Nearly 15 years after the passage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, medical institutions and hospital groups continue to marginalize, reject and ignore their patients' use of cannabis as a medicine. Samaritan Health Services simply doesn't deal with them. Or, if they do, they typically characterize cannabis use as a drug problem by definition, subjecting patients to humiliating drug tests, or worse, making them choose between cannabis and opiates. This "choice" ignores not only the science of the endocannabinoid signaling system in pain control, but violates the responsibility of medical systems to foster trust and support. [continues 86 words]
Few in the medical marijuana movement would deny the police assertion that some growers are abusing the medical marijuana law. The issue of greater importance is the legal status of an herb that many people are willing to pay outrageous prices for. As well, "carpet-bagging" of profiteers who care little for the welfare of patients fuels the recreational cannabis market, while supplying desperate patients with some medicine. But that is the problem: How can farmers be expected to cultivate a product worth $300 an ounce in a capitalist society, then give it away for free? [continues 145 words]
As a chief petitioner for Measure 33 and as a medical cannabis nurse, I read "Measure 33: next step or too far?" (Commentary, Sept. 28). My friends, authors Stormy Ray and Rick Bayer, M.D., championed the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act in 1998. Six years later, thousands of patients are protected. Thousands of others are not. The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act was written to pass muster with voters. It didn't adequately address three areas: access to a physician recommendation, a medicine supply and legal protection. Each is compounded by federal opposition. [continues 59 words]
Is There A Doctor (Or Nurse) In The House? Nursing is caring Twenty years ago I began to learn what real suffering looks and feels like. I watched helplessly while beautiful young men would, in three months time, age 50 years, dying from a disease no one knew anything about at the time. I have watched tobacco-cancer eat the lungs, livers and hearts out of people. They had no idea, when they began using this legal herb, the consequences in store for them. [continues 1327 words]
Nursing is Caring Twenty years ago I began to learn what real suffering looks and feels like. I watched helplessly while beautiful young men would, in three months time, age 50 years, dying from a disease no one knew anything about at the time. I have watched tobacco-cancer eat the lungs, livers and hearts out of people. They had no idea, when they began using this legal herb, the consequences in store for them. I've cared for all of these people because they were suffering, and because I am a nurse. [continues 2556 words]
The media furor over one Oregon physician who has provided documentation allowing many qualified patients into the Oregon Health Division's medical marijuana program is being misrepresented by mainstream media. The issue goes far deeper than just Phillip Leveque, D.O. He has chosen to put his medical license on the line out of compassion for patients who have been shunned by their physicians, state medical organizations and now, apparently, the Oregon Health Division. The medical establishment in Corvallis is a case in point. There are few physicians there willing to sign the legally required form allowing access to the medical marijuana program for their patients with debilitating medical conditions. Instead, doctors and medical practices have quietly decided not to participate in the registry program, or to refer those patients to someone who will. This abandonment of patients undermines the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act because the registry program remains the safest (though not only) option for Oregon's cannabis-using patients. Instead, most Corvallis physicians would rather prescribe dangerous and addictive pharmaceuticals. EDWARD GLICK Registered nurse Monmouth [end]
Introduction H. Res.. 372 was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 26, 1998. It constitutes a "sense of the House of Representatives that marijuana is a dangerous and addictive drug and should not be legalized for medicinal use." This paper is a rebuttal of H. res. 372 and an argument that marijuana has several extensively documented applications and a high safety margin with medically supervised use. In addition it refutes the rhetorical tool of of connecting the issues of substance use and abuse to medically supervised use as inconsistent with the accepted protocols which govern the medical research process. It questions the underlying legal, moral and political priorities which criminalize sick, suffering and dying people for their medically supervised use of marijuana as fundamentally inconsistent with basic tenets of nursing practice which strive to care for and support ill people with compassion. Each rebuttal paragraph corresponds to the item of the same number in the text. [continues 2071 words]
