"There are concerns, and if we can address the concerns, then there will be a bill. But I'm not going to be part of a system that is just going to wreak havoc," Mr. Cuomo said on the radio program "Capitol Pressroom."
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Diane Savino, appeared on the same show Monday, saying eliminating smokable marijuana was a "non-starter." She said: "We've done everything possible to mitigate the issue of smoking but health-care professionals who prescribe medical marijuana and patient advocates will be the first to tell you that smoking marijuana is the only way that will provide the relief that they need. It is easier to manage the dosage."
Ms. Savino's bill would allow health-care professionals to prescribe the drug in smokable form to patients over the age of 21. It would also create a regulated growth and distribution system for marijuana and allow the drug to be prescribed in other forms, such as vapor.
If the Legislature accommodated the governor's concerns, it would be only the second state, besides Minnesota, to enact a medical-marijuana bill banning the drug in smokable form.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/medical-marijuana-debate-in-new-york-turns-to-smoking-1402966272Cannabis can be smoked in hospitals in Israel, btw. Israel is the only nation in the world that allows smoked cannabis in hospitals, according to Haaretz.
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/.premium-1.564396
Marijuana can undo havoc, not create it. The only havoc is in the fears of drug warriors and nanny staters.
On a kibbutz south of Tel Aviv, medical marijuana helps soothe the pain of cancer patients and Holocaust survivors
On a recent afternoon in Kibbutz Naan, near the city of Rehovot, Israel, Moshe Rute took a hefty puff from his pot pipe, with the blessing of the government. His hands stopped convulsing, and he drifted into the story of how cannabis had done for him something that no person could—help him forget. A “Holocaust child,” he said the memories of his past—of hiding in a chicken barn in his native France to escape the Nazis, and the later death of his wife—haunted him.
For years Rute, 81, had been silenced by his psychological baggage and unsuccessful at sleep. But in 1988, when he arrived at the Hadarim nursing home in central Israel, where he was prescribed medical cannabis for a cocktail of ailments, he finally “opened up,” he said. “When I was a child my imagination saved me. I was alone, talking to the chickens. What saved me here was the cannabis.”
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/137423/medical-marijuana-kibbutz
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