Ever since SFR released the names and relative locations of one state-licensed medical marijuana producer at nine license applicants, we’ve been taking heat from those who claim we’ve put the growers in danger of prosecution.

Margaret Schulze, spokesowman for Santa Fe Institute For Natural Medicine, the state’s only licensed grower, warned SFR that it would cease production if the story went to print. She claimed that even though US Attorney General Eric Holder stated that his Department of Justice would not prosecute medical marijuana growers legally formed under state law, such a story would irk the Drug Enforcement Agency into investigating anyway.

New Mexico Independent’s Trip Jennings reports today that Holder addressed the issued during his visit to Albuquerque on Friday:

“For those organizations that are doing so sanctioned by state law, and doing it in a way that is consistent with state law, and given the limited resources that we have, that will not be an emphasis for this administration,” Holder said.

Nevertheless, SFR has received several calls and emails (ranging from “shame on you” to “fuck you!”) from  patients and caregivers claiming that SFINM informed them that it will indeed shut down operations.

Under the rules for New Mexico’s Medical Cannabis Program only non-profit organizations can apply to become large-scale growers and distributors. The application process is intense and so far only one organization has completed it and has reportedly gone into production.

Here are pdfs of the applications, heavily redacted by the New Mexico Department of Health in an attempt to protect the organizations’ operations. Some of the pdfs are very large; e-mail davem@sfreporter.com with any problems opening or reading the files.

Santa Fe Institute for Natural Medicine (approved)

NEW Grassroots RX (pending)

NEW Organtica (pending)

NEW Medzen Services Inc (pending)

New Mexico Medical Cannabis (pending)

Veggies Inc (pending)

Unknown (pending)

Unknown (pending)

When the New Mexico Legislature passed the Lynn & Erin Compassionate Use Act two years ago, laying the foundation for a state-administrated medical cannabis program, epidemiologist and pot grower Bernie Ellis was ecstatic because it mirrored suggestions (.doc) he’d made to Gov. Gary Johnson several years earlier.

Now, however, Ellis has concluded (.doc) that the policy makers in the Department of Health are either uninformed or in passive opposition to the program.

Ellis has been growing medical cannabis for more than 20 years, even while serving as a health official with several government entities, including managing a substance abuse research program for the state of New Mexico.

“My personal history seems to be a contradiction in terms,”Ellis tells SFR in a phone interview from his farm in Tennessee. “On the one hand as a public health professional I am well aware that our country is awash in serious substance abuse. On the other hand, as a lifelong cannabis user and provider, I am aware for the most part cannabis provides many more benefits than it has detrimental effects, particularly in the health care arena.”

In 2002, federal law enforcement raided Ellis’ farm in Tennessee. He was sentenced to probation rather than prison time following a large outpouring of public support, Ellis says. The medical marijuana martyr contacted SFR to share his thoughts on New Mexico’s system.

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Although the advisory board for the state’s Medical Cannabis Program approved eight conditions in April for medical marijuana treatment, Department of Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil unilaterally decided today that only one of them, “severe chronic pain,” was legitimately treated by the plant.

Vigil rejected:

• Alzheimer’s Disease
• post polio syndrome
• Parkinson’s disease
• Three kinds  of arthritis
• Inclusion Body Myositis (chronic muscle inflammation accompanied by muscle weakness)

“There was no scientific evidence that medical cannabis would be an acceptable treatment for people with these conditions,” Dr. Vigil said. “We cannot add those diseases into the program until clinical studies are available that support an appropriate role for medical cannabis.”

Hmmm. Really? Sure, as with most conditions, there’s very little in the way of clinical trials involving medical marijuana (it’s still federally illegal), but NO scientific evidence?  One has to wonder where Vigil gets his information. The panel of doctors on the advisory board seemed to feel there was significant scientific evidence.

One also has to wonder whether Vigil knows how to Google. Search for “medical marijuana, parkinsons” and the first hit is a 2007 study by Standford doctors published in Nature. Another study with similar results was conducted in 2004.

(What this means for the poor soul who testified publicly about his Parkinson’s is that he’s going to have to continue to risk arrest for self-medication.)

Google Alzheimers and medical marijuana, and you hit a January 2009 report from Ohio State University that says marijuana could help prevent Alzheimers. In 2006, the Scripps Research Institute found that it had the potential to slow the process.

However, he did approve “severe chronic pain,” amending the rules to require patients to jump through several new hoops:

“To qualify, patients must have objective proof of severe chronic pain (X-rays, CT scans, MRIs) and receive two recommendations, one from their primary care physician and one  from a specialist consulting on their case. Medical cannabis must be patients’ treatment of last resort because no other medication has provided relief. ”

How an MRI, X-ray or CT scan can document PAIN, is anyone’s guess.

(Read SFR’s cover story, Toke ‘09: Dude, where’s my medical marijuana?)

You read the cover story about New Mexico’s medical marijuana program and now you want to see the documentation. I got it. Chill out.

Finally, our public records request came in. Below, you’ll find ginormous pdfs of the applications, both approved and pending, for non-profit marijuana growers and distributors. They’re not scans, but actually photos of the documents, so you won’t be able to search them, but you will be able to print them out. In the case of the approved producer, I photographed the whole thing, but on the others, I only photographed the interesting documents and left the redundant ones out.

Each document was heavily redacted by New Mexico Department of Health attorneys in order to maintain the security of the facilities. Keep in mind, the four pending are pending and haven’t been approved…and may not be approved in the end. We’ll also have three more within the next two weeks. Enjoy!

Approved Non-profit producer

Pending1

Pending 2

Pending 3

Pending 4