Despite praise as success, some say N.M. medical cannabis program needs work

From the Santa Fe New Mexican.com - by Phaedra Haywood - Four years after New Mexico's Medical Cannabis Program was created, nearly 4,000 New Mexico residents have been approved to use the herb as medicine, and 25 nonprofit producers have been licensed to sell it to them. New Mexico's system for regulating those producers is being adopted by other states as a model for allowing medicinal use of marijuana without seeing pot dispensaries pop up on every street corner, as they have in California and Colorado. The program has produced some spinoff businesses and is generating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tax revenue from the sale of medical marijuana. And this year, for the first time, the state coffers will see an influx of cash from fees paid by producers. But program participants and patient advocates say the system still needs tweaking and fear it could be canceled if Gov. Susana Martinez follows through on statements she made during her campaign that she would like to see the medical marijuana law repealed. Read more

Despite praise as success, some say N.M. medical cannabis program needs work