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JOE McSHERRY: Excellent, excellent.
It's good reading. Gets you to sleep at night.
LLOYD JESSEN: In your opinion,
do you
think we have current scientific evidence that
supports the medical use of marijuana?
LLOYD JESSEN: And in your opinion,
do
you feel the benefits outweigh the risks?
JOE McSHERRY: Yes. But that's
based
on the things that we've talked about here.
LLOYD JESSEN: Correct. Okay.
Thank
you very much, Dr. McSherry, for your time.
LLOYD JESSEN: We'll now proceed
with
our first -- our second speaker, and she's identified, I think, with Speaker No.
1.
I'd also like to ask if anyone has a
cell phone, if they could please turn it to
vibrate, that would help with the noise level.
Thank you.
LINDA LEE O'NEEL: Sorry about the
phone. My name is Linda Lee O'Neel. I'm from
Creston, Iowa. My last name is spelled O'N-e-e-l
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like the fish.
My abilities are not as profuse as the
doctor here. What I want to do is show you the
literature that I have cited. The most recent
document was from a May 15, 2009, Denver Post
article on an experiment that was done by a -
let's see here. Dr. Julie L. Ryan of the
University of Rochester tested more than 600 breast
cancer patients undergoing chemo treatments across
the country. Some were given ginger root; others a
placebo.
The ginger root takers rated their
nausea severity 45 percent less. The placebo, no
change. And it should be noted the ginger was
given before the chemo treatments.
The patients receiving ginger
expressed less nausea for four days after
chemotherapy. Doses of .5 gram and 1 gram were the
most effective, reducing nausea by 40 percent
compared with the patients taking the placebo. One
gram of ginger is equivalent to about one teaspoon.
Now, the article stressed that the
ginger used was grated ginger root, not any ginger
ale or ginger-type flavored substances, and so it
would provide a nonmedicine alternative to medical
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marijuana.
This was also -- there's evidence that
when other amounts in different types of ginger
like ginger ale and ginger cookies and stuff were
used that it was hard on the stomach, so just as
aspirin is hard on the stomach if you don't take it
in the right amounts, so can this drug too be.
It's ginger that you find in the grocery store,
that weird little ginger root. You grate it. You
make tea out of it, and you take the tea before you
take your chemotherapy. And that is the latest
article that I have.
The earlier articles that I had, one
was the Lancet article that appeared in 1963 that
Parade magazine picked up on. Parade used to be
the insert in the newspapers. It's now replaced by
USA Today. And it picked up on the idea of medical
marijuana, and we've been hashing medical marijuana
ever since.
There is one article in here that I
have. I took my finger out of it, and it said that
the marijuana acted on the brain and the dopamine
aspects of the brain in the same way as other drugs
did and making it just as much addictive as any
other drug.
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This here is -- "The release of
anandamide is followed by rapid uptake into the
plasma and hydrolysis by fatty-acid amidohydrolase.
The psychoactive cannabinoids increase the activity
of dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental
area of the mesolimbic pathway. Since these
dopaminergic circuits are known to play a pivotal
role in mediating the refining -- or reinforcing
effects of most drugs of abuse, the enhanced
dopaminergic drive elicited by the cannabinoids is
thought to underlie the reinforcing and abuse
properties of marijuana. Thus, cannabinoids share
a final common neuronal action with other major
drugs of abuse such as morphine, ethanol, and
nicotine in producing facilitation of the
mesolimbic dopamine system."
This is in -- P-r-o-g is the
abbreviation, Neurobiological, 1999, July edition
on pages 315 to 348. And it was Effective
Cannabinoids on the Brain.
I had prepared an organized response
to positive marijuana because I do not believe that
after having seen my friends get high and become.
less person than what they were. I know that there
are times when the -- the brain is less affected by
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marijuana than at other times.
One of the articles that I did have
here talked about the brain cells that were there
and getting ready to divide and how marijuana
inhibited this ability for them to divide, and it
also talked about the effect of THC on the
cancer-fighting cells of the body. THC in any form
was known to stop the cancer-fighting cells'
ability to stick to the cancer cell to destroy it.
It would just slide right off. I have the
documents here.
And I've been given my four-minute
notice. So I will put in writing to submit to the
board if you would please give me the address that
I can write this in a coherent form.
LLOYD JESSEN: I have a question,
please. Are you in favor of medical marijuana or
opposed to it?
LINDA LEE O'NEEL: I think the
facts
that I've brought forth would cause any normal
person to be opposed to it.