez said, about the ‘important responsibility’ of the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board, these are the Petitions being providing for review; as all the Petitions meet the five items as criteria stated in (Part B) for the Duties and responsibilities of the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board:


November 2017 MCAB Petitions
Health Conditions To Add Petitions:
  1. ADD/ADHD And Tourette's Syndrome
  2. All Forms of Arthritis
  3. Cystic Fibrosis
  4. Degenerative Neurological Disorder / Neuroprotective Applications
  5. Diabetes
  6. Dysmenorrhea
  7. Eczema / Psoriasis
  8. Muscular Dystrophy
  9. Polymyalgia Rheumatica
  10. Post-Concussion Syndrome And TBI
  11. All Types Seizures (such as: psychogenic neurologic disorders; Motor Disorders / Motor Development Disorders)
  12. Substance Abuse Disorder(s)
Medical Treatment Petitions:
  1. Medical Treatment; Pediatric Oncology & Medical Cannabis Use for Antiemetic in State Hospitals
  2. Medical Treatment; Medical Cannabis Program Research & Education Established
  3. Medical Treatment; ADA language for Section 8 of LECUA; Medical cannabis registry
  4. Medical Treatment; Medical Cannabis 3 yr registry identification cards.
  5. Medical Treatment; Recognition of nonresident medical cards.
  6. Medical Treatment; Adequate Supply: LNPP Plant Count Increase
  7. Medical Treatment; Increase MCAB membership

As these Petitions are being reviewed, I wanted to point out that many of the Petitions for new health conditions to add into the program are health conditions that also include chronic pain as part of them. These health conditions are ones where chronic pain is a symptom or underlying symptom. The exact causes of chronic pain without injury aren't well understood. The pain may sometimes result from an underlying health condition, such as: chronic fatigue syndrome: characterized by extreme, prolonged weariness that's often accompanied by the chronic pain. And for the beneficial use of medical cannabis in the LECUA, it’s important to keep updating the Rules and Regulations for Health Conditions as not all providers or potential program participants may recognize or realize this. Thus a person, for example, suffering from Migraines may not realize how their health condition qualifies if the current qualifying health condition of Chronic Pain become an umbrella for other health conditions that are not stated.

As it states in the MCP Rules and Regulations, Section 7.34.2.9 Part A Petition Requirements, “ The advisory board may accept and review petitions from any individual or association of individuals requesting the addition of a new medical condition, medical treatment or disease for the purpose of participating in the medical cannabis program and all lawful privileges under the act.” All these Petitions fulfil this requirement and all fall under, requesting the addition of a new medical condition, medical treatment or disease.  In regard to “Scope of Work” for the medical cannabis advisory board and how the LECUA states;
7.34.2.2                 STATUTORY AUTHORITY: The requirements set forth herein are promulgated by the secretary of the department of health pursuant to the authority granted under Section 9-7-6 (E) NMSA 1978, and the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act, 26-2B-1 et seq. NMSA 1978.
[7.34.2.2 NMAC - Rp, 7.34.2.2 NMAC, 2/27/2015]
7.34.2.3                 SCOPE: This part governs the membership, duties, responsibilities and public hearing proceedings of the medical cannabis advisory board.
[7.34.2.3 NMAC - Rp, 7.34.2.3 NMAC, 2/27/2015]

And then continues to further outline the MCAB Duties providing the following;

7.34.2.8  ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
B.            Duties and responsibilities: The advisory board shall convene at least twice per year to:
(1) review and recommend to the department for approval additional debilitating medical conditions that would benefit from the medical use of cannabis;
(2) recommend quantities of cannabis that are necessary to constitute an adequate supply for qualified patients and primary caregivers;
(3) accept and review petitions to add medical conditions, medical treatments or diseases to the list of debilitating medical conditions that qualify for the medical use of cannabis and all lawful privileges under the act and implementing rules;
(4) issue recommendations concerning rules to be promulgated for the issuance of registry identification cards; and
(5) review conditions previously reviewed by the board and approved by the secretary for the purpose of determining whether to recommend the revision of eligibility criteria for persons applying under those conditions or to review new medical and scientific evidence pertaining to currently approved conditions.

And in regards to Petitions for April 2017;
During the 2017 Regular Legislative Session, state lawmakers made efforts to legislate a number of changes to the state’s Medical Cannabis Program with over 25 different pieces of legislation, one of the bills vetoed by Gov. Susana Martinez, was House Bill-527, on Friday-April 7th 2017 (same day as the medical cannabis advisory board meeting), saying she did so in part because she didn’t want to “eliminate an important responsibility” of the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board. Health Secretary Lynn Gallagher, who has the final word on changes to the state Medical Cannabis Program, hasn’t decided whether to accept new conditions and petitions the board recommended yet.

That same Friday morning, on April 7th 2017, the Department of Health’s Medical Cannabis Advisory Board held a meeting exercising that important responsibility the Governor spoke of, that resulted in some of the following: The Medical Cannabis Advisory Board voted in favor of the following Petitions and recommended to add them into the program;

•2017‐022 Patient Run Collectives- Recommended to add to MCP 4-0
The addition of Patient Run Collectives would help relieve the medical cannabis plant count shortage.
•2017-005 Change/increase possession limit to 16 oz- Recommended to add to MCP 4-0
•2017-009 Removal of Max THC Content- Recommended Removal of Cap   4-0

Per the Department of Health’s legal counsel’s input I was told that, the following petitions numbered 3 and 11 were said that they would require statutory changes or are not covered under the duties of the MCAB and were not discussed at the MCAB meeting. Yet on that same day of this Medical Cannabis Advisory Board Meeting, the Governor of New Mexico said she didn’t want to take away this important responsibility of the MCAB...so according to the Governor these Petitions should have been heard?

•2017-003 Change LECUA to give MCAB more authority (increase membership)
The addition of this Petition would allow the MCAB to better exercise that important responsibility the Governor spoke of thru increased membership, thus leading to relieving the medical cannabis plant count shortage.
•2017-011  Add definition of Medical Treatment definition to LECUA and add Adequate
Supply
Petitions 8,10 and 23 concern the licensed producers and would require statutory changes and are not covered under the duties of the MCAB and will not be discussed. Once again, on that same day of this Medical Cannabis Advisory Board Meeting, the Governor of New Mexico said she didn’t want to take away this important responsibility of the MCAB...so according to the Governor these Petitions should have been heard.

Why was there a denial of hearing these petitions that are the “important responsibility” of the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board? Once a patient has that medical cannabis card the DoH MCP & MCAB set and regulate the patient’s doctor-recommended treatment use of medicine ( medical cannabis ) by setting usage & dosage limits like; potency, quantity, availability and time of beneficial use.

Therefore, in order for the Department of Health Medical Cannabis Program to allow for the medical treatment of cannabis, the Department must properly have “adequate supply” and have it properly defined.  And for the Department to have “adequate supply” they would need to know the different amounts of plant material that goes into all the different types of medicine being produced. Dried cannabis flower (bud), pre-rolls, edibles, tinctures, topicals/salves, and concentrated forms of cannabis all require different amounts of cannabis plant material to produce. Adequate Supply can not have a set definition in the rules and regulations and needs to be reviewed to coincide with MCP growth and patient/caregiver needs. Adequate Supply should be reviewed quarterly (4 times per year) with a current census completed of qualified patients, caregivers and licensed non-profit producers.

(Ad·e·quate: (ˈadəkwət/) adjective; satisfactory or acceptable in quality or quantity.
Sup·ply (səˈplī/) verb; 1. make (something needed or wanted) available to someone; provide.
"the farm supplies apples to cider makers" or a noun; 1. a stock of a resource from which a person or place can be provided with the necessary amount of that resource.)

This is empirical data that has not been collected within the state’s medical cannabis program by the Department of Health. Therefore “adequate supply” can not be properly defined by the department by using unknown variables it has not collected. This further prevents the Department of Health from being able to set a proper plant count for each kind of licensed producer in the program for the means of achieving adequate supply within the medical cannabis program as required by law.

This is empirical data has been studied and researched by the state of Colorado by the Colorado Department of Revenue: “An assessment of physical and pharmacokinetic relationships in marijuana production and consumption in Colorado”.

Lynn & Erin Compassionate Use Act Patient’s Coalition of New Mexico ~ A GrassRoots Movement!
UNITE-NETWORK-GROW-INFORM-KNOW-EDUCATE-ACTIVISM-VOTE-HEALTH-WELLNESS

(All Rights Reserved 04/20/2016)

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