Bill 423 Aims to Legalize Medicinal Marijuana on Guam

GUAM- Medicinal marijuana has been a hot topic for some time. While many people feel it has legitimate benefits, others feel that its supporters are simply blowing smoke.

Although a good number of people use marijuana for recreational purposes, there are also many others who use it strictly for its medicinal purposes.

Senator Rory Respicio is introducing a new bill to allow doctors to prescribe medicinal marijuana to patients with debilitating conditions.

The bill's author, Senator Rory Respicio, explains, "We need to focus on allowing for cannabis to be available for medicinal purposes. When you look at people who need this because they're on their death bed because they have cancer or debilitating illness. Or people who don't have access to health care and medication is so expensive. People talk about marinol. Why legalize marijuana for medical reasons when you have marinol available. But go ask those same people how much marinol costs without insurance."

Despite all of the benefits of marijuana, Respicio stresses that he is advocating it for medicinal use only. In order to ensure this, the use of medical marijuana must be regulated.

Respicio adds, "The other thing that we did is we are going to call for a policy or commission to review this. This is new territory on Guam so we have to look at what they do in the states and how they regulate this so this commission will do that. We also had to take out that section that would've removed the $100 penalty for one ounce or less. We felt after much consideration that that would've been a backdoor way to legalize marijuana."

As it stands now, Senator Adolfo Palacios does not support the bill. Palacios comments, "there's going to be some difficulty in the enforcement of it, the monitoring of it and for what purpose? If it's for medicinal, there are other medicines that can do that."

While everyone seems to have strong positions on medicinal marijuana, Bill 423 will ultimately be decided here on the legislature floor. However, There is still time to speak up and voice your opinion on the matter.

For the Guam News Watch video report, watch here:

YouTube - Bill 423 Aims to Legalize Medicinal Marijuana on Guam


NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Guam News Watch
Author: Chris Unpingco
Contact: Guam News Watch
Copyright: 2010 Guam News Watch
Website: Bill 423 Aims to Legalize Medicinal Marijuana on Guam

* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article
 
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