SANTA FE – Patients and producers in New Mexico’s 7-year-old medical marijuana program lined up Monday to criticize – in sometimes heated tones – new fees and other proposed program changes.

About 500 people took turns packing a Department of Health auditorium for a public hearing on the proposed rule changes, some holding signs emblazoned with messages like “Being sick is not a crime.” About 175 testified.

Producers and patients, many of whom described themselves as military veterans, said the proposed changes would cripple the medical marijuana program by making it more difficult to obtain medical pot.

“This is about compassion,” said Debbie Armstrong, the former Cabinet secretary of the state Aging and Long-term Services Department. “It’s about access to medicine that works for people.”

Armstrong’s daughter, Erin, a cancer survivor, was one of the namesakes of the 2007 “Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act,” which created the state’s medical pot program.

Meanwhile, Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, the sponsor of that legislation – there are now 22 states with such programs – blasted the Department of Health’s rule-making process.

Read more here: http://www.abqjournal.com/416604/news/medical-pot-rule-changes-criticized.html