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patients go through, the pain and the fact that if
there's a possibility that passing a medicinal
marijuana bill would help to ease their -- their
torment. The question I have for you is, why has
this not been brought into law before -- before
now?
That's all I have.
GEORGE McMAHON: After this could
I
ask you to go back two numbers? I missed --
GEORGE McMAHON: My wife hurt
her
foot. I was outside trying to get her to go home.
JAMIE LAKERS: Good afternoon,
board
and those in attendance here today. My name is
Jamie Lakers. I am No. 22. I like to get high.
I'll just start off by shocking you a little bit
with that statement.
I've been in a program of recovery for
over 19 years. I first started to self-medicate
back in high school with alcohol and marijuana,
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trying to fiqure out just what it was that was
wrong with me. You know, I've heard a lot of
symptomatic things that I tried to self-medicate
myself with.
My appeal to you today is not on my
behalf but on the behalf of all those here. I
still suffer from chronic pain. I may need this
drug in my repertoire of other drugs to help
alleviate that pain. I'm not sure. That's a
decision between me and my doctor, I hope, but we
need your help for us to make informed decisions
that we can move on into that prescribed treatment.
There are reasons why I appeal to you
today to remove this from a nonmedical use to a
medical use purpose. First off is the legalities
of it. We don't need to -- I first started my
first growing operation for a friend with cancer
back in 1980. We did this because we wanted to.
Again, Reason No. 2 I would like you to consider
removing this, because the drugs out there were of
inferior quality and oftentimes poison. I refer
back to if any of the stoners here today would
remember the paraquat marijuana on which was
infested the marketplace.
And you know, today you heard
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testimonies -- and I've listened to a few
testimonies that this drug has no side effects, and
I disagree with those, you know. I went to a
doctor at about age 18 with severe asthmatic
conditions due to what I term today as bong lung
because of continuous smoking of marijuana, so
there is some side effects to this drug. It
will -- that's why it needs regulated.
There is also a potential for
overabuse. As a recovering addict, my mind will
try to convince me that I want to get high because
I like to get high. It does not differentiate
between the drugs I need to alleviate my pain and
the drugs I want for recreational use. I need help
in that, and I need regulated dispensing of my
medications lest I become addicted to those.
Let's see what other notes that I've
got prepared? Paraquat. Recovery. You know, the
disease of addiction will affect marijuana users.
There are many programs available today for those
who do become addicted to marijuana. We need to --
we need to remove this drug from its taboo. We
need you to consider with an open mind its relevant
uses.
You've heard many testimonies today
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from sleep disorders to the anxiety disorders to
chronic pain relief to antinausea. These are all,
in my humble opinion, legitimate reasons to remove
this drug from its nonmedical use to a significant
use, to treatment of patients who need this for
their use.
Again, I appeal to you guys to put
this into a legal use because since 1980, it's been
an illegal use. That does not justify it as a
legitimate use or a use or maybe even convince you
that it needs more penalties associated with it.
I don't know what's in your heads
today. I would like to see that this consideration
be given an adequate, open -- And thank you today
for having a discourse of communication in which we
are given a chance to let you folks know that this
drug does have -- and the homework is in. I mean
the studies have been done. The individual
testimonies are here today, so you know, it does,
and please consider the use for this particular
drug for medical use. And with that I pass.
GEORGE McMAHON: Thank you.
I'm
George McMahon, M-c-M-a-h-o-n. And I've heard
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every story today that I've ever heard. You know,
it runs the gamut in society. Every one of us is
out there.
What they need is what we've given
them, scientific evidence and human intercourse.
We need to -- excuse me -- social intercourse. We
need to show them what this section -- this
section -- we need to show them in a way, not to
say that the men and women on this board don't
understand. It's to say they do understand, but up
until now, we've not given them a reason to make
any decision anyway.
And now that's what we can do, and in
my mind, we're helping them by backing them in the
decision we want. Let's hope that's the decision
they come to.
I think in my mind -- it's not as
analytical as most pharmacists I know, but in my
mind the scientific studies will be the final
chapter in this book. I don't think they can read
them any more than I could and read the terms and
the things that these compounds are doing in the
body and not understand that they are exactly what
they do except without harm.
So do you want my name spelled and
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stuff, you guys? Would that be -- okay. And I'm
going to get out of here and let the people go on
because this is a good meeting. Thanks a lot.
MR. COHN: Right here. Good
afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is
Mr. Cohn, C-o-h-n. I'm Speaker No. 23. I'm not
here today to plead for myself. I want to talk
about my wife, Connie.
My wife has very bad arthritis. She
has high blood pressure. She has eating disorders.
She's been put on different pain medications. My
wife and I are originally from California, and we
have been exposed to legalized marijuana. I'm not
saying that marijuana is bad. I've seen a lot of
good.
After being prescribed medications
that were dangerous for my wife and being taken off
and put on other dangerous medications, we asked
her doctors in California about medical marijuana,
and they agreed for her to check it out and to see
if it helped relieve her pain and her discomforts.
We went to a -- regular doctors in
California do not prescribe medical marijuana.
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They're afraid of retribution. They're afraid to
have their medical licenses taken away from them,
so you end up going to holistic doctors,
alternative medicine doctors.
If you do do this, please try to help
regulate how the doctors dispense prescriptions.
These doctors in California will sell a
prescription for $150 for six months; $300 for a
year, and they expect patients to come back every
year and pay them these fees.
I've seen 15, 20 patients waiting for
prescriptions in the waiting room. They get the
diagnostic from the actual doctors. They review
it. They say "Okay. You can have medical
marijuana." They collect their fee. There's no
medication. You have your permit.
Then you go to the health department.
It's $150 at the health department to get a card to
say that you're a patient, and you can smoke
medical marijuana and have possession of marijuana.
You go to a compassion club, which is a joke,
because you go to the compassion club, and they
want 150 to $250 to join their club, no medication.
Medication is sold for $10 to $220 a gram.
The State of California says that they
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want to legalize marijuana. They want a $50 tax
per ounce for marijuana. I don't see compassion
there.
The one plus of Proposition 215 and
Senate Bill 420 is that they allowed patients to
grow their own medicine in small batches. In San
Diego they were allowed to grow 28 plants, a couple
of mother plants, some clones, and some plants
allowed for -- to fully mature for their medicine.
After my wife had been on a medical
marijuana patient for five months, we were
approached by two different doctors referred by her
doctor about supplying medical marijuana to cancer
patients, patients with HIV, and people that we've
come to know and care about, and their medications
would mess them up, and they couldn't eat, but
after they started using cannabis, they started to
gain weight. They started to stabilize, and it was
an amazing transformation in their lives.
People want to help people. We all
have hearts. And I've listened to the stories, and
know that people hurt. There are people that are
just greedy, you know. If you do go along with
medical marijuana, watch out for the patients. Be
compassionate for the patients. Okay?
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The putting people in jail, putting
people -- giving people criminal records because
they're trying to seek alevement for their
ailments, that's wrorg. It's gone on for too long,
the horror stories, the propaganda put forward by
the government because they don't know how to
regulate this.
If people were allowed to grow their
own cannabis, the therapeutic value of working in
the garden, it's not a plant that just pops up
overnight. It's a plant that takes five months to
grow out. It takes a couple of months to dry. It
takes another two, three months to properly cure it
to a medicinal cannabis state. Okay?
They're not going to turn around and
going to sell their medications. If they go out
and they just buy their medications, they have a
tendency they may run short of money, and they
may want to sell some of their medicine. People do
it with regular pharmaceutical medicines also.
But if they grow it themselves and
they learn to respect the plant, it's therapeutic
for them, and they're less likely to actually sell
their medications at that point.
I thank you for giving me this time.
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Thank you.
LLOYD JESSEN: Thank you.
Do we have
a 24? No. 24 or higher? Okay.
ADDY: Could we ask a question in
between?
ADDY: So the hearings are over --
when do you anticipate those being over?
ADDY: And will you make your
recommendation -- are you trying to make a
recommendation to the new legislature?
LLOYD JESSEN: Yes. It's
our goal to
have our recommendation done by the end of December
so that it's ready when they come into session in
January.
ADDY: Do you need or do you want any
additional written testimony or --
LLOYD JESSEN: We'll take any written
comments that people want to give us, yes.
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ADDY: Okay. So if other people could
not make it today, they could write something.
Would you just please state your name
for us?
PAT BRENO: And I've never done this,
so you just kind of have to tell me. I read a
little bit in the paper about what you're trying to
do and get some input on medical marijuana.
I came up in the age of the hippies
and the marijuana and the drugs. I never in my
life ever used anything. A couple years ago I was
deathly ill, and as a last resort, they did the
medical marijuana. I think it helped me to certain
degrees.
At that point a lot of the people that
use marijuana said that smoking it is the best way
of doing it, but there's also methods of using it
in tea and in food and stuff, and I think that if I
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were that ill again, I would go to whatever
measures it took to get that if that's what was
going to help me.
And I think that it should be
legalized for, you know, instances such as what
was in, and I think that, you know, not being a
drug user, that takes a lot for me to say that, so
I really think that you should look at it for
medical purposes. Anything else?
GLENN R. STEINE: My name is
Mr. Glenn
R. Steine, and I am the national political scout
for the National Republican Party. My job here is
to be the final speaker. Is that --
LLOYD JESSEN: We'll be here until
seven tonight, so I can't guarantee you'll be the
final speaker.
GLENN R. STEINE: I'll wait
for any
other person that wants to speak ahead of me. I
have a job to do that we like to have the last word
if it's possible.
LLOYD JESSEN: That's fine.
We'll be
here until seven, though, so if you speak now, you
may not be the final speaker. You may be if we
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don't have any more speakers, but we don't know
because we advertised that we would be here until
seven.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well,
he don't
have to do that. If he has somechlng to say, let
him say it.
GLENN R. STEINE: My name is
Mr. Glenn
R. Stelne, spelled G-l-e-n-n R. S-t-e-i-n-e. And
as I said before, I am a national political scout
for the National Republican Party, and my job for
the Republican Party is to know what is going on,
what is coming off, and who and what are coming
down the road.
What I would like to discuss with you,
I majored in economics at the University of Iowa in
Iowa City, graduated in August of 1961 with a B.A.
in economics. I also have one year in aeronautical
engineering at Iowa State University and one year
at John Marshall Law School in Chicago.
I would like to discuss the
economical -- or the economic facts of legalizing
medical marijuana. I believe that there is a very
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slight danger of abuse of medical marijuana and a
much greater abuse of marijuana for recreational
purposes, so believe that if you make some
changes in the classification of marijuana for
medical purposes and for the restrictions on
recreational use of marijuana that the public and
the users as well would be protected from abuses or
dangers from using medical marijuana, but there
would be much less use of marijuana if it was
legalized for medical use under the right
circumstances.
The economic, physiological,
psychological, and sociological uses of marijuana
for medical purposes would depend on the number of
people that use this drug and the amount that they
use and the length of time that they use, and there
are no statistics on any of those factors at the
present time, at least that I could find available
in the public record or research sources.
There are a number of factors on a
personal level that I believe would support the
medical use of marijuana in my own family. My
father died from extreme arthritis, severe
arthritis, as well as kidney failure, and my mother
died from a number of types of cancer, and both
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were very palnful, and they had a very difficult
period in their at the end of their lives, and
so I perscnally am in favor of legalizing marijuana
for medical uses, especially at the time of the end
of life.
Basically, you have three different
choices about what your policy will be. You can
keep the present policy. You can postpone any
decision until 2010, or you can indefinitely
postpone any decision for, say, one day, one week,
one month, one year, or longer periods than that,
but I believe it's time to take -- bite the bullet
and make a decision.
I think that you have the right or the
amount of dlscretion to change the classification
for marijuana for medical uses. I don't think as
the present law is written, the legislature has to
pass a new bill to legalize medical use for
marijuana.
I want to thank you for your time and
consideration, and I sure appreciate your having
these open forums or this hearing for the change in
the status of use of marijuana for medical
purposes. Thank you again. Have a good day.
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anyone else in the room who would like to speak?
Sure.
CARL OLSON: My name is Carl Olson,
and I'm from Des Moines, Iowa. I'm a Web
developer. But I have an opinion, so I'm going to
give it. Dr. Hertko talked about the 1972 Shafer
Commission report, and I have a copy of that report
that I'm going to give you later.
And Dr. Hertko also talked about a
case called State vs. Helmers, 1997. Judge John
Fister in Waterloo decided not to revoke a
patient's probation because he was using marijuana
on probation because his doctor swore out an
affidavit saying that it was the only thing that
would treat his pain. This doctor was a pain
specialist in Waterloo.
And in that decision, the judge noted
that marijuana was in both Schedule I and
Schedule II in Iowa and said that was so confusing
that he wasn't going to hold that against a medical
user because he couldn't see that the law made any
sense, and that was when I first realized that
there was a legal argument to be made.
And other people talked about a patent
that the federal government has on the
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cannabinoids, the naturally extracted cannabinoids
in the plants. I have a copy of that patent that
I'm going to submit later.
And then finally, there's been some
talk about driving, and I have DOT driving studies
that show that marijuana is relatively safe, that
they haven't been able to show that it impairs
driving, so I'm going to submit those studies
later.
And that's all I have. Thank you.
TIM HARPER: Hello. My name
is Tim
Harper. I'm staying with Merlyn there, help to
take care of him. I don't have a lot to say about
myself. I mean I use marijuana, and I always have,
and I probably always will, but I also used a lot
of other things that I never really wanted to use,
but I mean it helped me stop. I was an addict of
cocaine and alcoholic my whole life.
I mean I come from a large family of
eight kids, and I was -- I've lived here since I
was five years old. I've had both my legs crushed.
I've experienced a lot of things in my life that a
lot of people in this room wouldn't dream of.
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But I've helped him with his mother
after she had a massive stroke ten years ago, and
it changed her, of course, you know. It paralyzed
her right side. She couldn't speak.
During that time I had three strokes
helping take care of her, paralyzed my right side,
and I couldn't speak, and I might not be able to do
very good now, but words don't come out sometimes.
But I care about a lot of people, and
I've known -- I've known the fight has been on a
long time about this, and I think it should be -- I
think it should be legal completely. I mean
medical or otherwise because, I mean, it's out
there anyway. Kids are going to do it, just like
they do anything else. Government has made alcohol
legal.
I hear about -- every day I hear --
and I live on a busy street, and there's drunk
driving wrecks every day on Euclid there.
But he didn't get out a lot he wanted
to say, and I know -- I go to the doctors with him,
and I'm there for his pain, his crying, and his
moaning and crying and bathroom and have to wash
him up when he can't make it. I've got to do all
kinds of things, and since his -- I think it was
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his cousin called and wanted him to try that, you
know, and it's just made remarkable -- helped him.
I mean it brought him to this day.
When I came back to his house I was
staying at my mom's, and he was on his death bed.
I mean he was he was on the chemo. He had
nothing. He had nobody really with him or
anything, and he started smoking that. He was able
to eat. He lost over -- like he said, 65 pounds in
a very, very short time. And he's gained that
back. He's maintained his weight.
It helps with his blood pressure. He
was on four or five blood pressure pills. I mean
it's ridiculous. I'm on blood pressure pills, and
I don't even take them now because I use marijuana
also.
And I mean if you were to see his
blood pressure, it was 200 over 200, you know, and
five minutes later, it's like a teenager.
MERLYN CORDES: I would be willing
to
be a guinea pig for you just so you could see that
the blood pressure pills don't help me, but the
marijuana brings my blood pressure down, and it's
not that I like to smoke because I don't drink, and
I don't smoke.
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TIM HARPER: He's not a drinker or
smoker, him or his mother.
MERLYN CORDES: My father, my
biological father, died of cirrhosis of the liver
when I was very young because he drank a fifth of
whiskey, at least, a day. So have a real problem
with alcohol. I don't like it. I don't like to be
around people that drink.
I don't enjoy smoking, and I don't
enjoy smoking marijuana, but I like the effect that
I get where I can eat. I don't have pain. That
pain I get, I can't describe it to you, but it is
awful, and I take two hits of marijuana -- that's
all I want, just two -- and can feel that pain
just leaving my body, and I feel comfortable. I
can enjoy the rest of my day.
And I am terminal. I'm in Hospice of
Central Iowa. I'm a veteran. I go see
Dr. Shiomoto who's the oncologist at the VA
Hospital here in Des Moines. I have spoken to her
about it. She wished she could write a
prescription, but she can't. I've talked to my
primary-care doctor at the VA Hospital who also
said to me "If you can do it, do it." He said
"Just go ahead and do it." He can't write a
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prescription.
TIM HARPER: My point is I've just
seen a lot of suffering with his mocher, you know.
She gave her -- when she got diagnosed with cancer,
they gave her a week to a month, you know, and I
stuck with them, and I hung in there, and we kept
her alive over -- over a year, a year -- was it a
year and eight months she lived past that.
TIM HARPER: I wish there was
something there for her because the pain the cancer
brought her made her delusional. I mean you quys
talk about drugs and different things. I mean
these pills that they gave him and give me now -- I
guess I'm -- my body isn't functioning right now
from all the medicine I've had to take for
cholesterol and blood pressure, and what I have
now, my liver and everything is gone too now, I
guess, not doing right, so I don't even know about
that yet.
But it's just the suffering people are
going on. I know -- I'm going to go to the VA with
him, and talk to people daily. I mean daily.
There's hundreds of people just in five minutes
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that have family members dying from cancer.
All the people up there that have
cancer and anybody you talk to, anybody in this
room looks next to them knows somebody with cancer.
And I don't know whether it's in the food or
whether it's this or that. I mean there's so many
things to worry about than marijuana. You know
what I mean? When people are dying and children
are suffering and elderly people lose their homes
and everything else because they'll get in trouble
for trying to get something that will relieve their
pain. And it's --
MERLYN CORDES: I had -- 11 years
ago
I had kidney cancer, so I lost my left kidney. And
at that time they cut you almost in half. I was in
intensive care.
TIM HARPER: My brother Joel just
got
cancer. They took his kidney too.
MERLYN CORDES: Cancer is kind
of a
friend of mine. It keeps coming back to me. I
don't know.
TIM HARPER: I'm sorry. I don't
have
a whole lot to say, but I just wanted to put my two
cents in and do what I can to get it passed because
I think it's the only fair thing to do, you know,
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for legitimate people that are sick. You know what
I mean?
And in my case it's helped me. I
haven't used street drugs for two years now, you
know, and I don't know where I'd be if I didn't
even use it because I'm like some other people that
I got an addictive personality. I was always
hyper. It's always mellowed me out and kept me in
place. You know what I mean? Or I could have been
in prison or dead probably.
You know, and I just want you guys to
understand there's more different things than just
people think -- people just want to get high.
There's a lot more to it than that.
ADDY: I have a quick question. Are
these practitioners that these people are talking
about who are saying --
ADDY: --you know, "I wish I could
give you medical marijuana," are they talking to
you, or are they just -- is this just talking out
of the side of their mouth? Are they saying this
in their office?
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ADDY: Are they talking to you also
saying that they want this for their patlents?
ADDY: I'm not sure if they are.
LLOYD JESSEN: We want to kind
of
maintain some order here. We don't want it to
just --
ADDY: Sure. Well, that's just a
question I have for you.
LLOYD JESSEN: Sure. And
the board
does not really receive that type of input from
physicians in Iowa, no.
LLOYD JESSEN: We don't get that
request because I think they know federally --
LLOYD JESSEN: Well, they know
that
under federal law it's illegal, so they don't raise
the question.
ADDY: No, but I mean do they say that
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they are for it?
LLOYD JESSEN: We don't hear that.
We
don't get that input, and so that's part of the
purpose of these hearings, is if physicians want to
come and tell us their opinion, we want to hear it
so -- Any other numbers, 25 or above, to speak or
anyone else in the room who would like to speak at
this point?
Okay. We will stay here until
seven -- I'm sorry. Yes.
SEBASTIAN DONNER: Hi.
I'm
Dr. Sebastian Donner. I have a Ph.D. in analytical
chemistry, and I work at Iowa State University,
actually in charge of a wine laboratory up there.
And first of all, I do appreciate that
you're taking the time and effort to listen to
people, and I know it's been a long day for you
guys.
But the basic -- if you take a look at
the whole issue of marijuana and whether it helps
people, there are a number of studies out there
that do document this, and I do intend on
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submitting some actual papers. Do you guys need
just references or the actual papers printed out?
Do you prefer --
LLOYD JESSEN: You can do it either
way.
SEBASTIAN DONNER: Okay.
And
considering all the different people, I mean, that
are out there, I'm sure you've had a lot of
comments today from individuals who have utilized
medical marijuana and the differences that it can
make for people. I think it's -- it's important to
take a look at -- at the issue, which you're doing.
In terms of reclassification into what
schedule you will recommend and to put it in,
whether it be Schedule I, Schedule II, I took a
look at some of the drugs that are represented in
the different categories that the DEA has different
schedules for, and I was actually quite surprised
that even Schedule III and even some Schedule IV
drugs were, in my personal opinion, perhaps
addictive, you know, not -- not necessarily as
controlled as I would have thought compared to
medical marijuana.
I do think it's important to keep the
focus of that we're looking at medical marijuana in
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this particular issue, not just marijuana overall
and legalization of it but keeping the focus of the
help that is out there for people and that's being
currently denied to a lot of individuals who could
very much benefit from this.
And that's all I can think of right
now. Thanks.
LLOYD JESSEN: Thank you.
Anyone else
in the room? I think we'll take a break now for
about ten minutes, and we'll come back, and we'll
be here until seven, but we don't know if we'll
have more speakers or not.
(Short recess.)
LLOYD JESSEN: We're ready to start
up
again, and I think we've got a No. 26.
LLOYD JESSEN: Or 25. Yes.
Thank
you. Oh, yes, and if you could state your name and
spell it for us.
DON BURNETT: Sure. Don Burnett,
B-u-r-n-e-t-t. Start anytime?
DON BURNETT: I'm a little bit angry
today that you're even holding these meetings
because I don't understand in all the past that
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we've let Fen-Phen go by. We've let gay marriage
go by. We've let gambling go by. All because a
few years ago -- to me a few years ago -- J. Edgar
Hoover demonized marijuana.
There's nothing that I have ever heard
of in the negative like some of these
pharmaceutical drugs that are approved by the FDA,
used by pharmaceutical companies, researched, big
dollar buck, and I'm guessing -- I don't understand
why they're having these hearings, why we don't go
ahead and have it. There's already 13 states that
do have it, and I'm wondering why Iowa is even
bothering. Is it just a big PR thing that we're
trying to go over here?
It's J. Edgar Hoover was a
cross-dresser. It's well known. Why are we going
by what he did 50 to 60 years ago?
The reaction with marijuana, people
need it for medical reasons. It's not like we're
going to legalize it for every high school kid.
We're not going to legalize it for the selling on
street corners.
I watched an article on the History
Channel just a few days ago where opium was used in
the Civil War, and it was called the Army's
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Disease. It was legal. It was prescribed by
doctors.
Then they tried to give out heroin.
They would rather have opium and heron per their
story on the History Channel given out by doctors,
prescriptions, than the alcohol that we now have
legal along with cigarettes, legalized by the State
and backed by the State, that they'd rather do
those than a gentleman go and get in fights in
bars, go up and beat his wife, his girlfriend,
whatever. That's all fine and dandy. They passed
that. Didn't have any kind of hearings on a drug
that would help people get through cancer or any
other disease. It's only medical marijuana that
we're asking, and I don't understand why Iowa is
even bothering with this.
You got Ritalin. Ritalin was for
small children. At the time my kid is now in the
military service and in Baghdad, Iraq, we didn't
know, but the counselor before the school tried to
prescribe it, found out the school districts of
Iowa got kickbacks from the phannaceutical
companies to put kids on Ritalin. The school got
funds. They didn't have any studies. She said
"Don't let them put on studies" because you have
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yet to study it. There is no studies for Ritalin,
but yet we're stopping marijuana for medical
treatment that's been around since the 1600s people
have used it, according to the History Channel.
I'm extremely upset, as you can hear
in my voice. I'm nervous, but the FDA has not
tried to recall. The CDC has not come out and said
anything about marijuana, trying to get it away
from these other l3 states for medical use.
It sounds a lot like -- in my
statement here it's a lot like the kettle calling
the skillet black. Why are we doing this one and
not these others? Why are we not pulling
cigarettes right off, alcohol off? Because
prohibition didn't work. We found that out. It
couldn't work.
You might as well get it on the market
and get it in the medical, and you'll get the
almighty buck back to the state dollar is the only
thing I can feel that these hearings are about is
to get the State their money for their share of the
percentage of sales.
I feel it's a big hypocritical deal to
have these hearings and why it's even -- we're even
having these. The multimillion dollars that the
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pharmaceutical companies are getting for these
drugs like the RU whatever, the day-after pill.
They didn't have any problems passing that right
through.
They now have got this new drug for
young girls for venereal disease. They're
questioning that. The dcctors are not -- as of
last night, NBC News said they're no longer --
doctors are no longer going to prescribe it because
they're afraid of the aftereffects being sued, and
their insurance for malpractice is going up, and
the doctors are stopping that. That was FDA
approved.
Fen-Phen. Miracle drug for people
overweight. Recalled because the heart -- it was
damaging people's hearts and killing them. Has
marijuana ever come out in any study and killed
someone from taking it as far as for medical use?
I have yet to hear from anyone, I wasn't here all
day. If there was, I apologize.
Let's see. I guess I'm just so upset,
it isn't even funny. I'll let No. 26, my ex-wife,
speak. Oh yeah. Thank you very much.
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KATHLEEN BURNETT: Yes.
Hi. I'm
Kathleen Marie Burnett. I am a patient. I'm
currently on Marinol. Matijuana has been known for
many years to increase the appetite which would
help the anorexic and AIDS-affected patients.
It is known to calm sour stomach, you
know, upset stomach, and patients with
chemotherapy, it's been known to help them and
others with stomach problems. It's known to kill
pain, which that's why I'm on the Marinol. No side
effects.
All these other medications that I've
been on have a list a mile long of side effects,
and a lot of them, one of the side gffects includes
death. I've never heard of that on marijuana, and
there's no proof that marijuana can cause death.
I just don't understand why you can
prescribe all these medications to me and have all
these different adverse effects. They gave me a
prescription for Ibuprofen. I was so sick, ended
up in the hospital. They had to flush it out of my
system. But yet it's legal, you know.
But marijuana, they have to fight over
it to get it legalized. They didn't have to fight
over Ibuprofen or any of these others that have
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been recalled, as my ex-husband has mentioned.
I sure appreciate your time, and
hopefully we get this passed. Thank you.
LLOYD JESSEN: Thank you.
Do we have
anyone else waiting to speak?
CHUCK CHILDERS: Hi. My
name is Chuck
Childers. And I'm not mad about nothing. I'm not
happy about it. I think marijuana should be
legalized for medicinal purposes. It does kill
pain.
I used to smoke marijuana because my
back, I have deteriorating disks. I have several
problems. But of course, at the time I was smoking
it, the stuff was coming up from Mexico, and the
United States Government was spraying it with
paraquat, and that's a defoliant, which I don't
know. Ended up really screwing up my lungs. And
that's because it wasn't legal.
So by not legalizing it, all you're
doing is backing the cartels. You're giving money
to dope dealers. You know, give it to the State.
Give people something that will kill the pain. I
mean, you know, you prescribe drugs that will kill
people, and I never heard of anybody dying from
marijuana. I mean you might overeat, but you know,
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that's about as far as it goes. And that in itself
is helping the economy because you're going to the
grocery store more often.
But I don't know. I don't have a
whole lot to say. I didn't prepare anything or
anything. And I didn't even know this meeting was
going until this afternoon.
But for the people's sake, I hope you
guys can see it in your heart to help the people.
Help the State. I mean we're in enough trouble
now. Why keep helping the cartels and killing us
off from the poison dope? Thank you very much.
LLOYD JESSEN: Thank you.
Do we have
anyone else wanting to speak?
DONALD GILMORE: Do we have to
have a
number, or can we just go up and speak?
LLOYD JESSEN: If you're going
to
speak, we'd like you to come down and use the
microphone, please.
DONALD GILMORE: My name is Donald
Gilmore. I came to this -- heard about it this
morning -- for my brother. His name is Justin
Gilmore. He'S been diagnosed with rheumatoid
arthritis since he was nine.
Since then, the only thing that the
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doctors have given him are steroids, opiates, and
things that have tore up his stomach lining.
He has been smoking since -- since he
was probably 15 or 16. He found it from a friend.
There again, just like this older gentleman over
here, I've tried to educate him on the factor that,
you know, the cartels that are bringing in some of
that illegal dope, it's sprayed with illegal, you
know, things that will kill you. It's not good for
you.
But at the same time, the opiates have
not done anything good for him, and just like the
other older lady here that had to have her system
flushed out, I had to rush my brother to the
hospital at 16 years old for taking too many
Ibuprofen because they prescribed him 800 milligram
Ibuprofens.
And I'm four years older than my
younger brother. To rush your younger brother when
you're a mere 20 years old to the hospital and not
knowing if he's going to die from Ibuprofen, not
even knowing the dangers of Ibuprofen, it's kind
of -- it kind of makes me sick to my stomach.
I'm not really angry. I'm not here to
get angry at nobody. I'm not here to -- I'm just
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here to speak out and speak my opinion. I'm not
even here to really say that we should be
legalizing it for everfbody on the streets like
myself or anybody else. I'm currently at DMACC in
college.
I'm just here to speak out on, like we
said, medicinal uses for people who have cancer,
whoever has arthritis, to help them with the pain.
The steroids have done him some good, but they
create nausea that he cannot deal with. He just
plain flat-out cannot deal with it.
I just basically want to voice my
opinion because like they've said, I mean everybody
has seen it on GEL or anywhere else,
440,000 Americans die from tobacco use every year.
I mean and I'm not saying here to say tobacco use
should be illegal either, but it's their choice to
go and use it for no reason, and there's reasons
for medical marijuana.
I've currently done papers in college
over it because of the things that it's helped him
with. He currently -- because Iowa has it
illegally, he hasn't been able to get Marinol or
anything of that sort because we don't have the
resources, but there's -- I mean, like he's
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mentioned with alcohol or anything else, that it's
done that, but there's studies out that it's helped
with Alzheimer's disease. It hasn't been 100
percent proven yet that the plaque that's created
by that enzyme, that it's helped with that.
It's helped with appetite stimulation,
of course the pain relief. It's also -- they're
still doing a study, but it was in Popular Science
magazine two years ago about people with diabetes.
It's helped kind of regulate their sugar just a
little, not not 100 percent, but I just think
that we should definitely consider it for medical
use.
That's about all I have to say. Thank
you.
LLOYD JESSEN: Thank you.
Well, we'll
basically stay here one more hour, and if we have
more people come in, we will take their comments,
and we will wrap it up at 7 o'clock so --
KIRK STEVENS: My name is Kirk
Stevens. I'm a high school teacher at Hoover High
School. This is an issue have my students debate
in the classroom, both in government class and in
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psychology class, and it's a complex one.
Is there good to marijuana? Yes.
There's a lot of things. You guys have done a
great job of saying that it helps with pain, helps
with glaucoma. There are -- there are definitely
some benefits to it.
The thing is, where do we close the
can of worms once we legalize it? How do we say
it's distributed? Who's to say it isn't going to
be illegally prescribed like other drugs, and how
is that going to shut off the market and make it
less for other people?
I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but
I'm just saying I think there's a lot of things we
should think through. You know, and there are side
effects to it. Attention, usually more socially
inactive kids, more, like, with dropout.
As far as the lung cancer and that, I
do think that it is, you know, part of, you know,
when it's not natural, but man, there's just a lot
of things to consider, and I hope we don't rush
into it, that we think through it, that we keep it
just for certain cases, and I'd be real careful
because, you know, we have to draw a line somewhere
with drugs, and I don't know necessarily marijuana
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is the line, you know, because you can make a case
that cigarettes should be the line, but you know,
obviously, there are drugs out there we can't let
people have access to, and we have to think about
the greater good.
There's obviously some good medicinal.
What good would there be with increased access to
kids getting it illegally through the medical
system? It's something to consider.
JENNIFER KLAGES: Hello.
Hy name is
Jennifer Klages. Thank you for taking the time to
listen.
I'm a patient who suffers from chronic
pain, and I am in a rush for medical marijuana. I
take more pills a day than I care to admit, and
I've had three brain surgeries, a tumor in my
spinal cord, and I do not use marijuana because
do not have a safe connection for it, a way to get
it that I know hasn't been sprayed or that the
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police will not arrest me.
So I do think it's important that we
look at this issue from a medical standpoint and
not as a pro-legalization overall and really take
into consideration patients that are currently in
need. There's a lot of hospice patients, a lot of
chronically ill patients that could really benefit.
I don't have a lot of research to tell
you about or anything, but I just wanted to put a
face with it and say that there are people who are
hurting. Thank you.
SEBASTIAN DONNER: Hi.
I'm Sebastian
Donner again. I wanted to take another
opportunity. I wasn't prepared at all for this,
but when I was sitting there, I had a few thoughts
that I wanted to share with you guys and ladies.
And one thing that struck or that
is -- I feel is one reason why there's not as many
people here today, especially from the medical
community, is it seems to me that physicians in
general are quite worried about the whole going
public with their opinion.
My wife and I, we have had plenty of
discussions with physicians, and folks are, like,