Pilot Medical Marijuana ID Card Program Planned

By Ellen Komp, Civil Liberties Monitoring Project, Redway CA

 

Robert Krause of the California Department of Health Services said in an interview on February 1 that DHS plans to launch a pilot medical marijuana ID card program as outlined in SB420 in 10 California counties sometime between April and July 1. This is a delay from the expected March 1 roll-out.

 

Pilot counties are Amador, Del Norte, Marin, Mendocino, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sonoma, Trinity and Yuba. Other counties should be online in matter of months after the pilot begins. Krause estimated a $14 fee for cards at the state level but counties will also attach a fee.  He is anticipating 150,000 in the program.

 

The department has been working on the program for over a year, Krause said, getting approval for an internal rather than external feasibility study and for a streamlined vendor selection process, among other tasks. In late January the DHS Information Technology department finished the feasibility study and is developing a web-based verification system for patients and caregivers. Three bids were received from outside vendors to produce the ID cards and a committee will soon decide on a supplier.

 

The information on the cards will be right out of SB420: a picture, unique identifier, county of issuance, and whether the person is caregiver or patient. Seven or eight data fields (excluding name and address) will be transmitted on a firewalled system from counties to the state and to the vendor who will produce the cards.

 

Krause’s office has been working with legal counsel and he said they expect litigation. They are following the letter of the law; he noted that in SB420 “caregiver” is spelled singly and that county officials involved should be health, not law enforcement. They are also adhering to the Health Information and Portability Act (a federal law passed five years ago). If patients don’t have addresses they can supply an affidavit that they live in county, similar to residency requirements for MediCal.

 

Some have speculated there has been some foot-dragging in implementing SB420, especially since the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Raisch case. Meanwhile, CHP and the parole department have been asking DHS, “Where are you people?” Krause said. CHP officials have said publicly they would follow the law only when ID cards are issued and meantime have been subjected to complaints and suits against officers who have seized medicine on the road.

 

DHS has drafted protocols for the counties suggesting they keep patients’ names and addresses, plus physician information, on file for one year; he noted some counties are reluctant to do so since those records could be seized by FDA or other agencies.

 

The department will soon have webpage with timelines and other information on the program. In the meantime, Krause suggests patients and caregivers carry their doctor’s documentation with them.

 

DHS director Sandra Shewry and Attorney General Bill Lockyer have been named in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles to block implementation of SB420 on constitutional grounds. The California constitution Article 2, Section 10 (c) states, “The Legislature . . . may amend or repeal an initiative statute by another statute that becomes effective only when approved by the electors unless the initiative statute permits amendment or repeal without their approval.” No such legislative permission was included in Proposition 215. That voter-approved law, now California Health and Safety Code 11362.5, does “encourage the federal and state governments to implement a plan to provide for the safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all patients in medical need of marijuana.”