Reversing Course

New Mexico's governor is apparently rolling over a medical cannabis secrecy stance before the state even begins to try to defend a lawsuit pushing for the release of information about those issued licenses to grow and sell marijuana.

But in true form, Gov. Susana Martinez used a punitive public relations strategy to share the news with her media vehicle of choice while avoiding SFR's requests for the same explanation.

A crack in the ice started to appear  on July 7, when Jeff Tucker, a reporter from the Roswell Daily Record, caught the governor outside a press conference she held there as part of a tour of the state to boast about tourism growth.  On July 9, the paper reported a controversy in that community about zoning for a proposed medical marijuana growing facility just south of Roswell.

That very same day, the state had been slapped with a lawsuit wherein the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government and independent journalist Peter St. Cyr argued that keeping the names of the cannabis producers secret violated the state Inspection of Public Records Act. Both plaintiffs have been trying since 2009 to obtain that information from the state Health Department officials who oversee the program.

But when St. Cyr got wind this week of what Martinez said in the southeastern city, he asked both the Health Department and the Governor's Communications Office to talk for an SFR story about whether the administration was changing course. The Health Department followed its habit of only answering questions by email on July 15, and though spokesman Kenny Vigil answered some questions posed about how new applications would be evaluated, he ignored the question about the governor's statement.

St. Cyr got nothing but crickets yesterday from Chris Sanchez, the taxpayer-funded spokesman for the governor, who is paid a salary of $84,900 per year to communicate with the media.

That is, until this morning's Albuquerque Journal, when the paper published a story explaining that Martinez was changing her mind about the secrecy. A day earlier, its editorial board blasted the state for what it called a "cloak and dagger practice."

Susan Boe, the executive director of the Foundation for Open Government, says she learned about the governor's policy change this morning as well.

"We commend the governor's action," Boe tell SFR, "but this does not resolve our lawsuit. We still need the public documents that we've been requesting for years."

It's not just the identities of producers that public records will show—many of those nonprofits openly advertise and are identifiable by other means such as city business licenses—but journalists and patients want to see documents that reveal how the department is regulating the program. Plus, a plan to reveal information about who gets the licenses after they are awarded does not give the public an opportunity to give input or to determine if political allies are in the front of the line.

So far today, Sanchez has not responded to SFR's additional inquiries about why Martinez reversed course and why her office couldn't talk to us about it when we asked. We'll update the story if he has anything to say.

And just for absolute transparency on our part, SFR sued the governor two years ago, alleging violations of the Inspection of Public Records Act and the free press clause of the state Constitution, something that case law calls "viewpoint discrimination," or in simple terms when rather than treating all media equally, an official ignores some reporters while delivering exclusive messages to those who are perceived as more friendly.

That case is ongoing.

Santa Fe Reporter