Annapolis, MD: Maryland Delegates voted 73-62 Wednesday in favor of amended legislation to allow medicinal marijuana patients to raise an “affirmative defense of medical necessity” at trial.
House Bill 702 does not legalize the use or cultivation of medical marijuana by qualified patients. Rather, the law only requires the court to consider a patient’s use of medical marijuana to be a mitigating factor in marijuana-related state prosecutions. If the patient successfully makes the case at trial that his or her use of marijuana is one of medical necessity, then the maximum penalty allowed by law would be a $100.00 fine.
Similar legislation passed the Maryland House last year but stalled in the Senate.
NORML Executive Director Keith Stroup said that the amended measure falls short of laws enacted in eight other states legalizing the use of medicinal pot by qualified patients, but noted that it still “represents a relaxation of existing Maryland criminal law, which imposes a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1000.00 for marijuana possession, regardless of the circumstances.”
For more information, please contact either Keith Stroup or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500. For detailed information on additional pending legislation, or to send letters in support of this legislation, please visit: http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/