While he has empathy for those ill patients who need medical marijuana to get through their recoveries, Gov. John Lynch, D-Hopkinton, said today that he still has real concerns about the proliferation and distribution of medicinal cannabis.

At a fundraising breakfast at Concord Hospital for the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Greater Concord program, Lynch said other governors have had a hard time controlling the medical marijuana. He cited California, where “there are so many points of distribution they can’t keep track of it all,” and Montana, another state that has recently introduced the program. Lynch said the governor there told him that ski areas had become the busiest points of distribution, to giggles by alumni of the leadership class who attended the breakfast.

Lynch said he would be more comfortable having it controlled and regulated like prescription drugs, where the pharmacy distributed it to patients after a doctor prescribed it.

“If you can’t control it, you can never get it back,” he said. “I’m very nervous about having almost unlimited distribution and proliferation of it.”

New Hampshire has had medicinal marijuana in the past, according to advocates, and previous bills have made it through various stages of passage. The state Senate on March 28, approved the most recent incarnation of the bill by a 13-11 vote.

Lynch has historically vetoed the bills when they've reached his desk.