Lang, Haine Give Medical Marijuana a Push, Wackos Rush in
Illinois State Senator Bill Haine (D-Alton) and Deputy House Majority Leader Lou Lang (D-Skokie) tried to shove their medical marijuana legislation forward Tuesday.
They're having a tough go.
Appearing at a press conference in Springfield, the lawmakers unveiled two television commercials featuring two Illinois residents--Lucie Macfarlane of Joliet and Lisa Lange Van Camp of Lindenhurst--battling debilitating diseases who rely on doctor-authorized marijuana to ease their suffering.
Macfarlane suffers from neurofibromatosis--a disease in which tumors grow on nerve tissue--and Lange Van Camp lives with osteoarthritis. They both use pot to deaden the pain. The spots, which tell their stories, are now appearing in Chicago, Peoria, and Springfield.
The ad buy aims to help build support in the Illinois House and Senate on behalf of Senate Bill 1381 and House Bill 2514 to legalize seven medical marijuana plants per patient. Seven. The program would be administered by the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Studies have shown that marijuana relieves debilitating symptoms including nausea, appetite loss, and severe pain. It has been shown to increase the chances that HIV/AIDs and hepatitis C patients will stay on life-saving medications, according to the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., which is pushing the Illinois initiative.
Cue the wackos.
Judy Kreamer, President of the Naperville-based Educating Voices, a faith-based drug prevention-education group noisily opposes medical marijuana to treat the pain of Macfarlane's neurofibromatosis or Lange Van Camp's osteoarthritis.
"The message it will send our youth is that if marijuana is a medicine then it must not be harmful. As a result marijuana use among Illinois youth population will increase," Kreamer says in a rambling press release--which also warned against the threat of Mexican drug cartels-- issued after the Lang and Haine press conference.
No kidding. You can't make this stuff up. Seven weed plants and Henny Penny will make the sky fall in Illinois. Where does one start?
Kreamer's logic--and apparently her drug education program--overlooks that most doctor-prescribed medicine is harmful if the wrong dosage is consumed or if the wrong person consumes it. That's why warning labels and child-proof safety caps and directions are prominent features on medicine packaging.
For example, chemotherapy medication can cause Anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction, which induces shock, low blood pressure, and occasionally death. That's harmful. It's a medicine. And doctors still prescribe chemotherapy medication to treat a patient's cancer. Right?
What Haine and Lang want to accomplish with their legislation is to give doctors the medical option to proscribe a treatment--medical marijuana--that is medically necessary and potentially less harmful than traditional opioid painkillers, such as OxyContin and Vicodin.
In a statement by Dr. Leonard J. Paulozzi, Medical Epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on trends in unintentional drug overdose deaths before U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, the doctor said:
"The number of deaths ... that involved prescription opioid analgesics increased from 2,900 in 1999 to at least 7,500 in 2004, an increase of 160% in just 5 years. By 2004, opioid painkiller deaths numbered more than the total of deaths involving heroin and cocaine in this category."
That's the likes of OxyContin and Vicodin.
How many deaths from marijuana overdoses? Zero. Zilch. Zippo.
If Kraemer and crew are keen on educating Illinois youth on potentially harmful drugs--they should set their sights on drugs such as OxyContin and Vicodin. In the meantime, they should buzz off and let Haine and Lang get their law passed.
According to legislative sources, Haine's bill has the stronger political momentum of the two at the moment. Backers say they are only two votes shy of Senate approval. Lang's House bill still needs more political spade work. Both need less static from the peanut gallery.
The legislature is scheduled to adjourn on May 31. The clock is ticking.
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Norm Stamper: Turning the Corner on Drug Law Reform
Australians are acutely aware that the U.S. is and has been since 1971 the chest-thumping, fist-banging four-star general in the global war on drugs. Their willingness to stand up to our bullying ways is growing.
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I need a liver transplant thanks to the Army, and of course I'm prescribed the usual opiates-Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Diazepam, Trazodone, and a mood elevator. Coincidentally the meds will completely destroy my liver If I take them as prescribed. I'll also be a legal addict! Hmmm? A couple puffs 3-4 times a day of a nonaddictive or opiate drug that serves and attends to more symptoms than my meds do, or go out as an addict? Not much thinking needed!
I am the founder of Illinois Medical Marijuana and my staff are veterans with debilitating diseases. We and others need YOUR help.
Give your opinion to the proper person to use as ammo.
all links are on our site. PLEASE take time to watch the testimonies and send a message to our Senate reps.
http://www.illinoismedicalmarijuana.org , blog is at .net, we are also making contacts for our hopefully soon to open clinics.
Sonny D
illinoismedicalmarijuana.orga.org
EVI, the org Kreamer as representing, is as about as far out of touch with reality as it's possible to get and still be able to feed and care for oneself.
Go take a look at their website and note their letter of indignation sent to AMC (Movies). Apparently they think "Breaking Bad", a tragic drama involving a man who finds out he has terminal cancer and needs money badly due the shortcomings of the US HealthCare system (I'm Canadian, and I love our Pharmacare system despite the propaganda down there saying we feel otherwise), is a COMEDY!. http://www.educatingvoices.org/EViPreventionScoop.asp
Why are we even debating medical marijuana and trying to pass laws for medical use these days? We already know there are thousands of medical applications and not one person has ever died or beat their wife or kids on pot alone and it's nontoxic and harmless, with virtually no addiction or side effects. Shouldn't we be passing full legalization laws for industrial, medical AND recreational use?!? There should be absolutely no law prohibiting any adult in American from using cannabis for whatever reason they choose. Period. We need to stand up for our rights!
If you don't like pot then don't smoke it, leave your friends, family and neighbors alone if they want to.
Life, liberty AND the pursuit of happiness!
Well, i imagine that full legalization is coming, but this may be the only way to get a foot in the door. And this is hard enough.
The issues that fuel my position on marijuana laws all involve the well being of my children. If Judy Kreamer really cared about children, she would see the obvious, which is that full legalization and regulation is the ONLY effective method of keeping marijuana out of the hands of children. As long as we maintain prohibition, it will be black market street dealers who will decide who can and cannot buy their drugs. This also increases the chances that other, harder drugs will be pushed upon our children by these same dealers. We need to regulate this industry because prohibition has done NOTHING to impact either supply or demand.
The most dangerous aspect of marijuana use are the legal consequences of being caught with it. I won't get into the arguement about whether it can harm your lungs or if its addictive. What I will argue is that the negative consequences of smoking marijuana can be almost completely mitigated by quitting smoking. If so many thousands can quit smoking cigarettes, they can quit marijuana. On the other hand, the negative consequences of a criminal record will haunt you for the rest of your life.
The biggest fear I have for my children is not the drugs. My biggest fear stems from the laws prohibiting those drugs. Wake up people!!! There is no rational excuse to continue prohibition of marijuana. Will your children be added to the +20,000,000, majoritarily non-violent, American citizens already arrested for marijuana-related offenses?
Please, Sorry, but get off "It's for the kids" "stuff". That argument, in light of Every other thing that hurts our kids, that argument "just doesn't hold water" and you know that!
Kids are getting drugs pumped into them from birth and some are causing lifelong disabilities and worse. Caffeine, Sugar, Alcohol, Chemicals, Synthetic Speed (asthma meds), toxic substances in Baby formulas and foods....and the best one of all...Ritalin/Adderall is basically Meth!
http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.php?ID=2846
Cannabis is Medicine. Catch up, get over the Racism/Greed that built the foundation for todays Cannabis Prohibition..
Cannabis was in almost All formulation Pre 1937 for medical use..from Baby Teething Drops to Horse Liniment.
I told my kids the Truth about Cannabis and the truth About All Drugs for there Is No Such thing as A Safe Drug. I teach them to weigh the Risks VS the Benefits for All Substances they consider consuming. It's called harm reduction. the Gateway to drug use are, in part due to the Flood of Prescription Medications, ALL demonstrating the "Take THIS Pill and Feel Good" message contained in them...
YUP!, Cannabis is the Source of ALL drug evils alright...
Educate about ALL drugs/substances. Caffeine has deadly consequences. Acetaminophen; I have learned "Mother Molecule" in those products is DDT?
More than 600,000 people will die this year from using Legal Drugs, just 17,000 from ALL Illegal Drug Use Combined and ZERO from Cannabis.
I don't understand your post. Are you agreeing with the previous poster that marijuana should be legalized? That we should discontinue ALL drug manufacturing? I'm lost.
I told my kids when they went to college that I didn't think Marijuana was a harmful substance, but that an arrest for using it would forever stain their records (and may have prevented one of them from getting into the field she wanted to get into).
I would rather it would have been legal and regulated and free of pesticides.
Perhaps Kreamer, and the reticent state senators from Illinois would be interested to know that the US Dept of Health and Human Services has its very own patent (#6,630,507) on the medicinal properties of cannabis based on research done at the National Institute of Health. What does this patent say: Cannabinoids (derived from cannabis) are neuroprotectants and anti-inflammatory, and as such are useful in the prevention and treatment of a wide variety of ailments including stroke, trauma, auto-immune disorders, HIV dementia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and the Government is offering the technology for licensing.
That doesn't sound like a dangerous substance at all. In fact, it sounds pretty supportive of life and health.
So can we just get past the lies, already. Haven't we had enough of them lately?
As far as medical cannabis is concerned the government is lying. Clinical research in the US is severely restrained due to the current laws, yet much evidence exists today about the benefits of medicinal cannabis, so here are a few examples from NORML's publication 'Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids'.
Alzheimer's disease. A review of recent scientific literature indicates that cannabinoid therapy may provide symptomatic relief to AD patients while also moderating progression. (Refernces, Ramirez et al. 2005, the Journal of Neuroscience 25; Eubanks et al. 2006 Molecular Pharmaceutics; Hampson et al. 1998, Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95; Science News. June 11, 1998; and more)
ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. Writing in the March 2004 issue of the journal 'Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Other Motor Neuron Disorders' Investigators at the California Pacific Medical Center reported that the administration of THC prior and after the onset of ALS symptoms staved disease progression and prolonged survival in laboratory animals compared to untreated control specimens.
Diabetes Mellitus. 8 references given
Dystonia. 7 references given
Fibromyalgia. 10 references given
Gliomas. 26 references given
Gastrointestinal Disorders. 12 references given
Hepatitis C. 15 references given
Hypertension. 17 references given
Incontinence. 5 references given
Multiple Sclerosis, 17 references given
Osteoporosis. 4 references given
Pruritis. 7 references given
Sleep Apnea. 4 references given
Tourette's Syndrome. 7 references given
Other diseases such as glaucoma, rheumathoid arthritis, nausea, side effects from cancer treatment, chronic pain, neuropathic pain, eating disorders and depression, just to mention a few.
Judy Kreamer obviously lives in la-la land. Sadly, she and other voices of hysteria have actually influenced public policy for decades. Even though she's observably mentally ill, there is still a need to speak out and set the record straight. Lives are lost due to illness and pain, not to mention the barbaric prison industry. Now that there is finally sound discussion about marijuana policy among legislators, it is time to be louder than the voices for propaganda and Reefer Madness. It is time for make changes in the absurd policies regarding marijuana. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta
two words.
Lobbyists and Money
That is why groups like Partnership for a Drug Free America, DARE, and MADD (and its offshoots) get so much attention and publicity, Because they have the political backing of lobbyists, and the financial backing of a few very wealthy people who have had bad experiences with one drug, such as alcohol, and generalize to all drugs, without making any effort to discern the differences between them. Ironically, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana are all used to produce prescription drugs, but the prescription drugs often become more harmful to the body than the original pure form of the Coca plant, or the poppy flower, or marijjuana leaf
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