The article by Margaret Sotham, regarding Marijuana Myths and Facts is full of myths and short on facts.
The Florida Department of Health has been charged with the job of writing the regulations should Amendment 2 pass on November 4th. That body has the opportunity to create rules that will minimize, if not eliminate the opportunity for teens to obtain medical marijuana without parental cooperation. For instance, entrance to a dispensary could be restricted to those over 18. We don’t know yet what the DOH will do.
She mentions that medical marijuana will be available for conditions such as headaches and menstrual cramps. Both of those conditions could easily be classified as debilitating for some patients, but that decision should be left to the patient and his/her doctor, not to a politician. Certainly, given a choice between a dangerous opiate painkiller or a natural plant, the decision should easily fall on the side of the natural remedy. To be debilitating, a condition need not be life-threatening. It would be offensive to deprive a seriously ill patient of the safest, most effective medicine due to a fear that someone with tennis elbow might also be treated with this natural anti-inflammatory rather than with dangerous steroids.
As for the caregiver requirements, once again, Ms Sotham is surmising that there will be no thought given to the qualifications that the Department of Health will demand. There are no guidelines at this point; the election has not yet happened and Amendment 2 is not yet part of Florida’s Constitution. Her lack of respect for the integrity of the Department of Health is shameful and is indicative of the old “Reefer Madness” propaganda of the 1930s.
The time has come for Florida to embrace the science that has come out of the more than 20,000 studies showing the efficacy of marijuana as medicine, and to ignore the myths.
Karen Goldstein is the Director NORML of Florida and can be reached at NORMLFlorida@gmail.com or 954.303.9254.
The FACT is the States where Medical Marijuana has passed has shown the opposite of what you've written. 1930 BS Fear-mongering Propaganda is what you're spreading. Shame on you! I pray your children, parents, spouse or yourself never deal with Cancer, just to name one deadly illness this can cure/treat. Have a heart! If you can't be helpful; please try to be harmless. The pain it could relieve could be your own one day. :/
Fine example of a no on two smoking us with the tweens and not admitting that 18 and 19 year old ADULTS ( by some laws) are fractured into the statistcs of TEENS.
Do we not know no on 2 is deceiving with their "teenagers" blah, blah.
"They LEAD US TO THINK OF TWEENS when they say teens which aghasts many as no on 2 smoke screens us. Let us not forget their statistics bring in the 18 and 19 year olds – legal adults by some laws.
Billy, the kids already have pot cheaper than you will pay for it in a dispensary. If pot does leak out from the medical side, it will have to compete with the huge amounts easily available from organized crime. Pot is already everywhere and that is not going to change. Remember the old 55 MPH speed limit laws which everyone ignored until they dropped it? We just kept driving 65-70 and for us, nothing really changed. Same here, except that crime will go down, suicide rates will go down and accident rates all go down when cannabis is legalized. What do you have against people with experience handling cannabis having a legal job? I think you need understand that your fears have turned to anger misguided.
stop the madness …..have you heard of freedom and natural law ? if you like fine , if you don't fine – FREEDOM OF CHOICE !!!
Really Billy? Get your head out of the sand. You're going with the "gateway drug" concept? I for one AM NOT a marijuana user but I would have walked risked my freedom to find marijuana last fall when my grandmother was in the hospital and they could not get her to stop throwing up, or keep food down…now they have given her Oxycontin to ease the pain, OXYCONTIN! I also lived with a VERY prominent attorney in California who was the most straight laced woman that I've ever met who had debilitating Glaucoma, she used a vaporizor box to put the marijuana in when the pain got to be too much, I personally watched marijuana save her life.
I for one am all for the legalization of medical marijuana and I hope that everyone votes for the right to use a PLANT- MADE BY GOD.
JUST SAY YES TO AMENDMENT TWO!
Billy, please take a moment to re-read what you have written. "Leaps of faith without any meaningful factual support"? Please show me any 'meaningful factual support' You or any of your "No on 2" comrades have supporting your stance. The ad I heard this morning on the radio from the No on 2 Campaign was full of misinformation and scare tactic propaganda much like what you are spewing above. You state that it's an "undisputed fact" that "anybody from Adam and Eve to The Pusherman…be permitted to become caregivers". How is this undisputed? Where are your facts to back this? NOTHING HAS PASSED YET! You must be able to tell the future since you can already tell what will happen 6 month after it goes into effect if passed. Your post is full of misinformation and propaganda the same that has been spewed for years that has long been proven wrong. You make nothing but assumptions that only you believe will come to fruition and you know what they say about assuming and making asses of ourselves. Look at the twenty other something states that have medical marijuana, do you see the states burning down? Are their skies falling? Please do everyone a favor and actually read up on it and educate yourself. Lookup Dr. Sanjay Gupta's stance on it, he's one who was part of your camp at one point but educated himself and realized it has incredible medical benefits and changed his mind. Rick Scott even signed into law the Charlotte's Web Bill, obviously this evil evil pot you speak of has some medical benefit to many many sick people and who are you to deny them access to it?
Did you even read what I wrote? Are you aware that the Department of Health is going to write laws to regulate the sale and distribution of medical marijuana? If you'd like some science, just read any of ft ge over 20,000 studies on PubMed that attest to the medical efficacy of cannabis. And the Gateway Drug theory has long been disproved by our Federal governmebt, in the Study of Illicit Drug Use, that's done every year. Alcohol and prescription painkillers are the biggest gayeway drugs, and both are completely legal.
Hi Everyone,
As a former New York State Law Enforcement Sergeant and sick 9/11 First Responder, I'd like to explain why myself and many other sick Floridians need the passage of Amendment 2 come Nov. 4th.
My Medical Conditions: Renal Cell Carcinoma – Right Nephrectomy, Papillary Cancer – Thyroidectomy, C.O.P.D., Asthma, Bronchitis, Bronchiectasis, Atelectasis, Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome, Severe Sleep Apnea, Growing Lung Nodules, Right Temporal Brain Lesion, GERD, Pre Barrett's – Severe Dysplasia, Degenerative Spinal Disease, Sinusitis, Rhinitis, unexplainable weight loss of 50+ pounds and RLS.
I wasn't always pro (Legalization of Medical Marijuana) Amendment 2. It wasn't until the pain medication that I was prescribed starting making me sick, that's when I decided to do some research and experiment with marijuana. When I found a 40% – 60% reduction in back pain, my RLS was 100% relieved and I had my appetite back (my weight loss has stabilized) with no stomach issues, that's when I was convinced that medical marijuana was/is the correct course of treatment for my medical conditions. My quality of life has been increased dramatically, thanks to Marijuana.
Prior to my experiments the only experience I had with marijuana was when I was a teen, I just couldn't envision how patients were going to benefit by using this medication. But, I was basing my assumption on my past use when I was a kid, I wasn't sick back then, I was a vibrant kid who felt great.
I had no idea just how superior marijuana was/is over opiate medication. With one kidney, I need to be very careful when taking Vicodin, Oxycontin, Codeine and all the other dangerous, addictive pain medication that physicians are allowed to prescribe to patients. I don't want to destroy my remaining kidney and end up on dialysis, aside from that… My stomach is shot from all the medications I've had to take over the years, as well as all the steroids and GERD. My stomach will no longer tolerate these medications, I get sick within 15 minutes and then my stomach is shot for the rest of the day. I'm out of options, If physicians can prescribe dangerous opiate medication, I cannot find any logical reason why they should not be permitted to prescribe a less harmful medication like marijuana. ALL medical treatment options should be between patients and their physicians, politicians and/or the law should have no business interfering with "ANY" treatment options that are available.
the writer begs the question and wants to reach the eventual goal of favoring the Amendment vote November 4 but makes all of leaps of faith without any meaningful factual support; suffice it to say since the Yes vote has a resounding lead if one is to trust in the usually unreliable poll authorities…but what they are not willing to face and focus on is the undisputed fact that the moment a vote like this passes with the voters, within six months to one year is when you are really going to see the letter and intent of the law completely unravel and, no pun meant, go up in a plume and puff o smoke. you are about to face anybody from Adam and Eve to The Pusherman suggested by Hendrix and Steppenwolf to be permitted to become caregivers freely allowed to partake in the shortfalls and loopholes that necessarily come with this ill advised amendment and vote; what the pro-sayers of the vote are not willing to fess up to is the undisputed fact that elementary, middle school and high schoolers will all now find the ease and fancy at which medicinal or other enjoyable, consumable modes of pot can be easily summoned and attained…..you are going to find broken hearts and broken parties as the Six o'Clock News nightly tells of young parent who've lost their children to the temptations and evils of pot soon followed by such dangerous narcotics as heroin, crystall meth(preferably some blue in the color); cocaine, crack 8 balls and the like and that is where your precious YES vote on November 4, 2014 is gonna land the rest of your fellow Floridians who had the gull, wisdom and foresight to JUST SAY NOT TO AMENDMENT TWO!!!!!!!