By Jon CampbellAlbany Bureau

ALBANY – Senate Deputy Republican Leader Thomas Libous said Thursday he would try medicinal marijuana if it was made available statewide and the side effects of his chemotherapy worsened.

Libous, R-Binghamton, who is battling cancer in his prostate and lungs, said his doctors have told him the drug could be helpful to help deal with the nausea and sickness from his cancer treatments. He undergoes chemotherapy treatments every three weeks at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.

In a radio interview Thursday, Libous said he hasn't made up his mind on a proposal to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in New York, but has concerns about allowing it before the Federal Drug Administration authorizes it.

"I still have some questions that I'm bantering around with some medical professionals," Libous said on Binghamton's WNBF-AM. "I understand the compassionate side of it. I'm told that possibly it could even help me when I do my chemo every 21 days, because I do get rather ill the fourth and fifth day. It's pretty nasty, and anybody who has gone through it knows exactly what I'm talking about."

In a follow-up interview, Libous said his oncologists are opposed to smoking medical marijuana, but instead are open to it in pill form. Several Republicans, meanwhile, have expressed support for a marijuana extract in oil form that has been used to treat epileptic conditions in children.

A bill to legalize marijuana for patients with serious illnesses is pending in the state Legislature, where the Assembly has passed it for several consecutive years. This year, the legislation -- which has always had strong Democratic support -- has picked up support from several Senate Republicans, including Sens. Thomas O'Mara, R-Big Flats, Chemung County; George Maziarz, R-Newfane, Niagara County; and Joseph Robach, R-Greece, Monroe County.

When Libous was asked by host Bob Joseph if he would try the drug if his chemotherapy side effects got worse, Libous said he would, but only if it was approved broadly.

"If it became legal and it became available to everyone, I would," Libous said. "Not until. It has to be available to everyone. I deserve no special treatment because of who I am."

The state Assembly included a plan to allow the drug for medical purposes in its one-house budget proposal, which was passed Wednesday. The plan would set up a system for regulating distributors, users and growers while implementing a 10 percent tax on any sales.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo in January announced his administration would move ahead with a more-limited plan, which would allow up to 20 hospitals to prescribe marijuana as part of a research program. Cuomo's plan makes use of a 1980 law that allows the state to examine experimental drugs.

But the drug is opposed by the small-but-influential Conservative Party, which has provided key third-party support for many Republicans over the years.

"(Marijuana) is not medicine," the party wrote in a memo Sunday. "If it is to be considered as medicine, it should be treated as such and subjected to the Food and Drug Administration's approval process that includes clinical trials to determine its efficacy as a medication."

Libous said he tried marijuana "many years ago in college." But that was "about the extent of it," he said.

"Now, ask me if I had a couple drinks in my day, and I would probably tell you I did," he said.

Libous was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009 and later entered remission. In 2012, doctors discovered it had spread to his lungs, and he's been receiving regular chemotherapy treatments since.

JCAMPBELL1@gannett.com

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