Lawsuit challenges state limit on medical pot plants
Shortages, higher cost blamed on cap
SANTA FE — New Mexico’s limit on the number of plants a licensed medical marijuana producer may grow is keeping some patients from getting what they need and driving up the cost, a lawsuit against the state Department of Health says.
It was filed this week in state District Court by a marijuana producer and by the mother of a baby with epilepsy who uses an oil derived from cannabis to control her seizures.
The limit on plants — 450 per producer — has created “a dire situation” for medically fragile patients who can’t find the products they need or can’t get enough of the products, the lawsuit contends.
It asks the court to rule that the current plant limit is arbitrary, and to either eliminate it or greatly increase it.
According to the lawsuit, Bernalillo County resident Nicole Sena has a daughter — not yet 1 year old — with a rare form of epilepsy whose seizures have stopped and whose condition has improved with the use of oil from a strain of cannabis called Haleigh’s Hope.
But Sena hasn’t been able to find a reliable supply of Haleigh’s Hope in New Mexico and often has to leave the state to find it, according to the lawsuit.
The specialized product has little or none of the cannabis compound THC, which is psychotropic, and has high levels of the non-psychotropic compound CBD.
So producing it requires a much greater volume of raw plant material than other cannabis products, according to the lawsuit, which was filed by Sena and by New Mexico Top Organics-Ultra Health Inc.
The company says it has been forced to buy marijuana and marijuana products from other producers to meet patient demand. That’s much more expensive than growing the plants itself, and it drives up the cost for Sena, the lawsuit contends.
Ultra Health CEO Duke Rodriguez, who headed the state Human Services Department 20 years ago, said in a statement that the state’s regulations should “reflect the reality of patient-specific needs” as well as take into account the program’s growth.
According to the lawsuit, from June 2015 to June 2016 the number of patients enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program grew
from 15,265 to 26,568.
“Our primary goal is to ensure patients have safe access to medicine,” Department of Health spokesman David Morgan said Thursday in response to a request for comment.
He noted the plant limit for producers was raised from 150 to 450 last year, the amount of medical marijuana a patient can have was increased, and 12 new producers have been licensed, for a total of 35. As the new producers get established, “there will be more medicine for patients,” he said.
But the lawsuit claims the 450 figure is baseless and guarantees that the program “will never allow enough cannabis to be produced to ensure an adequate supply.”
An increasing demand for specialized products — for example, an edible product that has high concentrations of one cannabis compound and low concentrations of another — will worsen the supply problem, the plaintiffs said.