Good luck, Tick!

It’s bill-writing time! While it seems like just yesterday the 2011 Legislature adjourned, it’s already time for the intrepid Legislative Counsel Bureau to start posting the requests lawmakers and committees have made for new laws to be considered during the 2013 session.

Although Assemblyman Richard McArthur won’t be back in 2013, having lost a GOP primary for state Senate, maybe somebody will pick up his bill to limit the number of bills that can be introduced. (Last time around, there were 1,164 bills, resolutions, joint resolutions and concurrent resolutions introduced in the Legislature. That’s a lot of lawmaking.)

There are some good laws in the bunch (state Sen. Sheila Leslie’s bill to require lobbyists to report what they spend on lawmakers when the Legislature isn’t in session, which is – unbelievably – not required now). And there are some bad bills (state Sen. Barbara Cegavske’s joint resolution to amend the state constitution, which presumably would allow tax dollars to fund vouchers for religious private schools). There are three bills relating to license plates proposed by the Commission on Special License Plates, which is, as ever, the least important matter considered by the Legislature.

Democratic bills designed to stimulate job creation are in the mix, as are Republican measures to adopt the portions of Arizona’s immigration law left intact by the recent Supreme Court decision, and to require photo identification to vote.

But one of the best bills is Assemblyman Tick Segerblom’s proposal to allow the legal growing and distribution of medical marijuana for patients in Nevada.

For those who have not been following the issue, here’s how Nevada got to its absurd medical marijuana policy: Voters in 1998 and 2000 amended the state constitution to allow medical marijuana, and ordered the Legislature to authorize “appropriate methods for supply of the plant to patients authorized to use it.”

Over the years, attempts have been made to do just that, but all have fallen short. Which means, you can get a doctor’s prescription to use marijuana, but you can’t legally buy the plant or its seeds. If you do somehow manage to get seeds, it’s OK to grow your own, provided you have only three mature plants at any one time.

Police and federal agents have busted medical marijuana dispensaries in Las Vegas, despite U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s statements that cracking down on these programs is not a Justice Department priority.

This absurdity led District Judge Donald Mosley – on his last day on the bench before retiring – to declare Nevada’s marijuana regulation scheme unconstitutional. (That case is being appealed to the state Supreme Court.) And it’s led other lawmakers to try to do what Segerblom (D-Las Vegas) plans to do next year. In 2011, term-limited state Sen. Mike Schneider unsuccessfully tried to pass a bill that would have provided for legal marijuana to be sold to patients authorized to use it.

You know, like the voters commanded the Legislature to do 12 years ago.

Yet, despite what would seem like the ultimate in political cover, at least two Nevada legislative leaders said recently they would not make medical marijuana a priority. Profiles in courage this is not.

Good for Segerblom for pushing the issue. The fact is, it’s long past time that marijuana was legalized outright, and treated like alcohol: Regulated, licensed and taxed. It’s far less dangerous than alcohol, and the fact that it can be found on the federal government’s Schedule 1 list of controlled substances – alongside synthetic heroin, methamphetamine, LSD and date-rape drugs – boggles the mind.

It’s not clear Segerblom will succeed, but maybe he’ll force us to confront the absurdity of our drug policy, at least when it comes to sick people seeking relief.

It’s certainly more important than license plates.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.