Strict regulatory controls must be part of any Pennsylvania medical marijuana law to ensure that it does not compound the problem of recreational marijuana use, advocates for prosecutors and police told Pennsylvania lawmakers this week. Wednesday’s hearing came just two days after a Quinnipiac University poll came out showing 88 percent of the state’s registered voters approve of using marijuana for medical purposes.

(For a highly opinionated pro-marijuana version about what happened at this hearing, check out Chris Goldstein’s Philly420 column ” Pa. House committees entertain medical marijuana fiction.”)

Spokesmen for three law-enforcement groups registered their mutual concern in testimony at a fact-finding hearing before the House Health and Judiciary committees that focused on of the issues of law enforcement, drug treatment and regulatory services, according to the Associated Press.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, speaking for the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, said legislators must ensure that the right people are prescribing, distributing and receiving any medical form of marijuana.

“Without a tightly regulated statute, designed to eliminate diversion (of marijuana), we could be looking at the legalization of marijuana,” she said.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia currently have comprehensive public medical marijuana and cannabis programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Meanwhile, a recent poll showed a significant majority of Pennsylvanians support the measure, as reported by PennLive on April 6.

A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,036 registered voters found that 88 percent of respondents approved of using marijuana for medical purposes.

“You can’t get 88 percent in a poll of almost anything,” said Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery County, who’s helped lead the medical marijuana push in Pennsylvania. “If you ask people if you want to be eaten by wolverines, less than 88 percent would say no.”

Leach said the poll is further proof that there’s virtually unanimous support for medical marijuana in the state.

“It’s no longer controversial and it’s no longer an issue,” he said. “It’s an embarassment that we haven’t passed it yet.”

A Pennsylvania medical marijuana bill passed the Senate last fall, but it was opposed by Gov. Tom Corbett and died without action in the House.

Sens. Mike Folmer and Daylin Leach have reintroduced their bill this year and Gov. Tom Wolf has said he would sign he would sign it.

Public support in Pennsylvania has been driven by parents who believe a marijuana oil extract can help children who suffer from debilitating seizures. Folmer and Leach have said they want their bill to allow wider treatment of others, such as cancer patients or veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

At the hearing, James Walsh of the Pennsylvania State Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, said police agencies are concerned that the state may endorse marijuana as medicine to alleviate pain while the federal government says it has no current medical use.

“We should not be arresting sick people for taking medicine that they need. Yet we also should not unnecessarily expand access to what we all know is a very popular, dangerous and illegal drug,” Walsh said.

William Kelly, the Abington Township police chief and president of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, said the group would support a “closely defined and tightly regulated” program for people who have a “serious, verifiable” condition that can only be reduced or eliminated by medical marijuana.

Deb Beck, president of the Drug and Alcohol Service Providers Organization of Pennsylvania, said the state should bolster alcohol and drug abuse prevention and addiction treatment programs that are already in place as the debate over marijuana’s risks and benefits continues to unfold.

“We are concerned that the national discussion and debate over medical marijuana and also legalization have, not surprisingly, lowered the perception of risk of use of marijuana by our young people,” she said.