Pubdate: Mon, 03 Feb 2014
Source: Bristol Herald Courier (VA)
Copyright: 2014 Bristol Herald Courier
Contact:  http://www.bristolnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1211
Author: Michael L. Owens

LOCAL ACTIVIST HOPEFUL TENNESSEE APPROVES MEDICAL MARIJUANA

BLUFF CITY, Tenn. - For local medical-marijuana activist Seth Green, 
the ability to fill his lungs with a full breath of air - without 
wincing in pain - outweighs the risk of landing in jail.

"I know what the consequences are from it," he said of smoking the 
weed, which is illegal in Tennessee. "I'd rather not have 60 to 80 
seizures in a week's time."

For the last year, the 23-year-old has passed around petitions and 
spread the word of rallies for his cause in the hopes that Tennessee 
might one day green-light the weed's use as a medicine.

Now, he's looking to a bill winding its way through the state's 
General Assembly as a possible answer to his prayers. If the bill 
passes, Green might finally have a natural drug that legally eases 
the agony of twisted muscles and seizures brought on by cerebral 
palsy and multiple sclerosis.

The bill is the brainchild of state Rep. Sherry Jones, a Nashville 
Democrat who is busy lobbying support for the Koozer-Kuhn Medical 
Cannabis Act before it moves on to committee and a vote.

The plan for now is to dispel the image of a stoner puffing away at a 
joint in some dark corner of his mom's dimly lit basement.

"If my [General Assembly] members keep thinking like this it's simply 
because they don't understand the value of this [bill]," she said.

To make the point, Jones explains how the weed's medical composition 
is often low in the psychoactive THC that keeps the iconic stoner 
returning for a buzz. And she notes how it comes in the form of 
lotions, oil and liquid drops placed under the tongue.

Then she reels off the name of family after Tennessee family that 
recently packed up and moved to Colorado, where the drug is legal, 
for a shot at easing the burdens of a child wracked with chronic pain 
or dozens of seizures a day.

The piece de resistance of her argument is to point out that 
Tennessee legalized medical marijuana in the early 1980s, as part of 
the federal Controlled Substance Therapeutic Research program, but 
repealed it in 1989.

"It's a compassionate thing to do for people who are suffering and 
there are no manmade drugs to help them," she said of approving 
cannabis for medical use.

Green first learned of marijuana's soothing effect on his body as a 
teenager succumbing to peer pressure.

"My body was relaxed, my chest opened up and I could get a full 
breath of air," he said.

Unlike the manmade meds, marijuana relaxed his body and allowed it to 
bounce back from the drug's effects without depression and sickness. 
That's when he researched the claims behind its medicinal uses and 
became a full-fledged proponent.

Still, some skepticism over every claim of marijuana's miraculous 
abilities persists in the medical field, said Casey Laizure, a 
professor in the department of clinical pharmacy at the University of 
Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.

"Just because someone says anecdotally that this is better than 
anything else they've taken doesn't make it so," Laizure said. "But 
there's no reason that it couldn't be scientifically investigated."

The scientific studies, anecdotal evidence and passionate debate 
might not be enough to save the Tennessee bill, said Senator Jon 
Lundberg, a Bristol Republican.

He pointed to the crime associated with both marijuana and 
prescription drugs as the deterring argument that would likely kill the bill.

"I don't see how marijuana is going to help anyone medically," he 
said. "It is not a good thing for society."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom