I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Renters at 23 apartment complexes in Albuquerque must sign agreements by today to not grow or use medical marijuana where they live or face eviction according to a memo from the manager of the complexes, the Albuquerque Journal is reporting.
Monarch Properties Inc., the management company, is pushing the agreements because many of the complexes it oversees are federally financed or subsidized, the Journal quotes the company’s attorney as saying. Growing or using marijuana, for any purpose, is still illegal under federal law.
It is unclear how many renters living in complexes managed by Monarch have signed the agreements, the paper reports.
The firm’s ultimatum exposes the tension between a 2007 New Mexico law that allows patients with certain illnesses to use medical marijuana as a way to dull pain often associated with the diseases and federal law, which still outlaws the use of cannabis despite 14 states passing laws allowing for its medicinal use.
The New Mexico Department of Health, which oversees the state’s medical marijuana program, is powerless against federal law, the Journal quotes an agency spokeswoman as saying.
One of the two gubernatorial candidates, Republican Susana Martinez, has said she would work to repeal New Mexico’s law, but overturning the three-year-old statute appears highly unlikely given the support it garnered in the state Legislature.
New Mexico’s law is considered among the most restrictive of the 14 states that have medical marijuana programs. New Mexico licenses marijuana dispensaries, but only after they clear several hurdles. The state Department of Health then regulates how the cannabis is distributed to patients, but only after they present doctor-certified documents proving they suffer from one of several qualifying illnesses.
So far, the state has licensed 11 nonprofits to produce and distribute the cannabis to 2,250 active patients, according to a state health department spokeswoman. Roughly 1,022 of those patients are licensed to grow cannabis, but only for themselves.
