CNMI medical Marijuana bill gains traction

Transcript

The author of a bill that proposes to legalise marijuana for medical use in the CNMI says the majority of feedback from public hearings has been supportive.

Northern Marianas Senator Sixto Igisomar says he was prompted to introduce the bill after Guam voted in favour of allowing the use of medical marijuana last year.

Senator Igisomar told Bridget Tunnicliffe he was moved by the testimonies submitted in support of the Guam bill.

SIXTO IGISOMAR:They had cancer patients' families that were separated, how they were leaving the island to go to other states, in the United States, like Colorado, Washington to try and access the medicine. And they really wanted to stay home and be able to have access to this and to help them out as well as other people with debilitating conditions like multiple sclerosis or cancer or other things and that it helped them either to cure or alleviate pain and suffering that are associated with cancer and other ailments. And so in reading that I was basically really touched and it kind of motivated me that you know I can relate to it, there's a lot of people in our community that can really make use of this because health care in our CNMI is very expensive, as a matter of fact the ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act is not even extended to us and there's approximately 30 percent of uninsured people in the CNMI and we can't even support our hospital and so I'm thinking that you know this may help somehow. And so I went ahead and took the Guam version and I looked at it and then I found out that about maybe two to four years ago that a similar bill was introduced in our legislature but it never went anywhere. I kind of used the framework and went ahead and introduced the first original version of senate bill 19-06.

BRIDGET TUNNICLIFFE: And how far have you pushed this bill through, what stage is it at?

SI: Right now the bill actually is in committee. It's in our Health and Welfare committee and so far we've gone through four public hearings, two down in Rota, two on Saipan, one we just finished last Friday. We're going to hold two more on Tinian, the other island and then once we're done there we're going to come back to Saipan and do one or two more. I would say approximately maybe around close to 100 so far have provided testimonies. Of the 100 we can say that maybe I would say about two, on a scale of one to ten do not want marijuana at all. And five people on a scale of one to ten, want the medicinals, that's about 50 percent, and then about 60 percent to 70 percent are asking the committee to go beyond medicinal and just entertain a recreational marijuana use or decriminalise marijuana use because they're saying you know 'even if we pass this law we might encounter challenges from FDA or from the Federal Government or from doctors being able to actually recommend'. So they're saying that if we decriminalise it maybe the people that are sick can access it much faster.

BT: Is that something that you would consider?

SI: We cannot really say right now because right now the committee needs to review all the recommendations coming in and testimonies coming in and from there make a decision. And now everybody publicly are talking about it they're all coming out and saying whether they like it or not.