(The Northern Iowan) According to Jimmy Morrison, who received a grant from the Marijuana Policy Project to organize patients and advocates, “only 1.5” out of roughly 30 speakers testified against medical marijuana at the hearing, with the half going to Ron Herman, a clinical associate professor at the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy.
[Morrison] testified to being beaten in a back alley, robbed of his wallet and left without clothes in near freezing temperatures while trying to obtain marijuana in an unfamiliar town.
He also described having to watch a policeman hold a gun to his brother’s head while a canine officer sniffed him for marijuana.
Ray Lakers, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and admits to using marijuana, claims that marijuana helps him function normally.
“Now, we are here, and I am here, to bring tear after tear. All of us living in fear,” he said, fighting back his own tears, “because patients are being denied a choice.”
The choice Lakers said he is denied is the ability to choose medical marijuana over other doctor prescribed medications.
“I don’t want to be associated with cocaine and meth or whatever,” [said Lisa Jackson, a Crawfordsville resident and sufferer of fibromyalgia]. “I just want some pain relief. I want some relief. I want to live. I want to be allowed to live. I want to be allowed to be a mother. I want to be allowed to be a wife. And I want to be allowed to be a good person and smoking marijuana allows me to do that. Is it worth going to jail? For me, it is … I don’t have any other options.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, smoking pot helps with your MS and your fibromyalgia. But the FDA has never approved smoking pot and the AMA says smoked marijuana isn’t medicine, so you people must be just fooling yourselves. Ignore all your personal experience with marijuana, how it relieves your pain or spasms, how it allows you to sleep, how it helps you be a productive citizen, because your experiences are just anecdotal. We can’t have you sick and disabled people smoking pot without repercussions, because then some teenager might get the message that it is OK to get high. I’m sure you can understand; take these other prescription medications that don’t help your conditions and have worse side effects that require even more prescriptions… you’ve got to do it, for the children’s sake, or else we will lock you up in a cage at gunpoint.
Right on Ray!
Raphael Mechoulam, the Israeli scientist who in 1964 discovered THC, the main psychoactive component in marijuana, will testify by telephone in support of medical use of marijuana at Wednesday’s Iowa Board of Pharmacy hearing. Mechoulam, considered the world’s leading expert on marijuana and cannabinoids, will join other medical experts and patients in the last of four hearings to examine the medical value of marijuana and whether its classification under state law should be changed. After this final hearing, the Board of Pharmacy will make a recommendation to the state legislature regarding the scheduling of marijuana and what further steps are necessary. this call will say it all………