State Attorney General Kelly Ayotte and county prosecutors have aggressively pushed back against a bill that would legalize marijuana for some seriously ill patients, sending lawmakers a letter calling marijuana an addictive drug and claiming that reclassifying marijuana as medicine could undermine efforts to keep youths from trying drugs. The bill's supporters decry the letter as "misleading" and have circulated a seven-page rebuttal of the two-page letter.

The bill easily passed the House in March and the Senate last month, but its future remains in doubt. Gov. John Lynch has stopped short of vowing to veto it, saying he has "serious concerns" and calling the Senate version of the bill "unacceptable." In the House, supporters put the brakes on the bill last week, voting not to accept the Senate's amendments to the bill and instead calling for a conference committee to hammer out a final bill - with an eye toward crafting something Lynch will accept.

State Rep. Cindy Rosenwald said she met with senior Lynch staffers and left certain that Lynch would veto the current incarnation of the bill if it was sent to his desk. She left the meeting with a list of eight issues flagged by the governor's staff, the most difficult one of which is distribution. The current bill would allow medicinal marijuana users - individuals who suffer from specific illnesses or symptoms, who've been prescribed the drug by a doctor and who have registered with the state - to grow their own marijuana. They're also allowed to obtain it from other patients, including those from patients in one of the 13 states where medicinal marijuana is legal. Lynch, Rosenwald said, is "not comfortable with marijuana grown in residences."

"I was absolutely clear when I left the meeting that he would not allow the Senate version to become law," said Rosenwald, a Nashua Democrat. That, she said, "is why I asked for a committee of conference."

Debate over Ayotte's letter is a microcosm of debate over the bill itself, an argument in which the urge to help human suffering competes against fears about human frailty, where practical considerations meet a backdrop of the decades-long national fight over marijuana policy, including questions over whether the drug is addictive and whether it is a "gateway" to other drugs.

Matt Simon, the executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy, distributed a seven-page response to Ayotte's letter peppered with footnotes. The response says the letter co-signed by Ayotte and nine of the state's 10 county attorneys "makes several points that are simply incorrect and several other misleading statements," in particular taking on claims about marijuana as an addictive, gateway drug.

"I wish they would cite their sources and say where they're getting their information," Simon said in an interview yesterday.

Ayotte said she stands by every point in the letter and said there's no incarnation of a medicinal marijuana law that she could support. In addition to concerns cited in the letter, she cited practical concerns and noted that marijuana hasn't been through a normal approval process by the Food and Drug Administration. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, she said, despite the recent statements by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder pledging not to raid marijuana dispensaries that are legal under state law.

"I have to say that, despite the attorney general's statement, the law, the federal law is still the same," Ayotte said. "It's against federal law. The law hasn't changed."

Medicinal validity?

Ayotte's letter cut to the heart of the bill, questioning the medicinal value of marijuana use.

"In fact, marijuana is an addictive drug that poses significant health consequences to its users, including those who may be using it for medical purposes," the letter said. "The use of smoked marijuana is opposed by all credible medical groups nationwide."

Matt Simon, the executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy, called that claim "simply untrue" and "the most frustrating." His response includes a list of several dozen medical groups that have "favorable medical marijuana positions," including the American Academy of Physicians, the American Nurses Association and the American Public Health Association.

Not on the list: the New Hampshire Medical Society, which is not taking a position on this bill. Also missing is the American Medical Association, which for years has called for further study of medicinal marijuana, a position that is extremely common among medical groups.

In a 2001 report, the AMA noted evidence that marijuana has helped those suffering from certain ailments, such as HIV wasting syndrome or chemotherapy-induced nausea, but concluded that a dearth of serious study into the benefits and risks of the drugs prevented the group from endorsing the drug.

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