Another study published in June 15 --
in the June 15, 2009, issue of Chemical Research
and Toxicology stated "The smoking of three to four
cannabis cigarettes a day is associated with the
same degree of damage to the bronchial mucus
membranes as twenty or more cigarettes a day."

The research was based on tests that
look scientifically at acetylate, a suspected
cancer-causing chemical known to effect human DNA
that is found in both kinds of smoke.

The study concluded "These results
provide evidence for the DNA-damaging potential of
cannabis smoke implying that the consumption of
cannabis cigarettes may be detrimental to human
health with the possibility to initiate cancer
development."

There are no -- currently no
FDA-approved medications that are smoked.  Smoking
is a poor delivery system.  It is difficult to
administer safe regulated dosages of medicines in a
smoked form.  The harmful chemicals and carcinogens
that are by-products of smoking create additional
health problems.  There is three to five times the
level of tar in a marijuana cigarette, for example,

Morphine has proven to be a medically
viable drug, but the FDA does not endorse the
smoking of opium or heroin.

Scientists have extracted active
ingredients from opium which are sold as
pharmaceutical products like morphine, codeine,
Hydrocodone, oxycodone.  The FDA has not approved
smoking marijuana for medical purposes but has
approved the active ingredient THC in the form of
scientifically regulated Marinol.

Unlike smoked marijuana, which
contains more than 400 different chemicals,
including most of the hazardous chemicals found in
tobacco smoke, Marinol has been studied and
approved by the medical community and the Food and
Drug Administration.

The FDA mandates that any drug
marketed in the United States must undergo rigorous
scientific testing to ensure compliance with the
Pure Food and Drug Act.

If this board redefines smoked
marijuana as medicine, what agency will fill the
role of the FDA to ensure dosage levels and purity
of the marijuana?  Does the State of Iowa have the

On April 20, 2006, the FDA issued an
advisory concluding that no sound scientific
studies have supported medical use of smoked
marijuana for treatment in the United States.  And
no animal or human data support the safety or
efficacy of smoked marijuana for general medical
use.

A number of states have passed voter
referendum or legislative actions making smoked
marijuana available for a variety of medical
conditions upon doctor's recommendation.  According
to the Food and Drug Administration, these measures
are inconsistent with efforts to ensure medications
undergo rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA
approval process until they are proven safe and
effective under the standards of the FD&C Act.

Experiences in other states which have
redefined marijuana as medicine have shown that not
only does THC content vary in marijuana, there is
no process in place to guarantee that the product
remains unadulterated, does not fall into the hands
for those which it was not prescribed --

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  You have five
minutes left.

GARY YOUNG:  --and no protection from
secondhand smoke from the public was provided.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse,
marijuana is the most frequently used illicit drug
in the United States with over 14 million Americans
over the age of 12 reporting past month usage in
2006.

The Harvard School of Public Health
conducted three surveys between '93 and '99
examining the drug and alcohol USe of
44,265 college students nationwide.  According to
the Harvard study, factors associated with smoking
of marijuana includes spending more time at parties
and socializing with friends, spending less time
studying, and perceiving religion and community
service activities as not important.

Marijuana was also associated with
poorer academic performance.  Students who use
marijuana were less likely than those who did not
to study for two hours a day and were more likely
to have a grade paint average of B or less.

The most consistently reported
cognitive defects from chronic marijuana smoking
are memory deficits.  Physically it's the
hippocampus in the brain where the researchers

Professional --Professor Samuel
Deadwyler from the North Carolina Bowman Gray
School of Medicine gave a speech in 1995 in which
he said regarding the hippocampus, "In this area
when damaged --it is this area when damaged that
renders patients literally incapable of remembering
new information for more than a few minutes, and it
is undoubtedly critically involved in the
well-known memory deficits in Alzheimer's disease."

Long-term exposure to marijuana has
dual consequences for the memory.  First, repeated
exposure to marijuana in animals makes them more
and more tolerant of this memory disruptive effect.
However, this also means continued use of the drug
requires higher and higher doses before the
euphoric or high state is achieved.  Hence, even
though memory is not impaired at the time -- at the
same dose as before, it will be impaired just as

Hence, though the memory is not
impaired, it does take more drugs, which means that
the chronic use will eventually produce permanent
effect on memory since the hippocampus will adjust
its memory storage mechanisms to handle the lower
capacity volume of information flow provided by the
drugs.  This may also be the basis for the
well-known memory deficits that are present in
chronic marijuana.

Children and young adults in
particular depend on their short-term memory since
they are learning and receiving new input
constantly.

While smoking marijuana may allow
patients a temporary feel better, the medical
community makes an important distinction between
inebriation and the controlled delivery of pure
pharmaceutical medicine.  The raw leaf form of
marijuana contains a complex mixture of
concentrations, the majority of which have unknown
pharmacological effects.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology
stated based on a review by the National Eye

American Medical Association
recommends that marijuana be retained in Schedule
of the Controlled Substances Act and that research
should be done to provide THC in a hatch or in a --
the Institute of Medicine also gave a
recommendation against it.

The National Multiple Sclerosis
Society does not believe that there's any evidence
that marijuana or its derivatives provides
substantial benefits.

And finally, in closing, I'd like to
quote Reverend Scott Imler who was a cofounder of
Proposition 215, which is California's medical
marijuana law.  The reverend stated "We created
Proposition 215 so that patients would not have to
deal with black market profiteers, but today it is
all about the money.  Most of the dispensaries
operating in California are little more than dope

I urge the board to make its decision
based on scientific evidence and not anecdotal
evidence.  Thank you for your time.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Thank you, Gary.  Do we
have Audrey Harshbarger?  Audrey?  Okay.  Dr.  Alan
Koslow.

ALAN KOSLOW:  I don't know if you want
a copy of my curriculum vitae.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Sure.

ALAN KOSLOW:  Good afternoon,

everybody.  The pharmacy board and everybody else
here in the audience, I know this is a very
important topic for everybody.

I first want to kind of talk about my
background, why I'm here and my experience and who
I am.  I'm a vascular surgery --surgeon in the
community.  I also am fairly politically active, as
some of you know.  I ran for the state legislature.

I -- as a vascular surgeon, probably
about 15 or 20 percent of my patients have
neuropathic pain.  Besides for that, vascular
surgeons have within their domain the treatment of
several pain syndromes including thoracic outlet
syndrome, complex regional pain syndrome or --

Since I had so many patients within my
practice who are pain patients, I actually am one
of the founding members of the Iowa Pain Institute,
and that's an institute that's here in Des Moines
that was founded by Dr.  Pippin as the founding
chairman, and what it is is it's a group of close
to 80 or 90 clinicians who deal with pain patients,
and we meet once a month, and it's kind of a
journal club.

We have -- we invite speakers, but
most of the time it's just the members within the
group.  We present papers, and we review the
papers, and then we discuss them.  And I've been a
founding member and have been going to it on a
monthly basis for -- it's now going on it was
'93 (sic) that we started, so it's now going on six
years that it's doing it.  I've actually been
asked several times to be the chairman, but I have
too many other responsibilities and so didn't take
that on.

And so even though I'm not a pain
doctor, I have a lot of experience with pain.
What -- as the last speaker said, I hope that you

But from a point of view of should a
drug be legal versus it being controlled, there are
certain criteria that you need to judge.  One of
the criteria is obviously addiction potential.
Another criteria is abuse potential.

Right now for most of the patients who
I treat are being treated with a combination of
depressants, antidepressants, and are being treated
with narcotic pain medication, both of which have a
very high diversion rate in the community.

As a matter of fact, each year at
the -- at the Iowa Pain Institute, we have one of
the undercover drug agents from the State who --
from the FDA who's based here in Des Moines.  He
comes, and he presents the diversion statistics for
the state of Iowa, and it's absolutely staggering.

A significant percentage -- and I
don't know the exact percentage, but a significant
percentage of pain medications are diverted -- and
it's not in the single digits.  It's in the

But let's talk about the patients that
I have that are using the medication
therapeutically and using it appropriately.  I just
had a patient in my office an hour and a half ago
who at the age of 14 came down with juvenile onset
diabetes, and he's been a severely brittle
diabetic.  He's now in his 30s, and he's developing
severe peripheral -- actually, he developed about
six years ago severe peripheral neuropathy that I'm
seeing him for.

He basically wants to keep working.
He's -- he's very upset that he can't, but because
of the -- because of the effects of the
antidepressants and the narcotics that he's on,
what he's finding is he's not able to concentrate
enough to work.

Now, he's not one who has ever tried
it because he's a very law-abiding citizen.  Well,
last week I published an op ed in the Iowa
Bystander which I'll also when I submit my written
testimony, I'll submit a copy of that with it.

And in that op ed, because of that op
ed, I ended up getting about 20 e-mails from people
who were medical marijuana users, either legally or
illegally.  There was one that stands out in my
mind particularly, and I'll give you a copy of that
e-mail with it.

It's an Iowan whose family all lives
in Iowa.  When medical marijuana became legal in
California -- he was completely disabled because of
his -- because of his medical condition.  When he
went when medical marijuana became legal, he
went to California, and he started using medical
marijuana.

He got completely off almost all of
his medications.  He got to the point where he
could work productively, and he's now productively
employed, almost completely off his medications,
and he is -- and the problem is he can't even come
back to visit his family here in Iowa because he
can't be off the marijuana, and he doesn't want to
go back onto the medications.

When I treat a patient clinically with
pain medications who have neuropathies -- and this
is specifically neuropathies.  It's not other pain
because I treat lots of patients with postoperative

And so what we're trying to achieve
with the antidepressants and with the pain
medications and neuropathic pain, which a very
large problem in this -- in the diabetic patient
population and also post-traumatic patients who
have complex regional pain syndrome or reflex
sympathetic dystrophy, what we're trying to
accomplish is just to get them so that they can
either basically sleep or rest.

But what we do by accomplishing that
is we make them nonfunctional.  We make them that
they're so sedated from the pain medication that
they are totally nonfunctional.

Now, just -- and I'm sure a lot of
people have given you these statistics, but I just
real quickly want to reiterate them.  In the United
States in 1994, 1995 -- and I use those years,
you'll see why, for a specific reason -- there were

That same year there were about
440,000 people who died from tobacco-related
diseases.  The reason I use that year is because it
compares to Great Britain because that's not good
statistics in the United States, but Great Britain
keeps very good statistics.

In a two-year period, 1993 to 1994,
there were only five people they could identify --
and Great Britain is one-quarter the size of the
United States -- so in a two-year period only five
people they could identify that had a
marijuana-related death, and all five of those were
from asphyxiation from throwing up and choking on
your vomit.  But still, it's a much, much smaller
number.  It's -- from looking at that, it's a much,
much safer medication.

Now, by the way, I at one time was a
fellow, and one of my one of my major professors
was with the Food and Drug Administration, so for a
three-year period when I was in -- at the National

What I -- what I -- you know, what I
learned was that what you need to do is you need to
show that a drug is safe and effective.  And that's
the basis for it.

The problem is that it's a drug
company who is then -- who is then proposing this
drug, and they are going to be selling the drug.
With marijuana, because there's no drug company
that is going to be selling it, it has no proponent
that goes to the FDA to do this.

Because of the 1937 law, it does not
fit under DSHEA, which is the law that our own
senator, Senator Harkin, passed, you know, that
said that -- that the FDA cannot say no to a
nutriceutical, to a natural substance, or it would
be able to be accomplished under it.

It basically is -- it's one of the
safest, most effective medications that we have for
a lot of these conditions.

Now, I'd specifically like to -- by

LLOYD JESSEN:  Sure.

ALAN KOSLOW:  In terms of the
papers -- oh, one other thing.  I was speaking
with -- in my personal patients actually, two
points before I go to the papers.

I was speaking with one of the
infectious disease doctors who practiced early on
in the '80s and '90s, and he told me two things.
He told me, one, in his experience, when they
compared Marinol with smoked marijuana that the
AIDS patients that he has treated do not have
anywhere near the benefit and not able to get a
normal appetite with the marijuana as compared with
the Marinol, and one of the papers specifically
looked at that that I'll be referencing.

Secondly, my own experience for my
patients who have illegally -- and I obviously
can't say which patients they are because of
confidentiality, but in my patients who have
confided in me -- and a couple dozen over 20 years
have confided in me.  It's probably -- it's
probably 10 times that who have actually done it --

Now, again, I agree that that is
anecdotal, but it is very powerful anecdotes when
you see -- when you're looking in the patient's
eyes and you see the suffering that they have when
they're on regular pain medication, and they're
begging you for something to relieve the
medication, and all you can say is "We can sedate
you enough so that you don't care that you're --
that you're in pain."  And that's basically the
current state of treatment with a lot of the
neuropathic pains.

There was a study that was done that
basically showed -- this was a study done in
patients who were HIV and with anti-retroviral
therapy, and it was by Bouke, et al.  Actually,
Bouke de Jong, et al., and it was from 2005 and
basically showed that patients on smoking marijuana
were much better able to adhere to their -- to
their pharmaceutical regimen.

Again, this is the -- this is pretty
much the same thing that in patients with
Hepatitis C -- this is by Sylvester, et al.  from

There's another paper by Haney, et al.
from 2007 that again clearly shows that it's
effective in patients who in order for them to
be able to tolerate it.

Now I'm going to get into some of the
neuropathic papers, and there was a paper by Ellis
in 2008 that showed that what they did was they did
a cannabis crossover study in which -- versus
placebo, and they basically showed that neuropathic
pain was able to be controlled in these patients
with HIV peripheral neuropathy.  I fortunately have
not treated any HIV patients with peripheral
neuropathy.

But there's another study -- actually,
I'm sorry.  This is two of the same.  And I'm just
listing these studies now for the record because I
know you all have copies of them rather than going
into all the micro details of them.

But I think one of the best studies
was a study that actually looked at state-run
clinical trials, and this is a paper by Musty and
Rossi, published in 2001.  And they basically

Now, obviously, there's a lot of
variability because what I understand from people
who tell me who do smoke marijuana, there's a big
difference in the effect that you have.

By the way, I just want to talk about
that.  There was a study, and I'll get it and make
sure that you have it, in which -- in which they
looked at the -- the LD50 of marijuana, and they
found that it was 10,000 times higher than the dose
that -- this was in rats that they did it.  They
found it was 10,000 times higher than the dose that
you would need to get higher -- to get high.  Not
higher.  To get high.

And so the safety profile, most of the

This is another one on Hepatitis C.  I
told them not to call me during this time.  It's my
office.  Patients -- patients do not wait.

The -- the and this is another one
in which they were able to tolerate the medications
much better.  There was actually a study that came
out, and I don't have the actual study, but I saw
it on the news feed just this week from -- I
believe it was the University of Texas, and it was
a three-level study.  It was a very large study.
It just got published this week, and I'll be
getting the data for you, the actual study for you.

And in this -- in this study from the
news feed, what I gathered from it was they
basically found that most of the pain receptors
in -- and they were doing this in rats, but then
they translated it to humans, and they did a test
with an electric shock on the arms to see if it
worked, and they were cannabinoid receptors in the
spine, and they developed a cannabinoid blocker so

And what they found was that they
found that the cannabinoid blocker was effective
in -- it was with the cannabinoid blocker that the
rats and the human subjects both suffered as much
pain as when they did not use the cannabinoid
blocker.

So obviously, one of the main
receptors in the spinal column is a
cannabinoid-driven receptor and not a
narcotic-driven receptor.  So if you're going to
treat a patient, you treat them with the simplest
medication that you can that blocks the simplest
most peripheral receptor that you can, and that's
why cannabinoids are so much safer than -- than
narcotic medications.

So the bottom line, to summarize my
testimony, is that I have personal experience from
patients who -- who without marijuana were -- were
basically forced to be disabled on the pain
medication.  Ones who confided with me with
marijuana were able to function and be productive
members of society, that marijuana is one of the
safest pharmaceuticals that there is on the market,

There's a lot of paranoia because we
feel that there's a criminal element out there that
is dealing with marijuana.  There's purely a
criminal element out there because of prohibition.

In the 1920s there was a criminal
element with alcohol, and that criminal element
disappeared when the prohibition against alcohol
was removed.

And so I really strongly ask the
pharmacy board to -- to -- to acknowledge that
marijuana is a safe, effective -- smoked marijuana
is a safe, effective therapeutic agent that should
be -- that should be in the pharmacopeia of
physicians so that we can adequately treat our
patients so that they can become functional and
viable members of society.

I'll be happy to answer any questions
that the board has.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Thank you, Doctor.
Questions?  Dr.  Koslow, do you have an opinion as
to what's the best way to distribute medical
marijuana if a state does approve it?

ALAN KOSLOW:  Well, I can think of
basically two ways, that one is through our
established pharmacies, and the other is through
licensed shops that purely deal in medical
marijuana as California has.

I see those -- and the third way is to
allow patients to get a permit to grow a certain
amount of marijuana in their -- if they need
chronic treatment with it, get a permit to grow a
certain amount of marijuana in their own home.
Those are logically the only three ways I see.

I'm not giving any value judgments on
one or the other.  I'm just saying logically if you
were to say what are the possible ways, those are
the only three logical ways I can see.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Thank you.  Do we have
Audrey Harshbarger?  Audrey?  All right.
Jacqueline Patterson?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Could you call
maybe the next names so that they could be closer
to the front so -- I'm mean -- just a
recommendation.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Sure.  The next person
after Jacqueline would be Gary Bellitt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  What number is

LLOYD JESSEN:  Pardon?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  What number is
that?

LLOYD JESSEN:  You don't have a
number?  The people who --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I do have a
number.  I'm just No.8.  I'm just curious, where
are we at?

LLOYD JESSEN:  Oh, right now we're
taking people who had pre -- preregistered with us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah, I did this
morning.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Yes.  There were some
people who registered before today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Oh, I understand.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Let's see.  We'll have
one, two, three, four.  Four people speak before we
get to Speaker No.  4 so that -- if that gives you
an idea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Could I ask a
question?

LLOYD JESSEN:  Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I am Speaker
No.4, and I was told I would either testify at

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Because we were
given times.  We were given times.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  The times when you
checked in up front were just estimate times.  It
had been posted several weeks ago that if you want
to set up and schedule a time, you could contact
me, and the people who have been calling up by name
have actual times that they have signed up.
Everyone else is being worked in between the
speakers as we've had breaks.

LLOYD JESSEN:  And we ran a little bit
late for lunch.  We apologize for that but it was
beyond our control.  So yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  I'm Speaker
No.5.  And I traded with someone because I have a
doctor's appointment at 3 o'clock.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  So I would like
to be able to get to my doctor's.

LLOYD JESSEN:  And you're No.5?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Yes.

LLOYD JESSEN:  I think we'll be able
to work that in.  So again, we apologize if you're

We're trying to make this as fair as we can.

JACQUELINE PATTERSON:  I will try to
keep it short.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Go ahead, Jacqueline.

JACQUELINE PATTERSON:  I'm -- I moved
to -- I moved to Iowa following a really brutal
rape when I was -- it was right after I turned 19.

And I came up here because of the
community -- because of the community values I had
seen while -- while traveling with friends.  I had
a -- I had a one-year-old son who was asleep in --
who was asleep in the next -- next in the
next -- in the next -- in the next -- in the next
room.

During the -- during the -- during
the -- during the attack, I was so afraid for him
because there was nothing I could do to -- to save
him, so that's -- that's the reason I moved here,
was to keep him safe.

In the -- in the -- in the two weeks
following the attack, cannabis was crucial to my --
to my existence.  It really allowed me the
emotional distance that I needed to deal with the
trauma that I had just -- that I had just gone

But it is not legal here, and it
wasn't legal in Kansas City, so I quit -- so once I
thought that I was ready to move on, I quit -- I
quit smoking cannabis.  I began attending school at
North Iowa Area Community College in 1998, and I
was -- I -- I was quite determined to find a -- to
find a causation of rape and to eradicate the --
and to eradicate the problem so that no woman would
have to suffer what I went through.

I know now it's not quite that I
know now it's not quite that simple, but in -- but
in addition to being a valuable -- a valuable tool
for post-traumatic stress sufferers, cannabis can
also help violent offenders modify their behavior
by -- by biologically reducing stress.

By now you guys have all heard me
stutter.  I've got cerebral palsy which -- which
manifests itself most visibly in my -- in my -- in
my stutter.  I was made -- I was made fun of by
by my peers all throughout school.

I was -- I was -- I was banned from
taking -- from taking classes even in college at
the University of Northern Iowa.  I was told that I
could not speak in class because because it

And I used cannabis briefly while I
was in high school, and I noticed that it helped
me, but it wasn't worth the legal risks, especially
being a juvenile.  So quit using it until I
met -- until I met my husband who is a
post-traumatic stress survivor whose life was so
inarguably enhanced by cannabis that I could no
longer deny its medical -- its medical value.

We had two children at the time, and I
decided that I could not teach my children to -- to
break a law that they were not going to try to fix,
and I -- I began lobbying for the rights of medical
cannabis patients in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa.

In October of 2007, I was arrested
here for medical cannabis -- for medical
cannabis -- for medical cannabis possession.  It
actually says that on my -- on my -- on my
conviction.

I was living in Missouri at the time
and had just received a Section 8 voucher that --
that was -- that was -- that was -- that was --
that was voided unless I moved out to California
because I was arrested for medical cannabis.  We
spent three -- I've lived in California now for two

I'm -- I'm the president of my
children's school site council, and I've -- I
can -- I can speak well enough to be -- to be
understood and really get things -- and really get
things -- and really get things done.

I know that you guys have questions
like how do we keep medical cannabis away -- away
from children and those who may abuse it?  And who
will be responsible for control of this
controversial -- of this controversial plant, and
is medical cannabis truly -- truly necessary?  Yes,
it is, and I think that the -- that the most
beneficial way to legitimize therapeutic --
therapeutic -- therapeutic-- therapeutic cannabis
is -- is is to charge the Department of Social
Services and a research university such as the
University of Iowa jointly with the task of
creating -- of creating a -- of creating a
cultivation and dispensary model.

I think that though there are many
corrupt medical cannabis dispensaries in
California, there are a few that have developed
really wonderful models.  A physician that you guys
heard from mentioned the Harborside Health Center.

They also offer complimentary patient
services such as -- such as -- such as yoga and
and hypnotherapy, and you can -- and they would be
more than happy to share their model with you.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Thank you.

JACQUELINE PATTERSON:  Thank you.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Thank you, Jacqueline.
Speaker NO.4.

RICHARD STEWART:  My name is Richard
Stewart, S-t-e-w-a-r-t.  I'm from Cedar Rapids.  I
don't have any medical or scientific information to
present today.  All I have is a story.  It's not a
story about me.  It's a story about my son.

I would prefer and perhaps you would
prefer that my son were able to tell his own story,
but I think by the time I'm done, you'll understand
why we thought perhaps I should tell it.

Usually when I tell this story, even
in the privacy of my own home --for instance, last
night when I was practicing -- I cry.  Since I
don't want to cry in front of you, I have very
cleverly inserted some jokes in my testimony.  I
know you've been asked not to applaud, but if you
could just laugh at my jokes, I'd greatly

My son, Cane Lennon Richardson, was
born on June 13, 1981.  It was not a Friday.
Shortly after birth, Cane began having seizures.
He was rushed to neonatal intensive care where he
spent the first ten days of his life.  I stayed
with him in the hospital the entire time, and his
mother stayed at home taking care of the older
three children.

Cane's seizures were so mild, all I
ever saw was a very slight twitching of the little
finger on his left hand.  When Cane was discharged,
he was on Tegretol.  Tegretol is a brand name for
carbamazepine, a word I never learned to pronounce.

Within one month his mother secretly
weaned Cane from Tegretol.  When she revealed this
information to Cane's doctor and to me, he said
"Well, I would never be brave enough to try that.
But if he hasn't had any Tegretol for two weeks,
there's no reason to put him on it now."

For the next 12 or 13 years, Cane was
entirely seizure-free.  Then one night when he was

He was discovered by one of his
brothers and rushed to the hospital.  By this time,
Cane's mother and I were divorced, so I was not
present.  Some sort of strong medication was
required to bring him out of the seizure.  The
doctor recommended putting Cane back on Tegretol.
But his mother did not agree.  Seeing the seizure
as a rare and perhaps unique event, the doctor
agreed this might be the case.

Almost a year later Cane had his
second seizure.  This time he was with me.  It
occurred in the middle of the night right after I
had gone to bed, and consider myself lucky to
have heard the noise that he made during the
seizure.

We rushed him to the hospital.
Sitting in the waiting room, thinking everything
was now under control, I heard the emergency-room
doctor say "Open that freaking cabinet.  We're
losing him." Except she did not use the word
"freaking."

You can imagine the terror that struck

Let me repeat that.  Medicine,
dangerous medicine, used by doctors to save lives.
Fortunately, the cabinet was unlocked, and thanks
to the dangerous medicine, Cane survived.  Again,
Cane's mother refused to allow him to take
Tegretol.  She did agree that if there was one more
seizure, she would relent.

Almost one year to the day, Cane had
his third life-threatening seizure and was rushed
to the hospital to be saved.  This time his mother
approved Tegretol for his epilepsy.

I never know quite how to describe
Cane.  A parent always has a hard time admitting
their children are below average.  Let me just say
this.  In standardized tests, Cane's older sister
consistently scores in the top 5 percent.  Cane
consistently scores in the bottom 5 percent.

Of course, Cane has many positive

Nevertheless, I think you will know
what I mean when I say Cane needs more help
finding his way in the world than his sister does.
Not help from the government -- we have no interest
in Senator Harkin turning him into a disabled
person -- but help from his friends and family.
Fortunately, Cane makes friends easily, and he has
a lot of family.

After graduation from high school, it
took Cane more than a few months to find a good
job.  A friend eventually helped him get hired at a
concrete factory.  It is hard, dirty work, but it
is a Teamster shop, and the pay is excellent.

Cane worked in that factory for about
five years.  He was a hard worker, greatly
appreciated by his bosses.  He was a solid member
of the working class, although perhaps a bit
thriftier than average.  He accumulated over
$20,000 in his IRA.  He owned his own house, and
other than his mortgage, he had zero debt.

Unfortunately, Tegretol has some
serious side effects.  A common one is drowsiness.
Cane frequently sleeps 12 hours at a stretch,
something he never did before he started taking
Tegretol.

Just yesterday Cane told me that he
slept 12 straight hours on Monday this week.
Frequently -- excuse me.  Typically Tegretol also
decreases a person's alcohol tolerance.  It is
painful for me to watch Cane drink alcohol.  He
quickly turns into a happy drunk, spouting nonsense
in a very loud voice, unlike me who quickly turns
into a happy drunk spouting wisdom in a very loud
voice.

Cane himself does not enjoy these two
side effects.  He would like to wake up before half
the day is gone.  He would like to share a couple
of beers with his coworkers without turning into a
slobbering drunk.

Cane has also smoked marijuana before,
as did roughly half the students in his high school
class, and thanks primarily to his mother and
certainly not to me, he is aware that marijuana
might control his epilepsy.  I will present the
board with three medical studies which suggest

Of course, Cane cannot speak to his
doctor about marijuana for fear of arrest, so the
bulk of his medical advice comes from his
marijuana-smoking friends who appear underqualified
for this important task.

Of course, using marijuana to treat
his epilepsy also has a negative side effect.  Cane
is subject to arrest and incarceration.  One year
ago Cane had a minor workplace accident, completely
unrelated to his work.  He was helping move a Pepsi
vending machine.

He was not injured in any way, but
because he experienced temporary back pain, one of
his coworkers insisted he go to the hospital to
make sure workers' compensation covered it.  At the
hospital his urine tested positive for marijuana.
Cane was immediately fired from his job with no
support whatsoever from his union, which is happy
to do their part to fight the war on drugs.

One thing is certain.  Cane had not
smoked marijuana before going to work or at work.
Cane has never smoked marijuana on the job or gone
to work under the influence of marijuana.  His was
a day job requiring him to begin heavy labor at

And every one of Cane's extremely rare
but life-threatening seizures has been while he was
sleeping, never while he was awake.  Whatever
medicine Cane uses to control his seizures, it is
most important that it be effective during his
sleeping hours.

Unfortunately for Cane, urine will
test positive for marijuana for up to 30 days.
Clever people know how to avoid this problem, but
Cane is not clever.  He is just an epileptic who is
dissatisfied with his current medication and would
like to try something that might work better for
him.

Unfortunately again, Cane cannot get
the help of qualified medical professionals to see
if marijuana will work better for him.  He is
forced to run his own experiments.  Furthermore, he
is forced to buy marijuana of uncertain quality at
inflated prices from criminals, and in fact, he is
forced to be a criminal himself.

One year after losing his job, my son
Cane is still unemployed.  He could no longer make
his mortgage payments and was forced to sell his

He was arrested after a daytime
drinking incident, not while driving, and is
serving a suspended sentence.  He is essentially
homeless, sleeping on the couch in my garage or at
his mother's house every night.  He is depressed
and severely lacking in self-confidence.  Does this
surprise you?

If Cane were allowed to use medical
marijuana legally -- I'm wrapping up -- the end of
the story would be much happier.  Medical marijuana
may or it may not work to control his epilepsy.  He
and his doctor could figure that out.

His union would not have allowed him
to be fired.  He would still have a house, and he
would still be proud of his participation in this
wonderful society.

I had the opportunity to tour a little
bit of the museum during the lunch break, and I saw
a poster in the World War I room which I will
quote.  It says "Must children die and mothers
plead in vain?  Buy more liberty bonds."

So let me paraphrase that 90 years

LLOYD JESSEN:  Thank you very much.

Next, Audrey Harshbarger.

GARY BELLITT:  Excuse me.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Yes.

GARY BELLITT:  I was scheduled at
1:40.  You said I would be after the young lady,
and I'm not sure why.  I'm pressed for time myself.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Okay.  Audrey, do you
have --

AUDREY HARSHBARGER:  No, I don't mind.

LLOYD JESSEN:  You have a little extra
time?  Okay.  Since we're a little off track, we
will see who has a pressing time concern.  I know
you do.  And --

GARY BELLITT:  Yeah.  My name is on
the list for 1:40.  I'm sorry.  don't know how I
got missed.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Okay.  You're Gary?

GARY BELLITT:  Yes.  Thank you.

LLOYD JESSEN:  Please go ahead.

GARY BELLITT:  I hadn't planned to
present scientific evidence since I am a patient.
However, a friend of mine forwarded these to me,

Good afternoon.  I don't need a
microphone.  Members of the board, citizens of the
state of Iowa, I stand before you today as living
proof that medical -- of the medical benefits that
marijuana can provide.

Over 20 years ago I was -- I tested
positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.  At
that time there were no proven medications to
combat the virus, and I was resigned to the fact
that I would eventually succumb to the disease.

Soon drugs to help the progression of
the disease were developed, but they came at a
price.  They had severe side effects, including
nausea, diarrhea, headaches, muscle cramps,
fatigue, anxiety, and worst of all, insomnia.

Where was the rigorous testing for
these drugs that allowed them to come onto market
before they knew everything that they would do to
my body?  I know this is not a debate, so I'll stop
with my rebuttal at that point.

Soon I tried to take these drugs as
prescribed, but the sides effects were too much.  I
tried everything to alleviate the side effects.  I
tried Tylenol for the headaches and muscle cramps,