Committee OK's adding children to medical pot

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  Cancer patient Christopher Campbell takes an eye dropper to collect hashish hemp oil, Thursday, June 24, 2004, in Portland, Ore. Photo: RICK BOWMER, AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

HARTFORD -- Children would be allowed to join the state's medical-marijuana program, but would be prohibited from smoking or inhaling its vapors in a revised form of the legislation approved Tuesday.

In a bipartisan move that's the last hurdle before debates in the Senate and House, the General Law Committee agreed that allowing children to smoke would send the wrong signal.
The committee accepted an amendment from the Senate, then sent it back for a vote. The limitations should have little effect on Connecticut parents who want to try a liquid form that has been found to reduce childhood seizures.

"We felt strongly that minors should not be perceived as smoking marijuana where people might see it and not really understand that it was being used (to treat) a medical condition and it might send a wrong message to their peers," said Rep. David A. Baram, D-Bloomfield, committee co-chairman.
But Rep. Dan Carter, R-Bethel, who supported the bill, warned that restricting doctors' ability to allow the vaporizing of the drug might not be advisable at this nascent point in marijuana research.

"I do believe there's a clear need with respect to younger patients," Carter said. "In a way, I think we're putting the political part of it above the health part of it. I think there should be freedom for those practitioners who are going to prescribe this to utilize any delivery system they need to do. Clearly there are benefits, certain times, to inhale certain products. If we shut it down and say you can't smoke it or you can't vaporize it, I think in a way that retards to do some of the studies we need to do."

Sen. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford, chairman of the committee, concurred with Carter that more research is required.
"Only with the additional research would I then want to see medical marijuana made available in a vaporized form, down the road, if the facts justify it," Leone said.
Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, a committee member who is the ranking member of the powerful Judiciary Committee, recalled "some heart-wrenching testimony" from parents who moved to Maine so they could use that state's medical marijuana program to treat their children's neurological ailments.

The state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics does not oppose the use of the drug for children in cases of terminal illness and debilitating conditions including seizure disorders and serious neurological diseases.
The bill, proposed by the state Department of Consumer Protection, would license laboratories that test medical cannabis and allow for marijuana research. It would also allow hospitals and hospices to administer the drug.

"Connecticut is looked to as the state that has a very good system and a system that lends itself not only to helping patients with these horrific, debilitating diseases, but also a place where extensive research can be done as well," Kissel said.
Under the rules of the General Assembly, which has until midnight June 3 to adopt the legislation, the committee was not allowed to amend the bill.

But the panel proposed several recommendations for adoption before the final draft reaches a Senate vote, including the requirement that the drug stays in its original packaging upon sale from Connecticut's six medical cannabis dispensaries; and that a pediatrician be appointed to the Board of Physicians that reviews new ailments for inclusion in the program.
There are 11 ailments for which patients may be certified for use of medical cannabis. There are six more afflictions that have been authorized for inclusion and are being reviewed for submission to the legislative Regulation Review Committee.