Monday, May 07, 2007

Medical Marijuana in the News

Yesterday and today the The Birmingham News published letters from two of the members of Alabamians for Compassionate Care regading medical marijuana. Many thanks to the BHAM News for publishing these letters. If you are an Alabama reader I urge you to write a response to these letters and to call y our elected officials and ask them to vote yes on HB206.

Also, MANY THANKS to Michael Phillips, Sara King and Dawn Plamer who has had letters published in the BHAM News rearding medical marijuana and drug prohibition in general. Y'all rock and I love you!


MEDICAL MARIJUANA:

Remove patients from war on drugs

I am a 36-year-old man with an inoperable brain tumor, which causes multiple seizures a day. I have been a patient at Children's Hospital and the Kirklin Clinic since the age of 8. I have had four unsuccessful brain surgeries. I have been on every seizure medication known to mankind, as well as some that never received Food and Drug Administration approval.

A few years ago, I saw a program on marijuana being used as a seizure deterrent. I decided to try marijuana as a medicine, and I have had better results using marijuana in its natural form than from any other treatment in my life. My seizures have decreased from six to eight per day to one seizure every six to eight weeks. My neurologists have documented this in my medical records.

I have also been arrested twice for possession of marijuana. It caused me great hardship both on a psychological level and a monetary level. I wondered then, as I do now, why people in 12 states are treated like patients and allowed access to medical marijuana, but here in Alabama I am treated like a criminal for trying to treat my illness. Are people in other states somehow more deserving of treatment options than Alabamians?

There is a bill, HB 206, before the House Judiciary Committee called the Compassionate Care Act, which would protect physicians who recommend marijuana to their patients for certain illnesses like cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV and seizures. It also would protect the patients, like me, who use marijuana as medicine from being prosecuted under state law. Please call your elected officials and tell them to vote yes on the Compassionate Care Act.

If we must have a war on drugs, can we at least remove the patients from the battlefield first?

Michael Phillips

Millbrook


Bill supports effective treatment:

Have you or someone you love been a cancer patient and undergone radiation or chemotherapies? Maybe you or a loved one contracted HIV or suffer from multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, arthritis, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, migraines, anorexia or seizures. There is a pure, natural, harmless treatment relief available for the misery of these and other chronic, debilitating conditions: medical marijuana.

A group of Alabama citizens is working to change our current state laws, which would allow suffering patients access to this safe and effective treatment. There is a bill coming before the House Judiciary Committee to protect patients and their physicians in Alabama. Please call your elected officials and tell them to vote yes on HB 206, the Compassionate Care Act. Learn more about us and medical marijuana by visiting www.compassionate-care.org.

Sara King

Riverchase



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Keep up the great work. I am urging everyone to contact their reps. to vote for this bill. How much more evidence is needed to stop the foolishness with the drug laws? Legalize now!