cannabisnews.com: Group To Help People Use Pot as Medicine





Group To Help People Use Pot as Medicine
Posted by CN Staff on April 28, 2003 at 14:19:23 PT
By The Associated Press
Source: AZCentral.com 
Grants Pass, Ore. -- "Brother Bob" Walker has organized a clinic to spare others the frustrations he says he endured in obtaining a license to use marijuana to soothe his back pain.Soon after medical marijuana became legal in Oregon, Walker started looking for a doctor who would help him use cannabis to relieve pain from a 1983 fall that broke his spine. None of the local doctors would help him.
"I spent five months and $700 trying to get a card," he said. The hassle prompted him to found a nonprofit to help others get state licenses that allow people with certain medical conditions to legally grow and smoke marijuana.Southern Oregon Medical Marijuana Network hosts seminars on cannabis and launched a Web site to promote medicinal uses for the drug."I totally believe in what I do," he said, noting that he's helped more than 250 people obtain cannabis cards.On Sunday, he rented a meeting room at a motel and brought in Dr. Phillip Leveque, the Mollala osteopath who has approved nearly 1,700 of Oregon's first 3,500 medical marijuana cards.Oregon's experiment with medical marijuana will mark its fourth birthday in May. As of last week, about 4,700 people held state cards that allow them to grow cannabis plants and keep small quantities of marijuana to treat conditions such as cancer, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis or to relieve chronic pain, nausea or seizures.With a state population of about 3.5 million, that works out to one card for every 680 people.Southern Oregon has more than its proportionate share of medical cannabis users. In Josephine County, 407 marijuana cards were valid in mid-April, said Mary Leverette, director of the medical marijuana program. That's about one for every 185 people among the county's 75,000 residents.At Sunday's clinic, men and women came from as far as Bend, Brookings and Klamath Falls to fill out their paperwork and be examined by Leveque.Tony Honeycutt of Brookings said he had used marijuana for years to manage his pain before obtaining a card last year. The 55-year-old Vietnam veteran said he decided to get a card because he wanted to stop feeling like he was breaking the law."I don't feel so guilty about what I'm doing now," said Honeycutt, who uses cannabis for relief from stomach problems, an overactive bowel and a gastrointestinal reflux condition.Others said they were tired of the side effects of prescription pain killers and over-the-counter drugs and wanted to try something different."I do Ibuprofens by the dozens," said a 42-year-old Klamath Falls contractor who asked to be identified only as Dan. "I have wires and screws all over me," he said, from motorcycle accidents, "an artificial hip and arthritis in every joint in my body."Dan said he uses marijuana mostly to relax at the end of a day and get a good night's sleep.On the Net: Southern Oregon Medical Marijuana Network: http://www.somm-net.org/founder.html Source: AZCentral.com (AZ)Published: April 28, 2003 Copyright: 2003 azcentral.comWebsite: http://www.azcentral.com/Contact: http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/sendaletter.htmlRelated Articles & Web Sites:SOMM-NEThttp://www.somm-net.org/Hemp & Cannabis Foundationhttp://www.thc-foundation.org/ Retired Teacher Advocates Medical Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15798.shtmlMarijuana Advocates Want Law Expanded http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15733.shtmlCenter Supports Medical Marijuana Use http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15473.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on May 01, 2003 at 12:23:21 PT
News Brief from The Associated Press
House Clears Legislation to Tighten Medical Marijuana Law May 1, 2003 
SALEM - Restrictions on medical marijuana would be tightened under a bill approved by the Oregon House.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Jeff Kruse, R-Sutherlin, said it would avert potential problems with the federal government, which has gone after California's program in court."I have come over time to understand that this is legitimate medicine for some folks," said Kruse, who is chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee."But it is also a very popular recreational device for a lot of other folks. We need to make sure that the line between these two populations is clear and distinct," Kruse said.A spokesman for A Life with Dignity Committee said the bill makes the wrong changes to the law that voters approved in 1998. "It will severely limit patient access to medical marijuana," said spokesman Chris Rich.Oregon is one of nine states that allows medical use of marijuana, but patients in all states except California must produce their own or receive it as a donation. Patients must have specified medical conditions such as cancer, glaucoma, AIDS or conditions resulting in severe pain or nausea, seizures or persistent muscle spasms.About 4,500 Oregonians are registered with the program through the Department of Human Services. Each patient or a designated caregiver can produce three mature and four immature plants, and patients can possess up to 7 ounces.The bill, which moved to the Senate after it was approved 35-19 by the House on Wednesday, would require patients to inform the state program about their growing sites - information that can be furnished to authorized police agencies.Kruse said registered patients would be issued two cards, one listing the location of the site and the other without, so that patients or caregivers will not be arrested for cultivation or possession.The bill also would limit a designated caregiver to three mature and four immature plants at one "grow site," which is defined as one per street address.The bill would allow the state to revoke the registration of anyone convicted of manufacturing or delivering specified drugs, including marijuana.On the Net:Bill Number HB2939: 
http://www.leg.state.or.us/03reg/measures/hb2900.dir/hb2939.1ha.htmlCopyright 2003 by The Associated Press
House Clears Legislation to Tighten Medical Marijuana Law
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Comment #5 posted by The GCW on April 29, 2003 at 06:13:41 PT
Devine Truth and Beauty
http://www.urantia.org/papers/paper2.html      The false science of materialism would sentence mortal man to become an outcast in the universe. Such partial knowledge is potentially evil; it is knowledge composed of both good and evil. Truth is beautiful because it is both replete and symmetrical. When man searches for truth, he pursues the divinely real.The Spirit ROCKS!
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Comment #4 posted by The GCW on April 29, 2003 at 05:29:35 PT
Brother Bib, Isaiah says it.
Isaiah 5:20, Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
     Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
     Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:23, Who justify the wicked for a bribe,
     And take away the rights of the ones who are in the right! Isaiah 5:8-30 is subtitled: Woes for the WickedThis section of the Bible seems to address the cannabis issue. Read it in prayer, asking for Christ God Our Father to show You the Truth as He wishes for You to know it.http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=ISA%2B5&showfn=on&showxref=on&language=english&version=NASB&x=13&y=7 Cannaprophesy from the Ecologician bringing Truth to each one of Us.IT IS THERE. Clean up, inquire about Your spiritual potentials. If You think You disagree with the laws against cannabis, see how much more the Holy Spirit of Truth disagrees with the concept of exterminating cannabis and caging men (the temple of God) for using cannabis. If We go back and start over, will We understand that all the Green plants are good, as it says on the very 1st page of the Bible?The Green Collar Worker
    
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on April 28, 2003 at 18:56:34 PT
greenfox 
It's fine to be on more then one article. I'm really sorry. Canada's starting to understand and the UK and other countries too but not us. 
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Comment #2 posted by greenfox on April 28, 2003 at 18:48:27 PT
I am reposting this hear so more can read it :)
(This is a repost- only because I think it's important to put on the newest article- sorry FOM I wanted to post it here first but I screwed up so if you want to delete the other one so there isn't two posts, please feel free) :)Cannabis prohibition is a fraud and as our "good friend" Rush says, the philosophy is morally bankrupt. Throughout history, people have traded “security” for their “freedoms,” and as our great leaders have said, this will rob us of both. In any event, the Bush administration is doing just that: taking our fears of terr-ah and using them against us to steel our freedom. Just now, I have a friend being held in jail on “suspicion of drug crimes”. These bastards have held my friend for OVER 72 hours without EVER CHARGING HIM WITH A CRIME. It is going on day four, and both he and his wife are still there. Initially, when they were taken to jail, I called them and was told that they couldn’t be held for more than seventy-two hours without being charged with a crime. Today, I called back and learned that because of recent political hysteria made into the sham of a law, the “patriot act,” they can be held for LONGER if an extension is filed on the part of the DA. Sure enough, this was filed and to this very moment I cannot bail them out. These are decent upstanding people that were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The point being, I am not able to even SEE them, let along bring them cigarettes. When I call the jail asking for information, the fumbling idiots who call themselves federal and state employees have done everything from placing me on hold forever to simply hanging up the phone and leaving it off the hook. It has been a trying four days, (more trying for my two unlucky friends, to be sure,) and still I cannot bail them out. Because they can’t be bailed out until they’ve been charged with a crime, on the circus clown courts go, meanwhile the people that need him back at home can’t even visit him. So the point, you ask? The point is: do we TRULY live in the land of the free, the home of the brave? When brevity is determined by the size of one’s metaphorical penis and women’s rights are simply ho-hum and talk, and when freedom is determined on your ability to “rat out” your neighbors in true Orwellian style, one must wonder how free we actually are. Television and anti-drug propaganda are one in the same, (and we have the audacity to laugh and laud Iraqi propaganda television for being a tool of the government?) and both television programming and advertisements appeal to the lowest common denominator. People are no longer interested in their rights; only in how drunk they can get on a Friday night, and how much money they can earn from their lemming job, and of course weather or not “they” can sexually gratify “themselves”. It’s no wonder that Europe finds this country not only laughable, but a pathetic fetal attempt at democracy. I have seen the glory of the Netherlands as the uncaring Dutch passively watch me smoke their products and contribute to their economy. It’s a wonder, they think to themselves silently, that their entire country is doing so well just because Americans can’t spend their money at home on the simplest of pleasures: cannabis. 
Donate to norml and end the madness
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on April 28, 2003 at 17:20:46 PT
Don't have to tell "Brother Bob" Walker. 
Proverbs 3:27; Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in Your power to do it.Proverbs 3: 28; (to Cannada) Do not say to your neighbor, "Go, and come back, And tomorrow I will give it," When you have it with you. Proverbs 3: 29; Do not devise harm against your neighbor, While he lives securely beside you.    
Proverbs 11: 26; He who withholds grain, the people will curse him, But blessing will be on the head of him who sells it. Proverbs 11: 30; The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, And he who is wise wins souls.
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