And then there's a newer method which
says vaporizing, which basically heats the
marijuana to between 130 to 230 degrees Celsius,
which is about, like, 350 degrees Fahrenheit, the
average, and then anything above 250 degrees
Celsius will burn it and actually cause ash and
everything.  That's 482 degrees Fahrenheit.  This
is just off -- all this stuff is Web-based
searching.  So I just tried to get trusted sources,
and I didn't prepare -- like, if I could have an
e-mail, I can give you some of the sites.  I'd be
glad to because I spent a lot of time looking into
this thing.

So anyway, but smoked versus
vaporizer, the vaporizer basically, in a study they
did by, I guess, a school in California, they
showed a significant increase in the THC blood
concentrations after 30 minutes after use over just
smoked, so vaporizing just increased the amount
you're getting via smoked, and they showed a
significant decrease in carbon monoxide and other
harmful constituents.  They listed about a hundred,

So -- and the reason this should be
addressed is because it's one of the -- when you're
a doctor, like, you can give patients something,
smoking is not ideal so -- and they've tried, like,
vaporizers with synthetics, but that doesn't quite
work the same because -- I guess something about
smaller particles or it doesn't have all the
constituents that marijuana does.  You probably
understand that better than I.

But it can also be eaten.  You've
probably heard you can eat it.  You can -- the
reason you might not want to eat this, you would
vaporize over eating, is because -- oh, it's with
the vaporizing, it's more of an instant benefit
with shorter-term effects, but with ingesting, you
can get longer durations.  And I don't know if it's
any stronger or not, but you get a longer duration,
and you're not going through the lungs.  I don't
know if there's any scientific evidence that shows
its use through ingestion, but I really couldn't

But one thing you can do with
ingesting it is you can get better consistency out
of it because if you take the same consistency of
marijuana, like, you grow a plant, you make clones
of that plant and you take the buds from that plant
and if you grow the seedlings or the trimmings in,
like, the same soil that you can expect the same
result of quality of marijuana given the same
growing conditions, water -- like you would in,
like, a hydroponics setup or aeroponics or even
ground in a greenhouse-type thing, so you can get
very consistent results, which is good if you're
going to try and prescribe it.

And you can then cook it into the same
amount into -- like, bake it with -- well, you can
bake it with -- like, you can use butter, honey,
tea, olive oil.  You basically infuse it, just heat
it up, leave it in there, strain out the leftover
flower matter, whatever, the plant matter, and then
you've infused or whatever, and then you cook it,
and that's generally how it's done.

And so -- but by doing that, you can
get, like -- you can control everything so you can
get a consistent amount, which would be useful for

And so okay.  Ingested versus pill
form, you get all the constituents with THC.
There's over 400 cannabinoids that I guess would
bind into your body.  Sorry.  This isn't how I
planned it.  But it's not just -- tea is the
primary, but it's not the only one, and so with the
actual plant, you get all of them.

Can be used to treat nausea, brings
sense of well-being, chronic pain, depression,
glaucoma, insomnia.  One instance I found, like,
where it's not always appropriate for everybody.
Like, my aunt has this -- a case similar to
glaucoma but isn't glaucoma where she has excess
eye pressure in one of her eyes, and it's -- I was,
like, "Well, did you ever -- like, why don't you
smoke weed because if it works for glaucoma," blah,
blah, just kind of jokingly, and she was, like, she
didn't want to get high or whatever, and then she
also has arrhythmia, just problems with her heart,
so she has to watch her caffeine.  She has to
watch, like, her sugars and her blood, whatever.
So -- and marijuana does affect your heart rate, so
that would not be recommended for someone like
that.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Excuse me, Benjamin.
Are you getting close to summing up your
presentation?  We have been limiting people in the
amount of time that they spend.

BENJAMIN:  Okay.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Just to make sure
that everybody else has an opportunity.  I don't
know how -- you know, if there is anybody else out
there yet that is waiting to speak.  We have at
least one person that is waiting to speak so --

BENJAMIN:  Is there any points that
anyone hasn't hit on that you would like to hear
about?

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Well, we can provide
you with our e-mail address if you would like to
submit something in writing.  Would that be
acceptable to you or helpful to you?

BENJAMIN:  Yes.  Is there any way I
could actually get like, would you be able to,
like, tell me some issues I could address or
something?  Because I know you've heard from so
many people, and you've heard about all these
things, and like, there's -- I don't know if people
have covered things like well, like, the
addiction or the history of -- or, like, how much

Okay.  Anecdotal evidence is empirical
evidence and is scientifically acceptable, so if
that's not good enough, I really don't know what
would be.  I don't know how many numbers you need.

The other problem is that if it's
illegal, it's very hard to get research done.  It
is possible -- I know the University of Iowa -- or
Iowa University does that.

They get it all from one source in
Missouri, which isn't very scientific evidence.
Like, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me
because you'd want to try different strains and all
that.  I don't know how that goes, but if you're
going to get from one source, it can't be very
scientific.

And it's not incredibly addictive, and
while it does have some potential for abuse, which
I know is a big, big problem because people are
wondering about driving and the -- like, it being
used irresponsibly and recreationally, not
medically, but if you educate people, if you treat

Okay.  Tobacco with no medical
benefits and a high -- it's highly addictive and
difficult to quit is perfectly legal, but marijuana
with all its benefit is not, and that's just, like,
baffling to me.

So I don't really know why we even
need a meeting to be, like, well, we have to find
out if it's -- because it is.  There's no question,
so I don't know what you need for that.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  I can't tell you
that.  I mean I don't know what's needed.  Right
now we have -- you know, people have submitted
information to us.  Neither I nor the board or
anybody else on the board has had an opportunity to
go through all of that evidence.

So I don't know for sure what's there.
I don't know what may be missing.  But I do know
that we have received a lot of information from a
lot of different people.  I'm not telling you that
your information is bad or is not wanted.

BENJAMIN:  Oh, no.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  It is.

BENJAMIN:  You're probably looking for
more specifics.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  It's just that we
need to make sure everybody has an opportunity to
speak, and we need to be fair to those that have
already spoken and limited their time to the ten
minutes that was allotted, and we can't allow you
to go over that time allotment because that's not
fair to those people as far as your verbal
presentation today.

If you have additional comments that
you want to make, if you want to provide us with
websites, any of that information, we would be
happy to have you --

BENJAMIN:  You would prefer written.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Yeah.

BENJAMIN:  Okay, okay.  And then if I
could just make one more point, one issue is, like,
if it was de -- okay.  There's one quick point.
The question of, is it a gateway drug?  If I have
to go to a drug dealer to get it and he can sell me
anything from ecstasy to coke to heroin to blah,
blah, blah, then yeah, it's a gateway drug because

But thank you again for your time.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Appreciate you
coming.

Did we have someone else that wanted
to speak?

JASON:  I won't talk so fast this
time, I promise.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Okay.

JASON:  Again, my name is Jason.  I
had -- I talked way too fast last time, and I was
pretty nervous.  Now I'm just intellectually and
emotionally exhausted from all this stuff, so I'll
go a little bit slower.

I wanted to talk about a couple
things.  First off, this is a pamphlet I picked up
from Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines as a
part of my court-issued rehab.  It says something,
negative effects of marijuana, and I'm looking for
these negative effects.  There's been no negative

I'd love to see them because if I
could be convinced that this drug is bad, it would
solve a lot of my problems.  I wouldn't feel that
it's unjustified.  I'd be able to say, okay.  Based
on this scientific evidence, I'm not going to
smoke, and I'm not going to have any legal issues
anymore.

As far as anecdotal evidence, this is
just chock-full of it, just like the antidrug
commercials.  They present us right here with three
different people and three different viewpoints.
One girl, age 16, says she started smoking pot
"because I was curious, and I thought it would help
me cope.  I forgot about school all right.  My
grades dropped to Cs and Ds in two months."

And that's great.  That does happen to
some people.  I understand that.  Me, my grades
went up because I was able, like I said, to take
care of my anxiety, take care of my health, be able
to sleep and eat on a regular schedule.  I don't
have something like what George McMahon or Herbert
Rosenfeld had where I have a life-threatening
debilitating condition.  I just have anxiety.  I
can deal with that.

And this breaks my heart watching
these people get up here and try and flght for this
when they have so many people stacked against them
with much more power, much more money, much more
influence in Washington and all the other
politicians.

They do have one person in here that
they show throughout the pamphlet is a
pro-marijuana smoker despite having gotten in
trouble.  He talks about how it relaxes him.  He
puts on music and it's real intense.  Pot puts you
in a different place and smoothes out the rough
edges.

Okay.  Toward the back, he says all
through this that he is for marijuana.  It doesn't
hurt anything.  Then on the back the last thing
they say about him is "I used to play with this
band, but they got another sax player.  I missed a
few rehearsals.  What's the big deal?  They were
fools to dis me.  Who needs them?"

Really, that's not going to convince
kids of anything.  This is the Internet age.  This
is not 1940.  This isn't Reefer Madness where we're
watching white women jump out of windows after
smoking marijuana with black people.  You're not

This is from ETR Associates, which is
a nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts.
On the back they have a disclaimer.  "This brochure
is not intended as a substitute for your health
professional's opinion or care."  They're saying
right here that they don't have anything that they
can say that a doctor would agree with.  Okay?

This is what I was given in court.
There is no evidence in here whatsoever that says
marijuana is actually bad.  They try and debunk
some myths about the safety of marijuana.  It says
"Myth, marijuana is safe because it comes from a
plant, so it's natural."  It's not a myth.  That's
a fact, but here's what they try to say to dispel
it.

"Marijuana contains THC, a drug that
changes how the mind and body work.  This makes it
dangerous to drive, ride a bike or motorcycle,
roller blade, or skateboard."  We know this.  We've
always known this.  Alcohol does the same thing.
That's why there's laws against driving.  Don't
smoke weed and drive.  Hello.

Second.  Sorry.  I'm not trying to be
funny.  I'm -- I'm very serious about this.  "Myth,

You can get addicted to marijuana but
not physically.  There is no other drug that is as
little -- that have the least rate of addiction as
marijuana.  The stats that are out there that I
have read is 15 percent of people throughout their
lifetime get addicted to marijuana for the
psychological addiction.

There's 32 percent of people who get
addicted to alcohol when they use alcohol
throughout their life, and the withdrawal symptoms
from it put you in detox.  They can kill you.  You
can get in a drunk driving accident.  That never
happens with marijuana.

Myth, everybody is doing it.  It says
"Most young people have never tried marijuana."
Well, that is true.  About -- people under the age
of 18, not the majority of them, according to
surveys, have tried marijuana.  But if 80 milllon

Another myth, marijuana is not as bad
as alcohol or tobacco.  Again, that's not a myth.
It is a fact.  But what they say to support that
this myth is wrong is that it contains more than
400 chemicals.  Some are the same chemicals in
tobacco that cause cancer.

Again, we've seen that through some
studies that I'm sure have been submitted so far,
marijuana may actually have a proactive effect.
That's why Donald Tashkin who is one of the leading
experts on the study of marijuana, he studied
marijuana for the National Institute of Drug
Awareness for the past 30 years.

In February of this year, he came out
and said "Based on my 30 years of research, when I
went into this" -- what he said, that when he went
into this, "I thought that it was going to show
that it causes cancer, it's addicting, that it's
debilitating, and that it's ruining society."  He
came out this year and said there's no reason not

If this man who's never smoked
marijuana who is in his 70s or 80s, has a Ph.D.,
who spent 30 years studying it says that we should
legalize it fully, there's no reason not to, how
can we deny patients the benefits that this plant
offers?

Another thing it says, it's like
alcohol, marijuana impairs judgment.  Again, we
have laws with alcohol.  Don't drive.

Then a point that is actually true,
marijuana is not regulated, so you cannot know
exactly what you're getting.  It could be laced
with PCP or cocaine.  Well, this is rare that this
happens.  You expect a patient to go on the street
like one of them said earlier, you don't know what
you're getting.  It's dangerous, and if you have a
medical necessity that this plant can help fix, why
would you want to risk ingesting PCP or cocaine?
We've seen what that does.  That's dangerous.  Why
are we putting it in the hands of the drug cartel
rather than doctors and growers who are regulated
by the government and able to give patients exactly

Another myth, marijuana relieves
stress and makes people feel relaxed and happy.
Again, not a myth but a fact.  However, what they
say to debunk this, using marijuana may help people
forget their problems for a while, but the problems
don't go away.  Yeah, that's fine, but
antidepressants don't make your problems go away,
and that's legal.

Marijuana impairs the ability to learn
and make good decisions.  It can make other things
seem less and less important.  What it should say
is marijuana can impair the ability.  When I was
taking it on a daily basis for medicinal reasons,
my grades went from Cs to A's and Bs.  If I'd been
smoking myself stupid or taking Marinol, which same
effect in the long run, that would have happened.
My grades would have been suffering.  It was the
reverse effect for me.  That's anecdotal but I'm
not the only one.

I want to submit this pamphlet just
because I want to show how drug awareness has
failed.  We went from Reefer Madness, which is
crazy, and not one politician supports that anymore
unless they're off their rocker.  We went from

In 2001 Portugal had one of the
highest rates of drug abuse.  It had the highest
rate of drug abuse in the world, but they tried
something radical.  They decriminalized all drugs.
What has happened since then is instead of
arresting people for simple possession, they give
them rehabilitation, and they offer the same drug
that they are addicted to, whether it be heroin,
methamphetamine, or marijuana, as long as they
continue to go to court or to government-sponsored
rehab.  If they don't want to do it, they say
"Fine.  Go on your merry way.  We're going to keep
your drugs."

What has happened from that, there
was -- I can't -- because I wasn't prepared to say
this because I only had ten minutes, there was --
in 2006 there was an organization here in America

As we've seen with alcohol and
prohibition back in the 1930s, giving power to
people like Al Capone to push the drugs onto
people -- to push the drugs onto people makes it
more fun.  It's something to go, you know, fight
the system, man, and all sorts of stuff.  Alcohol
use went way through the roof.  There was a ton of
crime, and we had to repeal that because it was the
right thing to do for the good of society.

I'm not saying to legalize marijuana
here today.  While I do support that, we need to
get medical marijuana patients what they need.
That is very important.  And if we continue to keep
this up, we're just going to be talking here,
wasting more of the board's time, wasting my time
and not getting anywhere.

But if you think that -- if you guys
don't recommend this to the legislature, if you
think we're just going to sit down and be quiet,
we're not.  Like, the kid who was just up here,

So that's all I have to say.  Thank
you very much.

GENE:  Can anybody else come up?

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Yes.

GENE:  Is there a turn or a number
or --

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Well --

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  I don't think we
have any.

ROGER ZOBEL:  I'm taking them off as
they come up.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  You're welcome, sir.
You're welcome to come up.  If you would just state
your name, at least your first name, please.

GENE:  My name is Gene.  It's on
rollers.  I was a firm believer against marijuana.

But it wasn't until I went to the
Democratic county convention that I seen all the
things I thought the Democrats were supposed to
stand for was going down the tubes to the
conservatives.

So we had a vote at the end, and
people that promised to vote one way voted the
other, and so we went home.  We were all veterans
of Vietnam, and we went home to a friend's house,
and we ate, and they passed a joint around, and I
inhaled.  And it kind of busted a myth for me.

And I won't say like our former
president, Bill Clinton, that he smoked it, but he
didn't inhale.  I've been inhaling it for several
years.  And then when I was in college and I got
out and I didn't really have anybody around and I'd
get it occasionally.

But about two years ago, I got hooked
up with a person, and I have a supply, No.1.  My
main thing is I started it to use because I have

I said "No, Doc.  I'm using a natural
medicine."  And I could talk about this for a long
time, but right now I've been in the hospital three
times in three Mondays.  First Monday was we didn't
know what was going on.  The second Monday, I got a
new pacemaker/defibrillator.

And then this last Monday they
couldn't figure out what's going on again.  But I
ran into a very smart doctor named Dr. David Clark,
and he had me do a sitting blood pressure, a
standing blood pressure, and a three-minute
standing blood pressure.  And they each improved a
little bit, but the third one was 104 over 80, and
that's very good for me because I only have a
10 percent injection fraction of my heart.  I'm
getting a VAD and maybe someday donated heart.  But
that's kind of awesome for me.

But he said -- he said "I watched you
walk down the hall this morning, drop your phone,

And I said "Well, what's going on?"

And he says "I'll tell you.  We're
going to stop your glyburide" for my diabetes.  I
only take five milligrams a day.  "And then we're
also going to stop another heart and water pill
that you're taking," hydralazine if you need to
know the name of it.  And he said "We're just going
to let you coast for a week," and then we're going
to start me on some kind of -- I take five ccs a
day insulin glargine or insulin glargine.  It's a
form of insulin, but it's -- I guess it's
long-lasting.  But that's just the change that, you
know, that happens in your life if you can get --
or even if you can't get medicinal marijuana is you
can just get it.  It's good for your health, not
bad for your health.

And as a PS, I have a psychiatric
disability, and it wasn't until they took me off
pills that I started getting better because I had a
little medicinal marijuana too.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Do we have anybody

ROGER ZOBEL:  We have one that will be
ready in just a moment.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Okay.

(Short recess.)

GENE:  Is this open mic yet?  This is
Gene again.  I just thought of one other little
thing that's happened, and I won't know for sure
for another two, three weeks because I have to go
up to University -- University of Minnesota
hospital, and they're going to do a stress test on
me, and they'll also capture all the exhale there,
and then they'll -- they'll be able to tell me if
I'm a candidate for the VAD or not.

But what I do think -- and this is
something that kind of really goes against
something one of you guys said about how marijuana
causes damage to the lungs llke cigarettes.  I
think my COPD is better because I can do more.  I
can breathe better, and I don't get short of
breath.

And I just think it's all a bunch of
bunk of what these people have been telling us for
years because it's just like racism.  It came down
generation to generacion to generation, and we're

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Would you say at
least your first name, please.

KAREN:  My name is Karen, and I'm a
nurse, and I would not like to see marijuana
legalized because our bodies excrete whatever goes
in our bodies.  If it's water soluble, we can
excrete it.  But if it's fat soluble, which
marijuana is, then it can get stuck in our brain,
and I think -- I don't think that would be good,
and would not want to take marijuana.

And I worked as a hospice nurse for
ten years, and we controlled people's nausea very,
very well with other drugs besides marijuana.  And
I know it.  And we also kept people very
comfortable, but of course, we kept them
comfortable with morphine.  But morphine is a legal
drug.  And I just don't think we need marijuana.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Thank you.

GENE:  Yes, what she says is true to a
point.  This powerful drug that she recommends
replace, say, medicinal marijuana or something else
is one of the most addictive drugs there is in the

We're talklng basically we're
talking heroin, right?

KAREN:  But if you take it for -- if
you take it --

GENE:  Well, see, when we legalize
marijuana, we can take that just like if they want
to take heroin or the medical form of it, whatever
you want to call it.

KAREN:  I just stated my opinion.

GENE:  Okay.  Well, I'm stating mine
and just saying that I haven't seen people get
healthy with her medicine, but I've seen them get
healthy with mine, and I'm an example of it.  I
praise God for it.

Gene the third time.  I think this is
in there.  I haven't looked it up yet, but I think
it says in the book of Genesis, Verse 1, 11th verse
that God gave us all the seeds, and he said we were
to use all the plants from those seeds, and if done
correctly and with -- if a person has a real
psychological problem, yes, they can get a
psychological addiction to marijuana, but it isn't
a physical thing of the body, and I don't know.

That's just how I feel about it, but I
think something natural and something that's okayed
in the Bible and has been used for -- since the
beginning of time shouldn't be managed as a drug
but should be managed as a medication.  Thank you.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Excuse me.  I would
just like to remind everyone that this is not a
forum for debate.  We are asking for people's
presentations, their points, their opinions, their
research or factual information.  We aren't here to
listen to anyone arguing back and forth or debating
back and forth.  It's a forum for gathering of
information.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Roger, did somebody
else come in?  Roger, do we have another speaker?

ROGER ZOBEL:  We have one coming in.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Okay.

SARA LEWIS:  Hi.  My name is Sara
Lewis.  I wasn't going to talk today, but after
sitting here listening to everybody, I kind of
thought my point of view might make a little bit of
a difference.

When I was 13 years old, I went to the
hospital.  I had never recreationally used before
then.  I was 13 years old, and I went to the

It was about a year and a half after
that of doing nutrition classes, measuring out
constantly everything I was eating, being nervous
about it, that I actually had smoked pot for the
first time.  And it was honestly in the medicinal
sense.  It made me feel better.  It calmed my
nerves.  I didn't worry.  I didn't get that anxious
feeling when I was done.  It kind of -- it was
recreational.  That was, you know, 12 years ago.
And I kind of -- it made me feel better.

It didn't make me -- you know, it
wasn't something that I used to fit in with people
or, you know, socialize.  It was really to make me
feel calm.

I've also been diagnosed with ADHD.
I also went to the extreme of -- you know, it was
an eating disorder.  It goes from one to the other,
bulimia, anorexia, and I had the ADHD which causes,
you know, the rapid thoughts and, you know,
constant, you know, out of controlness, and I -- so
with bulimia, you know, even just -- I can take one

I had a strong argument with, you
know, I have ADHD, and I have an eating disorder,
which is anorexia, and the doctors are willing to
give me something with Adderall which is a
meth-based substance, which causes people to not
want to eat, but I can sit down and, you know, be
prescribed something if it was ever, you know, for
medicinal use and actually makes me feel
comfortable with eating.

It's not something that even just the
tiniest -- you know, the Adderall helps, but it
causes that much more stress in my life because
it's, like, I have to remember and remind myself to
eat, which is hard enough for me to do to begin
with and just -- I think, you know, on the safe
aspect and natural aspect with marijuana, it's
it's just more you weigh the two out, and if I feel
comfortable with eating and I can eat healthy and
actually feel good about myself without having to
think about it and it actually slows my, you know,
thoughts down and everything at the same time, why

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Thank you.

GENE:  Ma'am.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Yes.

GENE:  Can we amend?  I don't want to
belabor here.  I just want to amend something about
my physical record.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  If you have
additional comments that you want to make, you can
submit those to us in writing.

GENE:  Okay.

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  I can give you my
address.

GENE:  Can I get an address?

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Yes.

GENE:  Okay.  That's fine.

JESSE:  Can I get one of those cards
too?

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Excuse me?

JESSE:  Can I get one of those cards
too?

DEBBIE JORGENSON:  Sure.  I think I
have one left.  Here you go.

TERRY WITKOWSKI:  Is there anyone else
who hasn't spoken who would like to speak?  We will
be here for another 25 minutes if there is anyone
that you know that wants to speak.

(Short recess.)

(Public Meeting concluded at
7:00 p.m.)

C E R T I F I C A T E

I, SueAnn Jones, Certified Shorthand
Reporter and Notrary Public in and for the State of
Iowa, do hereby certify that the foregoing is a
true and accurate computer-aided transcription of
the public meeting as taken stenographically by and
before me at the time and place indicated on the
title page;

That I am neither a relative nor employee
nor attorney nor counsel of the parties to
this action, and that I am not financially
interested in the action.

Dated this 5th day of October, 2009.

__________________________________

SUEANN JONES, CSR, RPR