NEW HAMPSHIRE’S FASTEST GROWING ONLINE NEWSPAPER

Medical cannabis caregiver fears Yes on 1 will hurt patients young and old

Comment Print
Related Articles
A room full of marijuana plants cultivated by caregiver Tom Bossom of Springvale. (Courtesy photos)

SPRINGVALE - Many local medical marijuana users and caregivers worry that if a bill legalizing recreational marijuana use passes on Nov. 8 it will sound a death knell for the medical marijuana community as it now exists in the state.
Tom Bossom of Springvale is one of them.
He's been a medical cannabis user for five years and a caregiver for four.
As a caregiver, he can have up to five patients for whom he can grow and supply medical marijuana, which he cultivates in his basement of his Springvale home.
Since he is capped at supplying just five patients he said he makes only a modest living doing what he does, and several times a year finds himself, "flat-assed broke."
"The people I supply aren't rich," he said. "At times they can't afford it."

Tom Bossom of Springvale


Bossom said if recreational marijuana is introduced in the state, his trade will be overregulated and driven out of business by corporate interests, which will swoop down and turn marijuana growing and selling over to corporate vultures only interested in profit.
"These people are trying to set up a national network for distribution," Bossom, who is an active campaigner for No on 1, said earlier this week.
The legalization proposal - Question 1 - would set up a recreational use market for adults 21 and older. If the referendum is approved, they would be allowed to possess up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana and six flowering plants. Marijuana sales at stores and social clubs licensed by the state and approved by cities and towns would pay a 10 percent sales tax.
But Bossom also notes that the bill would also put a cap of 800,000 square feet on growing space, which he claims will limit the state to about 50 recreational growers.
Meanwhile, there are close to 3,000 caregivers - those cultivating medical cannabis for patients - who he fears will be squeezed out by the more powerful and money-rich recreational growers.
"We've been capped at how much we can make," Bossom said. "The recreatonal people won't have that cap. We're limited to five patients. You don't open a Dunkin' Donuts and stop after you get five customers."
Bossom reasons that more money means more influence for Big Marijuana and less for caregivers.
But the biggest reason he's against the bill is it provides no clemency for those imprisoned for marijuana-related offenses.
"That's not fair," he said.
Another flaw in the initiative is that it forces the state to enact a physical test for drugged driving to be used by police before the science behind the test is fully vetted.
In Colorado, and likely in Maine if recreational use is legalized, a statute will call for a drugged driving violation if a person's blood shows 5 nanograms of THC, the active ingredient that produces the high in marijuana.
"That makes no sense," Bossom said. "The person could have a much higher THC than that and be fine behind the wheel. It's when the THC falls back that their driving is more apt to be impaired."
The THC threshold is one subject on which both Bossom and David Boyer, campaign manager for Yes on 1, agree.
Boyer said on Friday that the THC limits on the table now don't make sense, especially since marijuana stays in a user's system for up to a month, while alcohol does for just a matter of hours.
However, Boyer said oftentimes police are able to use other factors to determine if a driver is impaired other than THC levels, such as field sobriety tests and just talking to the subject, what Boyer called "significant inference."
Plus, "We have field sobriety tests, and if you can't walk a straight line, you shouldn't be driving," he added.
Boyer added that the bill may have its critics, but that the big three reasons to legalize recreational marijuana are increased tax revenue, freeing up lawmen to chase down heroin traffickers and other criminals instead of criminalizing otherwise law-abiding adults and making marijuana accessible for some medical users who often can't afford the $200 or so it costs to go to a doctor and get approved for medical marijuana usage.
"The medical marijuana program is helping people, but it's not helping everybody," Boyer said. "Legalizing recreational usage makes it a more portable medicine for those that use it as pain management."
"The current system doesn't work," Boyers added. "It's just like prohibition. Every day it's sold, so do we want it sold by drug dealers who don't check ID or by a center that does and is accountable to state regulations."
It's just that - state regulations - that worry Bossom, who fears the caregivers will be forced out of the business as regulations spawned by bureaucrats overspread their cottage industry that has filled a niche for years and works well.
If that happens, Bossom fears that young children, who often find medical cannabis a successful treatment for seizure disorders, will lose access to a drug they need, since the recreational use bill has no provision for use by folks under 21.
It should also be noted that many strains of medical marijuana have little or no THC in them and in the case of children, are usually delivered into the system through tinctures.
And while Boyer tries to reassure caregivers that the legalize recreational marijuana use bill "does not impact" Maine's medical marijuana community, Bossom's not buying.
"We'll be regulated right out of business," he quips.
Most opponents of the bill, however, suggest it's just to open to interpretation, lacks specificity and is way too expansive in its language for them to back.
One of those is Teri Poirier of Lebanon, who for several years has hosted medical cannabis festivals at her Wind Shadows Farm.
"This bill is just the wrong way to do it," she said earlier this week. "They want to shut the caregivers down and have the big guys come in and take over."

Read more from:
Top Stories
Tags:
None
Share:
Comment Print
Powered by Bondware
News Publishing Software

The browser you are using is outdated!

You may not be getting all you can out of your browsing experience
and may be open to security risks!

Consider upgrading to the latest version of your browser or choose on below: