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the years that if I tried to smoke some
cannabidiol, the hemp form, if I then tried to
smoke scme marijuana -- this was from Illinois
mind you, not Iowa -- I would find that I could not
get high from the THC, and I believe that this has
valuable drug addiction modality treatment because
you could take somebody that has an addiction to
any substance, give them the CBD, and find that
you're able to intercept or interdict the
absorption or the utilization of THC.
And further, the meat that I
developed, I found that when I would eat my buzz
meat and tried to smoke marijuana, I would not get
high, meaning that it's probably the same receptor
site activity.
Now, this is all salient and relevant
because when I was thrown into the looney bin, the
Cherokee Mental Health Institute, and forced to
take a high, high transfatty acid diet, I noticed
that when they would -- that when they released me,
it took six weeks for the blood brain barrier to
clean out.
Now, I had tests done on my meat by
the University ot Iowa, and they confirmed that I
had integrated high levels of Omega 3, 6, and 9,
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and I believe that this probably indicates the
operant endocannabinoids would be a mix,
corresponding to the various levels.
And Group Exhibit D is the results of
that study I had spoken with the researcher at
Iowa State University, and he told me -- I asked
him the question, could transfatty acids block the
blood brain barrier? And he said in response,
"Triglycerides do. By gosh, you're right,
Peterson. Transfatty acids probably block the
blood brain barrier."
And I submit to you that the
endocannabinoids are a weak form of this substance
that is blocked whereas marijuana is a strong form
that's very similar, which is why marijuana has
been seen as a strong drug abuse problem in our
nation because everybody's walking around without a
full deck of cards, if you know what I mean.
In other words, the best thing that
could have happened would be for the FDA to have
banned transfatty acids from the food stream and
required labeling because once this happens,
nations across the world that have done this, I
believe including the Netherlands, have found since
they did this in '04 that -- that they've seen an
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uptake in the birth rate, meaning that anandamide,
which is important for the implantation of the
fetus, is starting to be produced again or absorbed
or utilized.
And I also include in Group Exhibit D
a press release from 12-6-06 about my invention,
about the need for research. Now, in '07 I went to
a church-sponsored summer camp at a Presbyterian
Church USA, and I gave out some cards indicating
that I am -- I'm a cannabis researcher trying to
use currently valid forms of it.
And by the way, I'd like to ask the
board if I could use my mother's ten minutes. She
can't walk up the steps because there's no way I
can give her this anti-inflammatory medicine, and
she has said no, she's not going to walk up the
steps to testify. May I use her ten minutes?
PAUL PETERSON: Can I use your
time,
Mom? Well, I think she's gesturing. She is hard
of heanng. I think she's gesturing that she
doesn't want to come up here.
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have to. We can take the microphone down to her.
PAUL PETERSON: Okay. May
I take the
microphone to her and ask her this? Mother, would
you like to testify, or would you like to give me
your time?
PAUL PETERSON: Would you like
to give
me your time, or do you have something to say?
PAUL PETERSON: Do you want to
talk,
or do you want me to talk for you?
ANNE PYLE: You talked long enough.
You talked long enough.
Now, the fact is my mother told me in
2002 that she had a fog and a cloud, and she just
couldn't complete thoughts, and she's worried all
the time, and I told her go to her doctor, and she
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did, and she called me back in Chicago and said
"The doctor says I have Alzheimer's, but he's not
going to write it in the chart because I'd lose my
driver's license. What do you want to do?"
I gave her marijuana tea, and in
20 minutes she said "The fog and the cloud is gone.
How long has this been keeping -- been kept
secret?"
I said "Since the Old Testament."
Well, I'm not going back to the Old Testament. I'm
just telling you that she had very stunning effects
that lasted for 11 months. And then she called me
back and said "The fog came back. I'll bet you're
going to tell me I need more tea," and I did, and I
did, and it took care of it again and again.
Now she takes fish oil. I don't give
her that controversial substance because I'm afraid
of getting gooned by the local police again, if you
know what I mean. But the fish oil appears to be
maintaining her cognitive abilities to the point
where she said "You've talked enough." Well, then
I had to get her to say -- chuckle, and I'm taking
her time. Thank you.
But the fact is that there are
evidence -- there are articles about how an
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endocannabinoid deficiency syndrome might be
responsible for migraine headaches, and she had
migraine headaches for her entire adult life, and I
believe that somehow I've triggered some kind of a
reclaiming of this, and in fact, Scripps Medical
Center in California has found that THC totally
blocks the aggregation of amyloid-beta particles in
the plaque.
And I belleve that there are
45,000 people in Iowa that could use this modality
to arrest their progression of Alzheimer's disease,
and I believe it's a travesty that we haven't done
more, but I do appreciate very mightily the board
taking this unusual step of taking public comment
and public hearings.
And in fact, I talked with Lloyd
Jessen in 2006 courteously, and he was courteous
with me, and I talked with him a couple months ago,
and he said "Now is the time. We want to do this
the right way," and I appreciate that -- the
latitude and the levity of the board in doing this
because this is controversial. We all know that.
So we have -- I have a number of
articles talking about the -- the arresting the
aggregatlon of these chemicals. The other two
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drugs that are used -- I forgot the names. I got
them here somewhere. Aricept and Cognex, and they
only slow it down by 22 percent and 7 percent. One
of them is done -- donepezil and tacrine. These
are the generic names.
And I've got notes on here, my own
inimitable handwriting. This is Group Exhibit C.
Group Exhibit -- I already did D. That was about
the meat.
Group Exhibit E is a couple press
releases because I'm really frustrated that you
see, in 2004 I got Dick Durbin to place the
Institute of Medicine report from 1999 into the
senate record during confirmation hearings for
Karen Tandy of the DEA. And I saw him waive that
into the senate record in March of 2004, and saw
him then take on the federal medical marijuana
advocacy in the Senate, and I would like to thank
Dick Durbin for taking on that challenge.
Well, you see, the thing is I've been
asking Senator Charles Grassley's office to
investigate falsified police evidence on the part
of the Storm Lake Police. I've been bugging the
FBI incessantly. I asked them to give my mom and
me a safe house so I could make sure and get here
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today. They hung up on me yesterday.
The Department of Justice has refused
to have any assistance to me, give any assistance
in stopplng this police evidence fraud. Grassley's
office has refused. And I am upset that he came
out stating very boldly that marijuana is a gateway
drug even though the Institute of Medicine said no,
it's not. Cigarettes and booze are.
And you see, this means that I believe
he's lied to the American people because he is
bound by what is in the Institute of Medicine
report, the highest medical body in the land. And
so these are a number of press releases. And I
appreciate your time. Thank you to the board.
This is Group Exhibit E.
I'll take any questions you might
offer. Oh, that wasn't you?
PAUL PETERSON: Okay. Now,
by the
way, I have a chuck roast here that I believe is
chuck full of these grass chemicals, the
endocannabinoids, and I am looking for research
partners. I would like to find out if there are
high levels of the so-called endocannabinoids in
this, but you see, when I went to Buena Vista
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University in Storm Lake, Iowa, and asked them to
help me research this potentially multibillion
dollar industry of doing a holistic, legal, totally
ethical change in our livestock production methods
so that we could holistically heal some of these
disease processes. I was arrested for going to a
church service on campus because they did not want
me giving out my cards that indicated that I'm --
I'm a cannabinoid researcher.
And so if anybody would like if the
board would like to test this to endeavor to find
out what this magical property is, I would tender
this to any party. I'm looking for research
partners.
And you see, the Department of
Agriculture, they don't care what you feed
livestock. All they want to know is that it can
walk into the slaughterhouse. The Department of
the DEA doesn't want to have anything to do with
this. The FDA, all they do is connect me with the
Department of Agriculture. And apparently every
federal agency is firewalled in.
No. It's certainly like that Jose
Amannas says, "That's not my job." And this is a
real travesty by itself because the mere fact that
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this is related to our on-board internal God-given
architecture to recognize these chemical
constituents, nobody wants to have anything to do
with it because they're afraid that I'm the snake
in the Garden of Eden or something like that
because I speak out about these things.
And so I'm open to any research
partners on this. Thank you very much.
PAUL PETERSON: And I also give
a copy
of this card with my press releases. This is the
card that I got arrested for giving out talking
about using currently legal forms of this, Marinol.
Because I believe most of these studies have been
used using the Marinol pill which is FDA Class III
since 1999, and you see, that's the whole salient
problem here.
Until something happens to where this
is downgraded and looked at more amenably, doctors
and researchers don't want to have anything to do
with it. I've talked wlth Harriet DeWitt, a
University of Chicago researcher that ruled that
marijuana is safe in the hands of an unregulated
public. That was in 2001. And she doesn't -- has
not published anything because she couldn't get her
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DEA grant renewed.
Mike Block of the University of Iowa
has been doing PET scan studies on potheads for a
dozen years, and I asked him in 2002 what he's
found. And he said that marijuana has no permanent
brain changes, especially not in the stimulant
reward center, so it's not addictive, per se, and
it increases blood flow in the ventral areas. And
I said "What happens in the ventral areas?"
He said "That's where emotional
thoughts reside and begin."
And I said "Oh, boy, that makes sense"
because I've heard from young ladies that have
boyfriends that don't want to talk about love. If
they put a joint in their mouth, the boy is putty
in her hands. So -- and this is also the area that
Alzheimer's develops.
And so you see, increasing blood flow
in the ventral areas helps to keep the hippocampus
working and operant, and that's where new brain
cells are produced, and I know from a University of
Saskatoon study on mice, they were using HU-210
which is 200 times as powerful as THC. Boy, they
were looking for dirt there.
And they sliced and diced the mice's
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hippocampus to look for the dead brain cells, but
there weren't any dead ones. They had produced new
brain cells instead.^nbsp; This is called neurogenesis.
And there are a number of companies that are
working on neurogenesis compounds, including one
that goes on that website as
neuronova.com,
n-e-u-r-o-n-o-v-a dot com, and they have a
clandestine chemical that can cure a rat model of
Parkinson's disease in six weeks, which is about
the same time it takes for new brain cells to be
produced.
And so this is -- it is indeed a good
time. I agree with Lloyd Jessen that we need to do
something with careful controls, better than the
loosy-goosy in California.
And so I believe that there are a lot
of good potentials here, and I'm very interested in
working with local and state and federal law
enforcement to try to breathe some life and some
meaning into this and to help deal with some of
these addictive problems. Thanks again.
(Off-the-record discussion.)
CARL OLSEN: My name is Carl Olsen,
and I'm from Des Moines, Iowa. And I have a CD
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here with some pulmonary studies that I would llke
to submit, and I have no comments on them.
CARL OLSEN: I'm not a medical expert.
I assume that some of the other experts will
probably talk about some of those studies and that
you'll hear what they think they mean.
I am the person that's -- that filed
the petition with the Board of Pharmacy to have it
removed from Schedule I, and the last two items on
the board's list of bulleted points was the
second-to-the-last item was whether marijuana has
accepted medical use in treatment in the United
States, and the last one was whether -- you guys
have it worded really funny, but it's lacks
accepted safety for use under medical supervision,
whether it does or does not.
I don't believe anyone has introduced
the actual 13 state statutes in this proceeding.
So I am going to mail -- e-mail that before the end
of the day.
Thirteen state statutes that say
medical use of marijuana. In the Iowa law it says
accepted medical use in treatment in the United
States. It doesn't say in Iowa. So those
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13 states are in the United States. They all have
laws on the books that define medical use of
marijuana. That is accepted medical use in the
United States.
And accepted safety for use under
medical supervision would be defined by the same
13 states. They all allowed patients to cultivate
marijuana and distribute marijuana without profit.
I can't think of anything else in the Controlled
Substances Act that you can make at home and give
to other people without any professional training,
so the safety factor of marijuana has been proven
over and over agaln to be so safe that you can
manufacture this at home and give it to other
people without any professional training. That is
safe. So those two issues are addressed by those
13 state statutes.
And Mr. Maier, you made a comment on
somebody, about scheduling, that none of the
13 states had addressed their scheduling. And of
course, my request was that you address scheduling,
so my request is different than anything that's
been heard before because no one has asked to have
the scheduling changed before. I'm the first
person to do that.
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And the reason why that is so critical
is because the language in the federal statute is
identical. In the federal statute it says
marijuana is assumed to have no accepted medical
use in treatment in the United States, and the
federal law, just like the Iewa law, contains a
procedure, an administrative procedure, for anyone
to come and challenge that and ask that it be
removed from that schedule. And none of the states
have done that.
Thirteen states have legalized
marijuana, but they have not gone to the federal
government and said "You have marijuana
misclassified. You have to remove it."
And the reason this is so important is
because in Oregon they passed an assisted suicide
law, and the DEA said that's an illegal use of
drugs. The state attorney general sued the DEA and
won, and the Supreme Court said that accepted
medical use is whatever the State says it is.
There is no federal definition for it. The federal
government doesn' t take that power from the State.
The State has the power to define accepted medical
use.
And so I would say that if you find
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marijuana has accepted medical use in Iowa, that
would be the same thing as saying it has accepted
medical use in the United States, and even if you
don't, it still has accepted medical use in the
United States and doesn't fit in the definition.
But that's why I'm so critical,
because none of those states have figured out how
to protect their patients from federal government
interfering with the law because the federal
government isn't just going to jump in and say "Oh,
well, you might want to classify this having no
accepted medical use, but we're just going to say
it does." They want a clear statement from at
least one state telling them "Hey, it does have
accepted medical use, and you have to acknowledge
it."
And so that was the basis of my whole
case. It was -- the Judge dismissed my case this
week. And the way I understand the ruling is that
the question that I'm posing is a legal question,
and the board doesn't have the authority to answer
a legal question, that you're scientific and
medical professionals, and so I'm going to refile
that case as a civil injunction, not against the
board but against the State of Iowa for having
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marijuana misclassified.
And if you have any questions, I'd be
glad to answer them. Oh, and before the day is
over, I'm going to submit the 13 state statutes so
they're part of the record. All right. Thank you.
Oh, and I really appreciate what the
board has been doing. You guys have been putting a
tremendous amount of work into this, and it's just
awesome. So thank you.
BOARD MEMBER FREY: Gentlemen,
I would
ask that personal conversation be kept between the
two of you.
PAUL PETERSON: I just wish to
give
the board the citation of the Illinois current
Research on Cannabis Act which allows doctors to
certify medical necessity. It wasn't renamed as a
treatment statute, so most experts believe that
it's merely a TRP, a treatment research provision,
but I believe that this is relevant to the issue of
what other states have done on this in this
regard.
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CARL OLSEN: Well, 14 other states
have legislation. There's a lot of state law that
you should look at probably
TERRY WITKOWSKI: But Mr. Peterson,
if
you want to submit that to us, we will include that
in the information to the board.
TERRY WITKOWSKI, You can hand it to
us, yes.
TERRY WITKOWSKI: Bryan Scott.
Is
Bryan Scott here? Jennifer, has Bryan Scott
checked in?
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speak?
JOHN LONGSTREET: Isn't exactly
the
way I thought it would be set up, but you never
know. Well, I'm here to talk to you folks. All
right? These are probably other folks that are --
JOHN LONGSTREET: Okay.
I'm here to
talk to you folks. I'm here to tell you a story
I'm just going to use a promise that a lady asked
me to provide, and so I did. This is what I'm
doing, and I want to thank you, No.1, for taking
the time and actually considering, you know, a
progressive move here that I think is needed.
But I had a backyard neighbor. Her
name was Peg. And in early '05, about end of
January, she was diagnosed wlth pancreatic cancer.
She was a 72-year-old woman at the time, but she
was a -- the way I got to know her pretty much, she
was a veteran. She was a nurse in southeast Asia
in the Air Force, and I had had some experience
myself with the health field in southeast Asia.
But Peg and I got pretty close, and
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kept going over there because she lived by herself
with a son, but the son was grown, and he worked,
so she was pretty lonely during the day, and I'd go
over, and I'd talk to her.
And they started chemotherapy on her,
and the first two episodes didn't really bother
her. The third episode just knocked her right to
her knees for about four days afterwards, she
couldn't -- she could hardly get out of bed and go
to the bathroom by herself. She just was so weak
and so sick, she could not eat. And of course, her
hair started falling out.
But anyway, she kept going to the
doctors, of course. I think she had two. You
know, I live down in southwest Iowa, a little bit
south of here, and she was working with the
doctors, and they were trying to keep track of her
pain, and she got better after the chemo, and then
she took another dose of chemo the next month, and
again, it just knocked her right to the floor this
time. I mean it just sapped her.
And you could see it in her. I mean
she just lost all of her energy. She couldn't eat
at all. She had no interest in food. She was
just -- just laying there kind of like a person is
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waiting, you know, because there was nothing else
she could do except just lay there and be sick like
you had the flu all the time.
And this lasted about five days to a
week, and she was like this, and she was losing
weight terribly, and it was taking her longer to
regain her strength after she got done with this
chemo.
So the doctor gave her some Marinol
pills to get her -- to help her out with her eating
and her strength, I believe, and it didn't -- it
didn't do anything for her at all. She says she
might as well have been taking a couple of aspirin.
And so about this time, I don't know.
I think maybe a niece entered into the picture here
who happened to be a flight attendant, but anyway,
she came into the area, and Peg had just got done
having another chemo treatment, and she -- I had
gone over to see her, and she was laying in bed,
and she had told me that her niece had been by, and
anyway, she started talking. She said "John, how
do you smoke marijuana?"
And I just got a giggle. And I said
"What are you talking about?"
She said "Well, I've got some
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marijuana, and I think it's supposed to work, but
I'm not set up right now, and I just need to
sleep."
So when I went home that night, I told
my wife, I says "I really don't think she's going
to make it through the night." She was that bad.
She was laying there. She just couldn't move. She
couldn't turn over anymore. She was so weak, she
couldn't eat. She had no interest at all, and she
was just waiting there to die, and she knew it.
And I was very -- as I sald, I told my
wife that it was -- I didn't think she was going to
make it. 10 o'clock the next morning she called
me, and she was giggling, and she says "You won't
believe what I just did.
And I says "What, Peg?"
And she says "I'm eating a steak and a
baked potato."
And I said "Wow, that's great." And I
could just tell in her voice. I mean I didn't even
have to see her that in the voice there was
strength. There was hope and something had
happened.
And so long story short, she had
smoked the marijuana, and this is what it did for
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her. It enabled her to eat, to get up, to halfway
enjoy what she had going, and it gave her three
years. She died October of last year. It gave her
three good years from the night I saw her that I
didn't really think that she was going to make it
through the night. She was that bad.
And she was just as frail as could be,
and she was just waiting to die, and then she got
ahold of this marijuana, and the change in her was
so dramatic that she talked to her doctor, and of
course, you know, he says "There's nothing I can
do. It's illegal," et cetera. "You might check
with hospice, you know, see if they -- if they
could help you out in any way" because she kept
telling the doctor, she says "It just takes me
three or four puffs, and I'm able to eat. I'm able
to get up and take care of myself," et cetera, you
know, live, basic living that she was doing.
And it was just incredible the change
that I saw. The cancer eventually got her, you
know. That one is really hard to beat 100 percent,
but you know, the quality of life that she had
afterwards is what impressed me, and she wanted
me -- she told me, she said "John, you have to get
the word out."
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And so this is why I'm here. I came
here for her because she would want me to be here,
and -- and what really baffled the woman who was
really a top-notch lady in her day, she was very
strong in the American Legion, but she -- she would
smoke that, and she says "This is illegal?" She
just couldn't believe that what this was helping
her to do was illegal. She could not believe it.
And so the common sense end of it is
if it does that much good, why would we spend --
and I don't know how much money was ever spent to
develop Marinol, but I'm sure it was considerable,
but when it's a natural substance that grows, and
it was given here by God.
And as I said, I was in southeast
Asia, and I will say that when my two kids were
growing up and they started driving, I told them
that I would much rather have them in a car smoking
a joint with a bunch of kids than in the same car
with a bunch of kids drinking beer. And I still
hold that to this day.
From what I've seen and what I've
read, alcohol is the -- compare the two. It's
just -- I mean it is amazing, and I don't know if
you've been following that argument in Germany --
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or not Germany but in the United Kingdom. They had
a special board set up to investigate marijuana,
and they were also talking ecstasy but marijuana
and what it was like and how it would affect, and
he came out with his report, and he said, you know,
it is so much safer than alcohol that it isn't
even -- it's just off the charts compared to social
and economic and mainly -- yeah, the social end
because alcohol makes everybody violent, and
marijuana doesn't. You know, you don't drive
80 miles an hour on marijuana, and you don't get
macho, you know. You don't get your genes working.
It just very much slows you down, and it really
helps these people. I mean the change in her was
incredible.
But anyway, this guy got fired
after -- they fired him right off the board, and
now all the board is quitting that was behind him,
the research board. So that's going on in Britain.
I thought it was just -- because they said he got
political about it.
But anyway, thank you for your time.
JOHN LONGSTKEET: And I appreciate
it,
and I really hope you consider it to the -- to the
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good side because it's -- it's meant to be. It's a
natural thing. I don't understand it. I don't
understand how it got where -- it's misclassified.
JOHN LONGSTKEET: Should not
go in
there with heroin and cocaine. Those are manmade
things, but anything natural ought to be legalized
as long as -- peyote, mescaline, mushrooms, and
marijuana. They're all natural, and I don't see
anybody ODing and having a problem with it.
BOARD MEMBER FREY: I would
ask the
audience to please hold their applause until the
speaker is done. You're taking his time away from
him by applauding. Thank you.
JOHN LONGSTKEET: That's all
right.
You know what I have to say. You know how I feel
about it. The change in this woman, I mean, I just
could not believe what it had done for her, and it
really made me upset that she had to go -- what she
had to go through just to find it. Thanks a lot.
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is him coming. Are you Bryan Scott?
BOARD MEMBER FREY: Excuse
me. Bryan,
could you please -- we'd ask that you at least give
your name and first name or last -- and last name
and if you wish to where you're from.
BRYAN SCOTT: My name is Bryan,
and I
live in a little town called Kent, Iowa. It's
probably about 90 miles east of here. I'm an
individual living with HIV, AIDS, that has left me
crippled. I haven't had normal bone marrow which
is causing fluid to grow in my spine instead of --
I mean it's causing mass to grow in my spine
instead of fluid.
Every morning I wake up nauseated.
The only thing that's taken that away is marijuana.
My doctors have prescribed me on Marinol, the
highest dose they could get, which has ultimate
side effects, diarrhea. It just plain doesn't
work. It has too many side effects, so then again,
you got to turn to marijuana because there is no
side effects because being hungry, which I have a
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very hard problem eating, and if it wasn't for
marijuana, I wouldn't eat, and I probably would be
dead because of just what the HIV has done to me.
As you can tell, there's 14 states
that have legalized it, turning on maybe to 15,
it's going to be our neighbor, Illinois. The
federal government has recognized that Obama
himself is not going to persecute anybody that's
you know, is medically using it, which is a good
thing, and it should be classlfied differently
instead of with the hard drugs which kill people.
There hasn't been no deaths related to marijuana.
You can't die from it. You can't -- you just
get -- there is no side effects to it.
The hard thing is -- to swallow,
though, is that these 14 states that allow
medicinal marijuana, Iowa is not letting us have
our civil rights like the other 14 states is, which
is a violation to personally a lot of, you know,
ill patients, which is being denied access of
medicine that works.
Like the individual said earlier,
alcohol and marijuana is two totally different
things. And like he said, would you rather have a
kid getting high or getting drunk? Neither one
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because they're both bad. But if you was to
recognlze it as a medicine, the kids would
understand what it's all about instead of being
classified and carrying the stigma of being a bad
drug and which it's not.
Kids are being lied to in schools and
by their parents because their parents are
belligerent and naive against it too, although
back -- personally, you know, a lot of people have
done it, and I bet you everybody sitting on this
board right here has probably done it themselves
too, probably in college, in high school.
Everybody has tested it. And nobody can deny that.
I just feel that if we was to have
access to be able to grow and to be able to smoke
medicinal marijuana for personal uses that I could
save the State of Iowa -- they spend a thousand
dollars a month on me for Marinol, which they
expect me to take, which I reject to take, but they
keep feeding it down my throat. Not only that, you
know, I can eliminate the Marinol. I can eliminate
the Baclofen. I can eliminate the Neurontin pain
for neuropathy, which I have tons of pain in my
feet, which marijuana takes it away, you know, in a
snap.
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And why I have to swallow a bunch of
pills which damage my liver, that damages more of
my insides than what marijuana does, I just feel I
should be obligated to have the same civil rights
as the other 14 states is, and please have Iowa
recognize that it's not a lethal drug, and it is a
medicine. That's it.
TERRY MITCHELL: My name is Terry
Mitchell. You'll notice the name on the shirt is
Reverend Reefer. I got that because I preach the
hemp plant. It's good for so many different
things. But one of the main ones has got to be the
medicine.
I'd like to throw this cane away.
I've got it in my medical record that they've tried
all kinds of pharmaceutical drugs, and for any
number of reasons -- either I'm a walking zombie or
I sleep 24 hours a day or I just don't feel safe
behind a wheel. It's been about a week and a half
since I smoked any marijuana, and if confessing
gets me shot, well, that's fine. That's okay
because I felt pretty good at the tlme.
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As time goes on when I don't smoke, I
get to the point to where my knees are buckling.
My back is bent over. My knuckles are almost
rubbing the ground. I've got degenerative disk
disease in my back which causes this.
When I smoke a little cannabis, when I
have enough cannabis to where that I can smoke two,
three times a day, two, three tokes at a time, just
like a doctor prescribed to you a certain amount of
pills so many times a day, it's like a balloon.
That's the only way I can describe it. It's like a
balloon in my back that if I keep it inflated, I
can almost stand upright. I can throw this to the
side, and I can actually walk a couple blocks
without having to sit down and take a break.
I'd like to go back to work. I'd like
to have a reason to shave this off and cut my hair
and actually go back to work, but trying to survive
on 650 a month, haircuts just ain't in the -- ain't
in the budget.
I'd like to be able to go back to
work, and I could if I didn't have to worry about
having to go in somebody's cup. If a person will
take me on who I am and what I can do on the
medication that God put here for me to use, then
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I'd be, oh, so grateful.
There's so many different things and
so many dlfferent toes that we'd step on. The
pharmaceutical industry, oil, paper, clothing, the
timber industry, we'd step on all their toes if
they legalized cannabis and let us use it like God
put it here to be used. But I do believe that
denying people access to it for the medicine that
they need is just plain and simple torture. It's
almost inhuman. And that's the way I look at it.
If it don't get me no brownie points,
I'm sorry, but you wanted opinions, you're getting
mine. I love you all for taking the time to even
think about it, and there's so many people that I
know today that fight aches and pains from working
every day with a little cannabis. They just ain't
got caught. And that's what kind of spooked me,
three years with no license and thirty days in jail
and $3,500 on 650 a month disability. It took me
about three years to get my license back.
But that's why I don't mess, you
know -- I don't -- The last message I got is just
like I did in Iowa City. You'll have to read it on
my way out the door.
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TIM OWEN: Hi. My name is Tim
Owen.
And I thank you for letting me come to speak here.
I just want to share a personal testimony and first
give you a little background on what I'm going to
talk about.
In September '05 my mom woke up --
just woke up dizzy and stumbling around and just
uncontrollable, just couldn't keep her balance. So
we went to the hospital and did a CAT scan, and the
diagnosis was that she had an earache.
Well, about three weeks went by, and I
talked to her, and I said "You're not going to have
an earache for three or four weeks. It's going to
go away." So I talked to my personal doctor, and
they ordered up an MRI, and when they ordered the
MRI, they found a glioblastoma multiform Grade 4
brain tumor. These are also known as GBMs.
They're very, very aggressive. They're not like a
solid lump. They're made of cells, and they just
keep growing real aggressive.
Doctors performed surgery and several
months of chemo and radiation. I looked into
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alternative treatments on the Internet, and I
discovered that the THC in marijuana promoted the
death of the brain cancer cells by essentially
helping them feed upon themselves, and they
self-digest. Patients also had no toxic effects
from the treatment. The THC also enhanced the
effectiveness of standard treatment.
I could share for hours results from
the various studies done in the United States,
Spain, and Italy. All recommend and their findings
lead to new strategies for preventing tumor growth
and spreading of cells. There are now more than
17,000 published papers in the scientific
literature analyzing marijuana's remarkable
capabillty to combat diseases.
I discussed with the two doctors that
were treating my mom -- one was the lead doctor of
the June (phonetical) Island Cancer Treatment
Center. The other was the family practice doctor
at Mercy Hospital, that he had recommended the MRI
versus the CAT scan, and he treated my mom and
consulted with my wife and I.
Both of them agreed it would slow the
growth of the GBM and alleviate the side effects of
the conventional treatment. Both in their
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professional opinion were favorable for this
treatment but reluctant as it isn't on -- isn't an
option in Iowa as in other states, so it couldn't
be offered.
Along in February '06, my mom had a
severe seizure and was pronounced legally brain
dead at the hospital. They gave her about four
hours to wind down. However, three days later we
left the hospital, and she lived with my wife and
me as caregivers. She's seen me often researching
her condition and often commented she would be --
she would try anything if it would have helped.
Even if it would have helped just a little bit, she
would have tried anything.
The steroids and the chemo had
numerous side effects on her body and mind, many
that the THC from the marijuana would have
eliminated. She lived a pretty good quality of
life for a year and a week from the date of the
severe seizure.
In closlng, I'm sure with four
hearings that you've held, you've heard a lot of
testimony for and against. I just challenge you to
eat the meat and throw out the bones. I ask you
how, you know, as a parent you want to do anything
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you can for your kids. I keep referring to
anything because she said she would have done
anything to help with her condition.
How could we not offer anything that
will help a loved one with whatever condition that
they're battling? It could be a daily need or a
temporary need or a hospice need, whether it be
with gliomas, Alzheimer's, hepatitis, diabetes,
osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, ALS, chronic
pain, Tourette's, HIV, hypertension, sleep apnea,
incontinence, rheumatoid arthritis. I could go on
and on. It's really -- this is kind of really
about the options, and the choices should be
available to people with these conditions. We're
all different. It should be something for the
doctors and the patients to decide.
I just encourage that you would lead
the way for Iowa to take the blinders off their
eyes. I'd share with you a couple things. One of
them is a Web page, probably many of you are
familiar with this, Web M.D. You go on Web M.D.,
and you can learn quite a bit about brain tumors.
And then also the
www.norml.org has several
articles on -- on the subject as well. I'm just
going to leave those and submit those as something.
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Just take this time to thank you for
having us all down here. Thanks.
TERRY WITKOWSKI: We have a
couple of
phone calls that should be coming in within the
next couple of minutes. I think we'll just wait on
those. There's not much time between now and then.
BOARD MEMBER FREY: I would
just like
to make a comment that if you wish to have side
conversations, as a courtesy to the speaker, please
take those outside the room. I would appreciate
that. Thank you.
(Off-the-record discussion.)
BOARD MEMBER FREY: Hi, Mary.
This is
Susan Frey, vice chairman of the Board of Pharmacy.
and we have you on speakerphone. So you can start
wlth your comments at any time.
MARY LYNNE MATHRE: Okay.
Thank you
very much. And could I ask if Ralph Smith already
handed in the submission from Patients Out of Time?
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MARY LYNNE MATHRE: No problem.
Okay.
Well, I just did want to certainly thank the board
for having these hearings. I think they're very,
very important, clearly for Iowa, but I think also
being in the heartland of America, you send a
message to the rest of the states, and this is
something that needs to be looked at.
You will have written testimony from
me that I wrote on September 28. It's included
with the package of materials that Ralph Smith will
be submitting to you on behalf of Patients Out of
Time, so I don't want to really spend time
repeating myself in what I've written down.
Rather, I'd just -- I did look on the
board's -- on your website to find out that it
looks like you've got seven members on the board,
five of which are licensed pharmacists and two
members of public, and I thought great. This is
just exactly who we need to talk to.
When speaking about hot topics, and
certainly medical marijuana has been one for many,
many years, I use a line that I've borrowed from my
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husband, which is consider the source. And I think
that's -- that's really important in what you're
doing now in looking at all of this material.
You're hearing from patients, and I
know a lot of their testimony because I've heard --
heard so many stories, and what you're hearing is
how it's helping us, how they've gotten off other
medications which have caused harm to themn in one
way or another from the side effects or just
unwanted adverse effects from the drugs, and yet
they've taken this medication, and the quality of
life has improved, and oftentimes they've gotten
rid of their other medications.
Now, for whatever reason, you know, we
cannot ever make decisions about medicine based on
the testimony here or there. Yet at the same time,
in the medicines that nurses dispense day in and
day out, physicians prescribe day in and day out,
pharmacists prepare day in and day out, medications
come with various rlsks, and they don't always work
for patients, and so we have to see -- get the
feedback from the patients, and so in that respect,
the patient's feedback is vital.
And in this case stories we hear from
patients are always positive, but because it's an
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illegal drug, health-care professionals tend to
dismiss it, you know, and of course, the government
has put out comments such as that the patients are
being duped by legalizers, and that's -- it's such
a stretch, and it's such a stretch when you're
seeing some of these patients suffering so much.
They don't buy it, and they know when they try
something if it's helpful or not.
So again, I want to just make that
point. Considering -- continuing on with the
consider the source, I just want to kind of let you
also know where I'm coming from. I got my nursing
degree back in 1975, and most of my work at that
time had been in hospitals as a Navy nurse
initially and then since then in hospitals on
medical surgical units, so I have given out
countless medications to patlents.
In 1985 I got my master's degree from
Case Western Reserve University, and at that time
did my thesis on disclosure of marijuana use to
health-care professionals. At that time I was
looking at it as a recreational drug and just
wondering if these patients would tell health-care
professionals, thinking that we should know about
this so that we could advise them appropriately.