neon-medical-marijuana-signNew Mexico has been struggling with a shortage of medical marijuana, in part because only one supplier has been licensed to produce the drug. But that may change soon, says Steve Jenison, medical director of the state’s Medical Cannibas Program, as seven of the 25 current license applicats will be referred to Department of Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil for review this month.

The state has been criticized for proceeding with its medical marijuana program at what some say is a snail’s pace. Last December the state passed regulations allowing the drug to be produced by non-profit organizations or patients enrolled in the program.

So far, only one non-profit has been given the green light to grow medical marijuana and it quickly sold out as soon as it had its first crop available in August.

Adding to the strain is the fact that the one non-profit currently licensed by the state — the Santa Fe Institute of Natural Medicine (SFINM)–has said it won’t deliver to southern New Mexico counties because of Homeland Security checkpoints in Alamogordo and Truth or Consequences.

Jenison says his department is moving in a deliberate fashion to meet the spirit and the letter of the law to license enough to meet the needs of patients.

But that’s a complicated issue, Jenison says, given the lack of precedent or models for how the state should construct its program. New Mexico is the first state with a medical marijuana statute that directs the state to license non-profit organizations to produce the drug.

The department uses a number of factors to evaluate proposals to operate a medical marijuana non-profit, and security is one of them.

“The regulations are written in a way to ensure that there is no diversion [of the drug] to the illicit market,” Jenison says. “It limits the amount of supplies on hand beyond a certain amount, and allows us to inspect them [the non-profits] without notice.”

“Forwarding the application to him [Secretary Vigil] means that we’ve completed the process to the point that we feel comfortable in advancing these applications. I’d anticipate that the decisions will be made in the near future. They might not all be positive.”

Adjusting caregiver provision could help meet demand

Screen capture from the secure website of NM's one medical marijuana producer

Screen capture from the secure website of NM's one medical marijuana producer

In other states, a person can be licensed as a caregiver to produce for a small number of patients, and given the slow pace of bringing non-profits online in New Mexico, some have suggested New Mexico ought to incorporate that provision in its law.

The reason it isn’t allowed in New Mexico now, Jenison says, is that it wasn’t clear when the regulations were developed how the state would sufficiently license and regulate such producers.

“A guiding principle of the regulations is that there has to be direct contact between the producer and the state in such a way that allows us to regulate the production,” he says. “It’s straightforward to license and regulate an enrolled patient or a non-profit that applies with the state. The caregiver concept, though, falls between those two and we couldn’t figure out how to sufficiently license and regulate. It may be possible to revisit that decision in the future.”

The department is aware that the one licensed supplier, the Santa Fe Institute for Natural Medicine, has not been able to meet demand and won’t deliver the drug to patients south of Truth of Consequences and Alamogordo.

The non-profit says on its secure Web site that traveling south of those two cities requires its staff to go through Homeland Security checkpoints, which would expose them to risk of arrest by the federal government.

…Homeland Security will not allow us to travel through checkpoints with medical marijuana. Even though the checkpoints are northbound only, Homeland Security has made it clear that if we are stopped for any reason in any direction, there is zero tolerance. As a result, we cannot travel south of Alamogordo or Truth or Consequences. We just can’t allow our employees to take the risk of federal prosecution when there is no protection for them.

The non-profit said it can’t mail the drug either, due to federal law. And, it suggests that the high cost of the drug could be brought down if the number of plants they’re allowed to produce was increased, which is something that is unlikely until federal law is changed:

Many of you have expressed an interest in taking steps to reduce the costs of your medicine and increase its availability. One of the issues involved is that there are no federal medical marijuana laws. For this reason, we cannot ship your medicine but rather we have to incur the costs of delivery. Also, the State of New Mexico Department of Health has limited production to 95 plants. Although this may sound like a large number, in truth, for about 20 percent more overhead, we can double production, which would significantly reduce price. This is because there are fixed costs required to run a business regardless of the amount of inventory. If a federal medical marijuana law were passed assuring New Mexico that no federal prosecution will occur, the Department of Health might re-visit the 95 plant limit.

According to figures provided by Department of Health spokesperson Chris Minnick, there are currently about 100 patients in southern New Mexico counties without a license to produce the drug themselves. Jenison wouldn’t provide specifics about the non-profit applications being forwarded to Vigil for a decision, but said it’s possible that one is located in the southern part of the state.