LANSING – Rules for obtaining and using medical marijuana must be worked out before by the House Government Operations Committee will consider legalization, lawmakers say.

Those concerns were addressed in a hearing by the committee on a bill by Rep. LaMar Lemmons III, D-Detroit, that would legalize marijuana use by patients with cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS or other chronic or debilitating diseases that produce wasting syndrome, seizures, severe pain, nausea or muscle spasms.

Irvin Rosenfeld, a stockbroker from Florida and medical marijuana user, said marijuana was used as a medicine in the U.S. from 1860 to 1937.

Under federal law, marijuana is illegal, but 11 states and many cities have approved its use since 2001. Voters in Detroit, Ferndale, Traverse City and Ann Arbor approved measures in 2004 and 2005. Similar proposals are being considered in Kalamazoo and Flint.

If his bill dies this year, as expected, another representative will introduce it again in 2007 when Democrats have majority control, Lemmons said.

Patients who have used medical marijuana testified, including several who had been arrested for possession of marijuana despite a medicinal need.

Rosenfeld said he has been using government-approved medicinal marijuana since 1982, when he won a court case.

Despite a rare disease that causes tumors on his bones, Rosenfeld said, he lives a fairly normal life. He credited the 11 ounces of marijuana that he smokes over the course of 25 days.

The University of Mississippi grows the drug for the federal government and ships it to the University of Miami, where Rosenfeld receives it.

The program stopped accepting applicants in 1991, with Rosenfeld and five other patients as the only ones remaining.

Rosenfeld said, “There’s no need to be prosecuting people who are sick. To put someone sick behind bars, we have to let someone else out.”

Besides smoking, methods for ingesting marijuana range from vaporizing and liquidizing to mixing it into food or beverages. The alternate methods avoid harmful carcinogens from combustion.

Tim Beck, chair of the Detroit Coalition for Compassionate Care, told the committee that marijuana offers benefits that current prescription drugs may not.

“No one ever died from an overdose of marijuana. With (painkillers like) OxyContin and Vicodin, it’s one pill fits all,” said Beck. Marijuana doses are easier to control, he added.

The proposed bill doesn’t address distribution.

“The bill decriminalizes it for patients, but doesn’t address how a patient gets marijuana,” said Rep. Jacob Hoogendyk, R-Portage, majority vice chair of the committee. “It would make it OK to have, but not to purchase.”

Rep. Fulton Sheen, R-Plainwell, questioned the merit of the proposal because police often let off medical patients with a warning when found in possession.

“A person’s condition affects what an officer does. More times than not, they won’t be arrested,” Sheen said. “Do we need to create a law for something already taking place?”

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against national medical marijuana use.

Laura Ann Barber of Traverse City testified that she and her husband, a Gulf War veteran, were arrested in 2004 for marijuana possession. They fought the charges.

Marijuana-based protein shakes and balms allow her husband to improve his lifestyle so he can exercise again, Barber said.

“It’s not an act of defiance, it’s an act of quality of life,” she added.

Scott Burns, deputy director for state and local affairs at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, testified that, “marijuana does not meet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standard for safety.

“Patients can expect their physician to prescribe safe medication and for the government to recognize that, not political pressure.”

More than 19 million people are illegally using controlled substances throughout the United States, according to Burns, and 75 percent of regular illegal drug users smoke marijuana. However, Burns said, marijuana use is down throughout the country according to the FDA.

Ginger Hoffman of Davisburg wrote to the committee, stating, “Please, be reasonable. No one is asking you to smoke marijuana by passing this bill. The people are only asking to be returned to their natural right to use a natural substance to help them feel better.

“Isn’t it great that Mother Nature created a plant that can actually help people? Why would the government insist that Mother Nature is ‘wrong’ and forbid its use?”