The people should also be consulted, he added.
“I understand marijuana is only a plant and there’s nothing chemical added to it, in other words it’s herbal, it’s a natural plant,” he said.
But the municipal council will not take a position on the marijuana legalization bill of Rep. Stanley T. Torres, Ind.-Saipan.
“We need to have a serious study and we need to hear the medical experts,” Camacho said.
If marijuana has medical benefits, then its use may be allowed but under strict regulations, the former police major said.
He said when he was still on the force in the 1980s and 1990s, crimes related to marijuana use were not as serious compared to those linked to “ice.”
“Nowadays methamphetamine causes a lot of problem, back then with marijuana, I didn’t see any violence. That’s the difference based on my own personal observations,” he said.
Torres introduced House Bill 17-47 to remove the current legal restrictions on marijuana.
“Marijuana proponents for medicinal use claim that it is a safe and effective treatment for dozens of conditions, such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, severe pain, migraines, glaucoma, AIDS and epilepsy,” the lawmaker said.
