Advocates of legalizing marijuana for treatment of serious medical conditions hope a rare legislative maneuver could resurrect legislation buried in a House committee in time for the upcoming short session.

State Rep. Kelly Alexander, D-Mecklenburg, has filed a discharge petition for House Bill 577, the Medical Cannabis Act. If at least 61 House members sign the petition, the measure would bypass the committee structure and come up for a floor vote by the full House. This could put North Carolina in position to be the 17th state to authorize use of medical marijuana.

To rally House members to sign the document, Alexander created an online citizen petition with a goal of 7,500 residents calling on state representatives to sign the discharge petition. As of Tuesday night, the goal had been met, with 7,680 signatures were collected.

“Petitions generally do not go that rapidly,” Alexander said.

The bill was introduced early in this year’s legislative session, but “was referred over to the Rules Committee to quietly wither away,” Alexander said. Rules Committee Chairman Stephen LaRoque, R-Lenoir, did not allow the bill to come up for committee debate or a vote, effectively killing the measure.

LaRoque said he is not swayed by Alexander’s discharge petition or online signature drive.

“People have attempted them before. It’s one of the rules of the House. He’s certainly able to do that,” LaRoque said.

“At this point I don’t think it will be debated,” he said, in part because of the stigma attached to any form of legalized marijuana.

“There’s a lack of support from the medical community, and I think that’s something that they need to get,” LaRoque said. “The people who would be prescribing it need to be supporting it. And I think you’ve got to have . . . some clinical proof that it does what they say it does.”

Mike Edwards, director of media relations and public affairs for the North Carolina Medical Society, said he is not aware of any formal studies of medical marijuana conducted by the society.

“The medical society has no position on this legislation,” Edwards said.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows use of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, for relieving chronic pain and spasticity, stimulating appetite in patients with AIDS or who have undergone chemotherapy, treating glaucoma, and treating nausea caused by chemotherapy in cancer patients.

Many state residents who signed Alexander’s online drive added comments swearing by the medicinal benefits of marijuana.

“Marijuana really helps me with my depressive bipolar disorder and ADHD; it’s amazing how much it does,” wrote Leo Howerton of Raleigh.

“I am a senior citizen who suffers from several diseases that cause inflammation and am in pain constantly. Marijuana eases my pain and doesn’t have the bad side effects of the pharmaceuticals,” wrote Alice Cahoon of Greensboro.

“I have bad anxiety and spinal issues. I know for a fact medicinal marijuana relieves me of my ailments,” wrote Nathan Garrison of Wilmington.

It was an outpouring of statements he received similar to those that persuaded state Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, that legalization of medical marijuana deserves consideration.

“I think the importance of a public hearing before the General Assembly would be to stress the medical dimensions of the issue,” Luebke said. “I think that people do run away from the issue because of the ‘M’ word, and they really don’t know the ways in which so many people have, in fact, benefited from the medical uses.”

Luebke is in the unusual situation of being a co-sponsor of H.B. 577, sitting on the Rules Committee where it has been bottled up, and having signed the discharge petition to release it.

“Legislators respond to the at-home folks, and 7,500 makes a good case for why it’s worth being heard,” Luebke said of the online citizen petition.

“But for an individual to sign the discharge petition, that legislator would have to hear from a lot of folks in his or her district,” he said. “My feeling is it’s unlikely to get the sufficient number of members to vote for the discharge petition.”

He suggests another option.

“I think the larger issue on this or for other topics where there’s a lot of controversy, it’s my experience that public hearings without legislative votes are really the way to go,” he said. “The people who feel this is an important idea and important for their health would have a chance to speak on the record about it.”

Luebke said such an approach has been used in the past, notably several years ago on the first go-round of annexation reform legislation that eventually was passed this year as support coalesced.

Alexander sees support for medical marijuana growing. The number of signatures affixed to the online petition and the locations across the state they represent “tells me that attitudes and everything out there is changing,” he said.

“As you read some of the comments from the citizens who signed onto the petition, it’s clear that a large number of them have experienced or know people who have experienced pain, and they believe that medical cannabis will help them,” he said.

National surveys show support for medical marijuana. A Gallup poll taken in October 2010 showed 70 percent of respondents believed doctors should be authorized to prescribe the substance. A CBS News poll taken in October 2011 showed 77 percent support.

In North Carolina, medical patients and their families will admit to buying from drug dealers to supply their marijuana for pain relief, Alexander said.

“I just don’t think we need to be promoting an illegal market,” he said.

“What we’re trying to do is get a regime in place where medical cannabis would be highly regulated; you couldn’t get it without a prescription,” Alexander said.

“You could only get it from regulated outlets and it could only be bought from regulated growers, so it would be a completely regulated and taxed environment,” Alexander said.

“Fiscal research has given us a lowball estimate of somewhere between $40 million and $50 million in revenue potential” from annual taxes, Alexander said. The state Agriculture Department would regulate growers “and a number of people believe that would be a boost potentially to small farmers who might want to diversify.”

Perry Parks, president of The North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network, whose 1,000 members include doctors, said his advocacy group is “doing everything we can to get the word out” about medical marijuana and the online petition.

A former highly decorated helicopter pilot who spent 30 months in Vietnam, Parks smokes marijuana to relieve pain from his severe degenerative disc disorder and arthritis. He said many veterans suffer pain and could benefit from medical marijuana. It is their plight that fuels his crusade.

“We are demanding our right to use marijuana instead of having to use narcotics,” and for uniform treatment at all Veterans Administration hospitals, Parks said.

Patients at VA hospitals in states that allow use of medical marijuana are provided with the substance, he said.

Dan Way is a contributor to Carolina Journal.