$MJNA NEWS!! 'I've never seen bud that good' Ma

  $MJNA NEWS!! 'I've never seen bud that good'   

 Mar 22, 2013 (Las Vegas Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via 
 
COMTEX) -- GLENDALE, Ariz. -- What could be more prophetic for a group of Nevada 
 
lawmakers headed to Arizona to tour a marijuana dispensary than running into 
 
Public Enemy hype man Flavor Flav at the airport? 
 
 
 
Before departing on their fact-finding mission, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, 
 
R-Las Vegas, tweeted a picture of fellow lawmaker Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las 
 
Vegas, with the rapper. "Headed to AZ to check out Medical Marijuana. Tick 
 
picked up Flavor Flav," she wrote. 
 
 
 
The picture shows Segerblom in a shirt and tie with a jacket draped over his arm 
 
next to Flav, dressed in all black with his signature giant clock dangling from 
 
around his neck. 
 
 
 
Five state senators and one member of the Assembly flew to Phoenix to tour a 
 
medical marijuana dispensary and a grow house before meeting with Arizona 
 
legislators to talk about the state's new system for getting the drug to 
 
patients. 
 
 
 
Segerblom, a lawyer and Democrat from Las Vegas who has a poster of "Fear and 
 
Loathing in Las Vegas" in his Carson City office, organized the fact-finding 
 
mission. 
 
 
 
He hopes Nevada lawmakers can create dispensaries here and fix a quirk in Nevada 
 
law whereby people are constitutionally allowed to have medical marijuana but 
 
cannot legally purchase it in the state. 
 
 
 
"We're going to hear lots of reasons why we can't do it (or) we shouldn't do it, 
 
but to me, if Arizona, which is the most conservative state in the country, can 
 
do it, then Nevada can do it," Segerblom said. "It's not a junket. It's not 
 
taxpayer money, but it is a legitimate working trip to see it in person." 
 
 
 
Traveling with Segerblom were senators Mark Hutchison, R-Las Vegas; Scott 
 
Hammond, R-Las Vegas; David Parks, D-Las Vegas; Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas; and 
 
Fiore. The lawmakers are paying their own way; Segerblom's campaign is paying 
 
for the bus. 
 
 
 
During their visit, the lawmakers toured a dispensary and future grow house and 
 
got a chance to inspect the marijuana and marijuana edibles for sale, including 
 
one $370-an-ounce variety and marijuana brownies. 
 
 
 
"I've never seen bud that good," Segerblom said as legislators inspected the 
 
marijuana on display. Later, asked about his knowledge of marijuana, Segerblom 
 
said, "Not too much recently." 
 
 
 
Other lawmakers on the trip also said they did not have any first-hand 
 
experience with marijuana. 
 
 
 
"I've never tried it," said Hammond, who noted that the closest he's been to 
 
marijuana was a Grateful Dead concert. 
 
 
 
Kihuen said he was surrounded by marijuana in high school but never tried it. 
 
"If my mom found out, I would be dead," he said. 
 
 
 
"I want to learn more about these medical marijuana dispensaries," Kihuen said 
 
before the trip. "If it's a bill that we're going to consider here in the 
 
Legislature, in order for us to make an informed decision, we have to go out 
 
there to other states and see how they're doing it." 
 
 
 
In Arizona, the hope is that the no-nonsense Maricopa County law enforcement and 
 
strait-laced dispensary operators can prove to Nevada legislators that medical 
 
marijuana dispensaries are safe and controlled. 
 
 
 
A court challenge blaming the Nevada Legislature for a poorly written medical 
 
marijuana law adds gravity to the trip. A conservative judge called the current 
 
laws "ridiculous" in a case that's before the Nevada Supreme Court. 
 
 
 
The state constitution makes it clear that the Legislature "shall" provide for 
 
use of medical marijuana, but Nevada law makes it difficult for patients to 
 
actually obtain the drug after they've paid application fees and received a card 
 
from the state's health department, said Steve Yeager with the Clark County 
 
Public Defender's Office. 
 
 
 
"They are placed into a Catch-22 type situation because of the way the law is 
 
written," he said. "That is, they have legal, state-recognized access to medical 
 
marijuana but no practical way to obtain it." 
 
 
 
Segerblom's bill, Senate Bill 374, would allow for the establishment and 
 
regulation of nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries for about 3,600 Nevadans 
 
with active medical marijuana cards. 
 
 
 
Now, patients or their caregivers basically have to grow their own plants, which 
 
Yeager equates to a doctor ordering patients in pain to go home and manufacture 
 
their own pills without the convenience of a pharmacy. 
 
 
 
With that problem in mind, legislators have been researching marijuana in 
 
preparation for the Arizona trip. 
 
 
 
Legislators at a February legislative hearing considered the politics of 
 
marijuana, digressing into a conversation about the film "Reefer Madness" and 
 
the scare tactics used in the early 20th century to argue for criminalizing pot. 
 
They also discussed more recent trends: 20 states have legalized medical 
 
marijuana, 12 have provided for dispensaries and two have legalized the 
 
recreational use of marijuana. 
 
 
 
Democrats such as Segerblom might not be the only lawmakers who end up endorsing 
 
medical marijuana dispensaries. 
 
 
 
Enter Hutchison, who said he has never smoked marijuana and knows little about 
 
it. 
 
 
 
Framing it as a states' rights, constitutional issue, Hutchison said he would 
 
like to work with Segerblom to find a way to help sick Nevadans exercise the 
 
constitutional right to medical marijuana that voters approved by wide margins 
 
in 1998 and 2000. 
 
 
 
"I will definitely support a procedure for safely, securely and legally 
 
dispensing medical marijuana because the constitution requires us to do it," he 
 
said. 
 
 
 
Segerblom's bill needs bipartisan support because two-thirds of the Legislature 
 
needs to approve it, meaning Democrats alone cannot pass the bill. 
 
 
 
Segerblom said he hopes his bill will be more palatable to legislators than 
 
Assembly Bill 402, which would legalize the recreational use of marijuana. 
 
 
 
"I think we need to demonstrate that we can produce and control medical 
 
marijuana before we attempt to legalize and tax it," he said in an email. 
 
 
 
Still, the politics and stigma surrounding marijuana could make passage of the 
 
bill difficult. 
 
 
 
Unlike the seriousness that surrounds the use and abuse of other illegal and 
 
legal drugs, the matter of the cannabis plant provokes joking and stifled 
 
giggles at the Legislature. 
 
 
 
Late Monday, Segerblom's medical marijuana bill still needed to be referred to a 
 
committee. During a break, senators joked that a "joint committee" ought to 
 
consider the bill. Another senator said the natural resources committee should 
 
consider this "natural resource." A third noticed the disagreement and said the 
 
"high court" should decide the matter. 
 
 
 
The bill ultimately ended up in Segerblom's judiciary committee, where it is 
 
likely to pass and end up before the Senate for a possible vote. 
 
 
 
"Realistically, the problem is that when you use the word marijuana, a lot of 
 
politicians get very skittish and think that somehow or other they're endorsing 
 
smoking marijuana, which they're not," Segerblom said. "The key to this whole 
 
thing in my opinion is that there is no marijuana going to people other than 
 
people who have cards." 

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