cannabisnews.com: Medical Pot Law Set To Kick In





Medical Pot Law Set To Kick In
Posted by FoM on May 31, 2001 at 07:16:12 PT
By Karen Auge, Denver Post Medical Writer
Source: Denver Post 
Jerry Ives has copied his medical records, filled out the state's forms, checked all the right boxes and signed on all the necessary lines. He's even scraped together the $140 application fee. When Amendment 20 takes effect Friday, Ives' application for a place on a registry of people permitted to use marijuana to treat a medical condition will be on its way to the state health department, if it's not already there. There's just one small potential glitch. 
He doesn't have the required doctor's signature on the application. And he doesn't plan to get one. Ives said his doctors know he uses marijuana to ease the blinding, nauseating headaches and to lessen the seizures that have plagued him since he suffered a brain injury 25 years ago. But Ives, 44, is a disabled veteran, treated at the Veterans Administration Medical Center. Ives won't ask his VA doctors to endorse, on the record, his need for marijuana. "They work for the federal government," Ives said. But the federal government, through the Supreme Court, said in no uncertain terms just this month that marijuana use is illegal. Days before Colorado becomes the eighth state to legalize and regulate marijuana use for patients with specific conditions, those patients are hopeful, their doctors skittish. And while the state health department says the infrastructure to operate the program is up and ready, everyone is waiting for Attorney General Ken Salazar to weigh in on what the recent Supreme Court decision might mean to Colorado's law. "We are ready' Salazar is reviewing the matter and has said he will issue an opinion. In the meantime, "We are ready," said Carol Garrett, who helped coordinate the state health department's preparations to implement Amendment 20. "We're just waiting for Friday." The ID cards are ready, the applications are printed - about 75 have been sent out so far - and the procedure to review them is in place, Garrett said. In making preparations, Colorado turned to Oregon for advice, in part because that state's law is very similar to Colorado's and in part because its program is highly regarded, Garrett said. Based on Oregon's experience, she said Colorado expects about 800 people to apply to be included on the state registry this year. Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 20 in November. The amendment sets up a state registry that provides identification cards for patients with certain debilitating conditions - cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, cachexia (a weight-loss condition), severe pain, severe nausea, seizures and persistent muscle spasms including those characteristic of multiple sclerosis - to possess and use small amounts of marijuana. It costs $140 to apply, and patients must reapply every year to be included on the registry. The law makes no provisions for legally buying or selling the marijuana, and doctors do not write prescriptions for the drug. Instead, doctors must verify that the applicant has one of the specified medical conditions and sign a form stating, "Marijuana may mitigate the symptoms or effects of the patient's condition." How many doctors will be willing to sign their name to such a form remains to be seen, some say. Doctors are nervous, said Dr. Frank Sargent, a member of Coloradans Against Legalizing Marijuana. And they have reason to be, he said. Long-term effects of using the drug haven't been documented, he said. "I'm not sure what liability carriers will say. And I don't think we'll know that for the next few months." Most doctors are compassionate, Sargent said. But the Supreme Court ruling earlier this month, that cannabis buyers clubs in California violate federal law, has made already nervous doctors even more uncertain, he said. Doreen Bishop's doctor initially told her he wouldn't sign her application for medical marijuana. "He doesn't know anything about marijuana. It's the first time he's been in a dilemma like this," Bishop said. The 52-year-old said she's used marijuana to ease the pain and nausea from cancer and cancer treatments over the past 16 years. "I smoke, and it gets me through. It doesn't take (the pain) away; it just gets me through it." Tired of feeling like criminal: Bishop said she's no criminal, and she's tired of feeling like one. The possibility of her doctor of 30 years refusing her request to endorse her marijuana use devastated her, she said. In the end, her doctor relented. But in the box where the state asks for comments, he wrote that he doesn't approve of marijuana use, except for terminal and progressive disease with pain and nausea, Bishop said. Ives doesn't know what his doctors would say to such a request. But he said he doesn't think it would even be fair to ask them. Officials at Denver's VA hospital didn't respond to a request for comment. A spokesman at the Denver office of the U.S. attorney said he couldn't comment on whether doctors who are federal employees could face repercussions for recommending marijuana use. Ives won't say where he gets his marijuana but said he is going to start growing his own. "I'm on a fixed income; I can't afford the real good stuff," he said. Though he's used it for years illegally, Ives said he, like Bishop, is eager to be on the right side of the law. "I don't think I'm a criminal, and I'm tired of being treated like one."Note: Use permits sought as legal fears loom.Source: Denver Post (CO)Author: Karen Auge, Denver Post Medical WriterPublished: Thursday, May 31, 2001 Copyright: 2001 The Denver PostContact: letters denverpost.com Website: http://www.denverpost.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Coloradans For Medical Rights http://www.medicalmarijuana.com/State Reviewing High-Court Ruling on Medicinal Pot http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9747.shtmlHouse Gives Initial Approval To Implementing Planhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9252.shtmlMarijuana Use Rules Spelled Out http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9202.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by Doug on May 31, 2001 at 08:38:09 PT:
Cannabis in Costa Rica
I was fortunate enough to find a copy of the bokk 'Cannabis is Costa Rica' at a used book store a few years ago, and snapped it up. I wonder if it is available online. The study was the most complete to date on the social, psychological, and psysiological effects of cannabis on real people. All the people studied were heavy users, smoking several, and often many, joints a day. The study concluded that the only intersting thing noticed was that everyone was so normal. They had expected at least some effect from all the marijuana use.
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Comment #3 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on May 31, 2001 at 08:04:56 PT:
Here's Documentation
3 books from the 1970's, hard to find, document the paucity of attributable difficulties in chronic cannabis usage:Cannabis in Costa RicaGanja in Jamaica Hashish: Studies of Long-Term Use Then there is the grandfather of them all, the exhaustive India Hemp Drugs Commission Report of 1893-1894. The British government fully expected to ban trade in cannabis, but saw no reason to do so after this study.More modern data is available in the superb Marijuana Myths/Marijuana facts by Zimmer and Morgan.We will have a long article on chronic use and the Compassionate IND Program in Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics 2(1) out early in January 2002.Dr. Sargent and his apologists should be put in one of those rigs from A Clockwork Orange, prying the lids open, as they are forced to read material that undermines their very public and erroneous utterances. The truth may hurt them, but it will set the rest of us free.
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Comment #2 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on May 31, 2001 at 07:35:28 PT:
When Doctors Lie
"Long-term effects of using the drug haven't been documented, he said."This is patently false, and is an irresponsible statement. 
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Comment #1 posted by ras james rsifwh on May 31, 2001 at 07:21:01 PT
EXODUS
Give all praise and thanks to Jah Rastafar-I who Liveth and Reignith in I and I. Yes! For Now and I-ternity, Marijuana has manifested as the "Sacred Tree of Life" marking the End of Tribulations. Book of Revelation 22:1&2
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