Legalized marijuana goes to Conn. legislature

New Haven Register:

Penny Bacchiochi doesn’t want anyone to have to go through what she did to ease the suffering of a loved one dying of cancer.

“Twenty years later, I still remember the fear I felt. It is not right to put someone through that, who is only acting on the advice of a doctor,” Bacchiochi said of her illegal purchase of marijuana to ease her husband’s nausea.

When all other medications had failed, the marijuana helped his appetite and stabilized his weight after he had lost 80 pounds from chemotherapy treatments.

Her husband succumbed to the disease, but Bacchiochi, the Republican state representative from Somers, has been campaigning for the past seven years for the state to allow the medical use of marijuana, a measure that cleared the General Assembly in 2007, only to be vetoed by then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell.

This year, with the support of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the leadership of state Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, it has a better chance of passing.

Lawmakers will also take up separate legislation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana and to allow judges the option of home arrest for certain nonviolent drug offenses involving less than 4 ounces of marijuana.

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