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Bill advances to let firefighters use medical cannabis off-duty
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By Daniel J. Chacón, The Santa Fe New Mexican
A bill to make it easier for New Mexico firefighters to use medical marijuana legally got off to a hot start Friday. House Bill 292 would narrow the definition of “safety-sensitive position” in the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act, which governs the state’s medical cannabis program. As proposed, the definition would only include employees who are required to carry a firearm or operate a vehicle with a commercial driver’s license and “whose performance under the influence of drugs or alcohol would constitute an immediate or direct threat of injury or death to the person or another.” State law currently defines a “safety-sensitive position” ineligible for the medical cannabis program more broadly, barring firefighters from using medical cannabis without their employer’s permission. Miguel Tittmann, who represents about 900 firefighters in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County as president of Local 244 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, told the House Health and Human Services Committee the proposal “is not a firefighter bill.”