Bill limiting who can recommend medical pot is pulled

PHOENIX — A proposal by a first-term state lawmaker to limit who can recommend medical marijuana to patients has gone up in smoke.

Rep. Jay Lawrence, R-Scottsdale, said he had introduced HCR 2019 after seeing the vast majority of the nearly 78,000 recommendations last year were being issued by naturopathic physicians. He said they were engaged in a “money-making scheme.”

His legislation would have limited the right to make recommendations to medical doctors and osteopathic doctors.

But Lawrence said Friday he has since learned that there are protections in place to ensure that all kinds of doctors — including naturopaths — cannot recommend marijuana without first checking a patient’s medical records.

“I did some research and found out that the people going for medical marijuana from a naturopath still go through an investigation of their medical background,” he said. “It’s not just handed out.”

So Lawrence said his measure is now dead.

Lawrence conceded, though, his change of heart had a big push from the outside: Following the original Capitol Media Services story earlier this month he got some calls.

“There were a few hundred,” he laughed. But Lawrence said he returned many of those calls.

“And it is through those conversations that you hear from people that really need the medical marijuana,” he continued. “And they go about getting it legitimately” instead of purchasing it on the street.

The 2010 voter-approved measure allows doctors to write “recommendations” to patients who have certain medical conditions. That recommendation leads to a state-issued card entitling the holder to go to a state-regulated dispensary and purchase up to 2½ ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

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Nearly 88,000 Arizonans have such cards.

In 2014 Will Humble, then the state health director, raised alarms over what he saw as abuses.

“One physician, a naturopath, over that last fiscal year, did almost 3,000 certifications,” Humble said at the time. “It does make you raise an eyebrow.”

Humble noted that the voter-approved law requires there be a “bona-fide physician-patient relationship” before a recommendation can be written.

But the law never defined exactly what that is — and exactly what would prove that the doctor wasn’t just writing recommendations for anyone who comes in the door.

In response, Rep. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix, crafted legislation last year that said any doctor writing a recommendation for medical marijuana must identify what medical records he or she is relying on to confirm a patient has a condition for which marijuana can be recommended.

That law also requires the doctor to check with a statewide database that lists any controlled substances the patient may be taking. That provision was designed to ensure that the marijuana does not conflict with any other medications.

Lawrence said he’s satisfied those protections, which took effect last summer, minimize the abuses he fears.

That still leaves a separate measure by Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, to prohibit doctors of any kind from recommending marijuana to women who are pregnant.

But that measure, too, is running into opposition. Townsend said she is looking at altering HB 2061 to allow pregnant women to continue getting the drug — but only if that recommendation is made by an obstetrician.