Nov 19
Mmmmm - medical marijuana’s back
By Denise Ross
If you haven’t yet read the lively discussion going on over at the SD War College in which my friend Pat Powers goes all Church Lady on weed (and I mean that in the best possible way, Pat), you must read it. Click here.
My favorite entry at the time of this writing is this comment from “Detroit L”:
You’d think a guy with 23 kids would be sucking on a J at least once a day.
Followed closely by this laugh-or-cry observation from “DPW”:
put it on the ballot,tax it big,, promise all the money will go to k-12,,it will pass big,,,then funnel all the money into the general fund,,,hahahaha
Meanwhile, Bob Newland has made some valid points in his Tuesday e-mail outlining plans to take another run at legalizing medical marijuana in South Dakota. (Read the full e-mail on the jump.)
Here are some facts:
1. We put medical cannabis on the ballot for the 2006 election in South Dakota.
2. We obtained 48% of the vote.
If they can turn out some of those young, new Obama voters, the pro-medical MJ crowd could cross that 50 % threshold.
I don’t agree with Newland’s analysis that the tide has turned so dramatically that a bill to legalize medical marijuana could pass in the Legislature. (That is, however, a great way to get a ton of free publicity - also known as “earned media” in the campaign world. And that would set up the public debate for a November vote.)
Pat makes a good point that, if we want to treat cannibis as a medicine, perhaps some pharmacology controls on consistency and cleanliness ought to be imposed. Why not get the MJ prescription down at Wal-Greens, Boyds or Lewis like the rest of it?
It seems that whether SD gets another crack at voting on medical marijuana depends on whether Newland can round up some money. Might not be the year for that, but who knows?
To read the full e-mail, click “CLICK HERE” below.
Hello Everyone:
Want to see South Dakota law changed?
I’ve been getting frequent requests from folks who want the law in South Dakota changed to allow safe access to medical cannabis. As I have told them, I also want the law changed, but I can’t do it by myself. This message is an attempt to find out how much support we have. That means I’d like to hear from you.
Here are some facts:
1. We put medical cannabis on the ballot for the 2006 election in South Dakota.
2. We obtained 48% of the vote.
3. That effort cost about $280,000.00. The Marijuana Policy Project (mpp.org) raised about 85% of that amount, and ran a nice campaign. We got 48% of the vote!!
4. There are two legislative sessions between now and the next election in So. Dak. (2010)
5. The legislature knows that if we take the issue to the voters again, we’ll win.
That means, I believe, that there is an excellent chance that the legislature will act, if we give them a reason. We have a few good reasons for them to think about. We have medical cannabis patients and their doctors ready to testify at the legislature.
You need to read about Tom Faltynowicz’s case, and the untenable position in which it placed the whole justice system in Meade County.
http://www.sodaknorml.org/Falt/falt.htm#sentence
We plan to ask a legislator to sponsor a bill allowing patients–whose doctors have signed a recommendation stating that the doctor believes that cannabis use would benefit the patient–to possess and use cannabis. The bill must also provide that “caretakers” would be able to grow and transfer cannabis to patients.
Do you want to help? Here’s how you can do that. The next legislative session starts in mid-January.
1. Do you know someone who needs medical cannabis? It would help if that person would testify in a legislative committee, but we need stories that we can present as coming from South Dakotans. We will keep the identities of those who want anonymity a secret.
2. We need some funding to work a bill through the legislature. $3500 should cover our expenses in travel, motels, meals and mailings. Can you send us some money?
(to donate: http://www.sodaksafeaccess.net/)
3. Will you commit to call your local South Dakota senator and representatives? We’ll need this call-in and email campaign in early January.
4. Talk up medical cannabis in your community.
5. Get back to me. Let me know you’re interested in helping. Maybe you have an idea I haven’t thought of (extremely likely). Even if you don’t know what you can do, let me know you’d like me to stay in contact. (You might have to reply to a challenge from my spam filter.)
I am very optimistic that a group of us, especially including patients, can prevail in getting a medical bill through the legislature. There simply have to be more folks than me talking about it.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Bob Newland
4 Comments so far
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I have never understood all the fearful controversy about the medical use of marijuana. If it was approved for medical use, wouldn’t it come under the same regulations as any drug approved by the FDA, including penalties for the illegal dispensing and use of prescription drugs?
Statement of Position
South Dakota Safe Access Act
South Dakotans for Safe Access will bring an item before the legislature in the 2009 session. We want sick, disabled and dying people to be able to use cannabis to alleviate their conditions. We want the legislature to remove law enforcement, as much as possible, from interfering with doctor/patient relationships, except in cases of real criminality.
Denying effective medication to people who need it is unspeakably cruel. Yet, that is exactly what South Dakota law does. A government acting in this manner can not call itself civilized.
The therapeutic benefits of cannabis are undeniable. The question is: How can South Dakota lawmakers recognize this fact in law while not creating a legal mess worse than the current situation?
The voters want sick, disabled, and dying people to have access to medicine that works for them, even if it is cannabis. Yet federal and South Dakota law proclaim there is “no medical use” for cannabis.
Here are some scientific facts about cannabis:
1. There is no record in medical history of a person dying from ingestion (by any method) of cannabis.
2. There is no record in medical history of a cannabis-only (no tobacco) smoker contracting lung cancer.
The implications of this are enormous. Several studies have shown that THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) shrinks tumors in mice, or averts their incidence. The fact that cannabis-only smokers have a lower lung cancer rate than the general population suggests something. Perhaps further studies are necessary?
3. Four major US government studies have concluded that, at the very least, therapeutic benefit appears to accrue to some people for some afflictions. They recommend further study. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of “minor” medical studies have confirmed the benefits of cannabis for several specific afflictions.
4. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), at the direction of the White House, will not allow scientific study into cannabis therapy, because Congress says cannabis has “no medical value”.
5. For over 20 years, the FDA has sent 300 rolled cannabis cigarettes per month to each of six patients in the United States.
The George H. W. Bush administration instituted the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Studies program, which administered govt.-grown cannabis to people who applied and were accepted. 22 people were accepted for cannabis studies. Of those, 6 are still alive (Remember, these were nearly all seriously ill people; most lived far beyond their prognoses because of cannabis, their doctors say.)
Clearly, the federal government is of two minds about therapeutic use of cannabis.
South Dakotans pride themselves on their good common sense. Its existence was demonstrated in the 2006 election, when 48% of the voters agreed with us that sick, disabled, and dying people should not be prosecuted for trying to feel better with medicine that works for them.
The quandary, we believe, lies in what some perceive as a conflict between federal and state law if, say, South Dakota were to statutorily allow patients to possess cannabis if their doctor thinks it might help them (the same standard as for the opiates oxycodone or percocet).
Our position is that South Dakota law enforcement is under no obligation to enforce federal laws. If the DEA wants to go to Chamberlain and drag a wheelchair-bound paraplegic to jail for using cannabis to extend his life, there’s probably not much we can do, but we don’t have to assist them. It is cruel to do so. We’d like to make it illegal to do so, thus removing any question from the minds of law enforcement agents.
13 states have now passed legislation allowing patients to possess and use cannabis, if they have a doctor’s recommendation. In fact, the 48%-52% vote in South Dakota in 2006 was the only time medical cannabis has appeared on a ballot in the US without passing.
We propose that the South Dakota legislature discuss and pass a law:
Providing for patients to possess and use cannabis, if their doctor recommends it. The law also needs to provide for either the patient or a caretaker to grow cannabis for the patient. It also needs to provide for an affirmative defense of medical use for people who use cannabis medically but have not yet acquired a doctor’s recommendation at the time they were accused.
You can see SDSA’s model law at http://www.sodaknorml.org/sdsa_files/081120ProposedBill.htm
This is the language we proposed in the initiative that got 48% of the vote in 2006. We’re willing to work on it.
The Tom Faltynowicz case (see accompanying sheet) illustrates graphically why this needs to be done. It is just wrong to place police officers, prosecutors and judges in the position of having to choose whether to do the right thing or to treat sick people like the criminals the law says they are.
A respected Rapid City physician said, under oath in a Sturgis courtroom, “Smoked marijuana is essential to Tom Faltynowicz’s therapy.”
More on Tom Faltynowicz at http://www.sodaknorml.org/Falt/falt.htm
The conflicts that arose during the Faltynowicz case are present, to a lesser degree, in many other prosecutions in South Dakota. This is not a good way to administer justice.
We are confident that a majority of South Dakota legislators will agree that it’s not a good way to administer justice, and will act to withdraw South Dakota’s support for the federal government’s war on sick, disabled, and dying people.
If you support our position, or have any suggestions on how to make our proposed legislation better, please contact us right away.
Very best regards,
Bob Newland
South Dakotans for Safe Access
Argus Leader story Sunday:
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008811230342
A reporter who reads this might consider asking policy-makers (legislators) or their enforcers (Larry Long, Sheriff Leidholt or anyone else who cares to make a public statement about legal medical use for cannabis being synonymous with “a stalking horse for heroin bars in downtown Lesterville”) this question:
“Are you saying that cannabis has no medical use, whatsoever, to anyone, for any medical condition?”
The answer, and the resulting follow-up discussion, could provide consideraable spectacle in the coming months.
Attorney General Long went to considerable length to tell us how our proposal in 2006 was flawed. He never responded to our offer to confer with him to make it better.
In the voter info pamphlet published by the Sec. of State in 2006, a county sheriff plays the role of medical expert in reciting a litany of Office of National Drug Control statements of partial fact. In the end, his argument is that since there are usually other medications for a condition known to be alleviated by cannabis, then there is no need, ever, for cannabis.
In our attempts to relegalize hemp, the farm policy analysts with the So. Dak. Highway Patrol said that since people already can buy coats made of cotton and rope made with polyester, there was no need for hemp.
My gripe with the media that printed and broadcast this stuff is that the obvious follow-ups are simply not done. The news becomes opposing sides speaking in two separate conversations. Frustrating.
I’ve smoked my share of weed from high school through college…but I quit in 1986…perhaps for many reasons…money mostly…fear of getting caught and goofing up the family situation…which got goofed up anyway later for other reasons. It’s just beyond my comprehension that we would punish people over smoking a weed…the cost to society is enormous…the cost in people, money, the misapplication of the power of the government…it’s all astounding that this continues to this day…and that we have to fight this state by state, issue by issue…the level of ignorance and the simple ways that people are controlled over this issue is beyond me. Haven’t we had enough of fear? Take the criminality out of this product and there will be a collapse in the rates of some crimes. But we won’t for awhile. America still loves it’s fear, it’s power trips. But I’ve always wondered: what were they smoking when they wrote Revelations? And do the religious realize what they’ve been sucked into believing? And what has it taken the Vatican 40 years to acknowledge the Beatles White Album…and what did they say about it 40 years ago? And why is the US defunding basic physics research? The questions go on and on.