MEDICAL MARIJUANA HEARINGS PLANNED

Iowans will get a chance to weigh in on whether patients should be
allowed to smoke marijuana to ease pain, nausea and other physical ailments.

The Iowa Board of Pharmacy voted unanimously Tuesday to hold hearings
around the state on the matter.

"This is an issue that has attracted and continues to attract a lot
of attention, and appropriately so," board member Margaret Whitworth said.

Whitworth said the board wants to hear from academic experts and
everyday Iowans before making a recommendation to the Legislature.
The hearings are to begin in August, but dates haven't been set.

The board has previously expressed skepticism about medical uses of
marijuana. On Tuesday, the board rejected a demand that it reclassify
the drug as a medication that could be prescribed by doctors, but it
said it would consider the controversy again in November.

The hearings will come amid increasing national interest in the idea.
Proponents say 13 states have taken steps to allow medical uses of
marijuana. The federal government has not changed its prohibitions on
the drug, but Obama administration officials have said they would not
raid medical-marijuana distributors.

Proponents say medical marijuana can ease chronic pain and other
symptoms for patients who don't fare well on prescription drugs. But
skeptics worry that the effort is an attempt to normalize the use of
marijuana, even among people who just want to get high.

A group called Iowans for Medical Marijuana has been pushing the
board to reclassify the drug so it could be prescribed. At one point,
a judge said the board had to formally consider the group's
arguments. The board did that and rejected the arguments Tuesday, but
Chairman Vernon Benjamin said the case helped persuade regulators to
hold public hearings.

"I think probably there's a lot of people that have pertinent issues
that they'd like to bring up and talk about," he said in an interview
after the vote.

Carl Olsen, who leads Iowans for Medical Marijuana, said he is
optimistic about the hearings. He predicted Iowa would follow other
states' lead in legalizing the drug for medical purposes. "It's
winning over and over again," he said.

A bill introduced last year in the Iowa Senate would have allowed
not-for-profit facilities called "compassion centers" to acquire,
cultivate and deliver marijuana and related supplies to qualifying
patients. The bill never got out of subcommittee, but its sponsor,
Sen. Joe Bolkcom, said Tuesday that the Legislature could approve
some sort of legalization.

The Iowa City Democrat applauded the plan to hold statewide hearings.
"Like with any issue, there's a certain education process that needs
to go on," he said.

Sen. Merlin Bartz, a Grafton Republican who served on the
subcommittee, opposed Bolkcom's bill because he thought it offered
too few controls. However, Bartz said he believes more legislators
would support a medical-marijuana bill with the same kinds of tight
regulations already in place on prescription painkillers and other
addictive drugs.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Des Moines Democrat, said a
medical-marijuana bill could face skepticism in his chamber. He said
part of the problem is that some advocates appear to be using the
idea of medical marijuana to make the drug more available for recreational use.

But "I don't want to say we're closing the book on this issue," he said.