Inhumane, reckless decisions hurt Montanans
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The recent Montana Supreme Court ruling on restrictions to the state’s medical marijuana program has effectively denied thousands of Montanans access to a medicine that’s been working for them.
The decision handed down last Thursday was the final ruling on a several-year battle between the Montana Legislature and medical marijuana businesses over the 2004-voter approved initiative to allow Montanans access to medical marijuana.
Twice, Montana District Judge James Reynolds blocked portions of SB 423, which was passed by the Montana Legislature in May 2011. The law, which essentially repeals Montana’s medical marijuana program, was a hasty reaction to the March 2011 federal raids on Montana medical marijuana (cannabis) businesses.
Did the industry need regulation? Yes. Does the new law reach too far? Absolutely.
The number of patients had already been greatly reduced from some 30,000 to 13,640. (Current program statistics listed are from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services website.)
The number of current providers (those who can grow and sell marijuana to state-registered cardholders) is 471. The recent court ruling upholds the state’s new limit of three patients per provider. When you do the math, that’s 1,413 patients who will be able to receive medical marijuana leaving 12,227 medical marijuana users out in the rain. And if you ask me, that adds up to nothing short of criminal. These 12,227 fellow Montanans registered with our state in order to be allowed access to a medication that works for them.
The fact that no consideration was made for these people shows how negligent the legislature and supreme court were in their duties.
With the new direction under SB 423, current cardholders will be forced to look to the black market and risk prosecution or in many cases go back to ineffective, expensive, addictive pharmaceuticals.
Our Montana Attorney General is currently running an advertising campaign that highlights our state’s biggest drug problem, prescriptions. That’s right. It’s not meth, cocaine, or heroin, and surely not marijuana. It’s prescription medicine. Yet I don’t see the same efforts being put forth by our lawmakers to address this problem.
As a matter of fact, the recent decision pushes prescription medication back on sick people – compounding the prescription drug problem and hurting Montanans.
In order to understand that these thousands of cardholders aren’t just numbers, these are people affected, I’m going to share with you that I’m one of them.
I have suffered from chronic inflammation my entire life due to a genetic disease called ankylosing spondylitis. In addition to causing chronic pain and stiffness, over time, the inflammation can lead to fusion of joints, fusion of your spine, and at the very least, severe restrictions to your flexibility and mobility.
For the past year I’ve used oil made from cannabis to treat my inflammation and it works. Prior to taking the oil, I had to take 10 or so anti-inflammatory pills daily to combat some of my symptoms. Now I use an oil that is preventing the inflammation altogether. It has been nothing short of life-changing. I feel so much better and I’m not taking a fistful of pills every day. My body is no longer ravaged by inflammation. For once I’m optimistic that I have a handle on my illness. I feel better knowing that I have a part in my own future, my children’s future.
Personal stories about how medical marijuana and its derivatives have helped people with a wide range of ailments flood the Internet. Several long lists of illnesses that cannabis can be used to treat can be found on the U.S. government patent website.
According to patent no. 6,630,507, belonging to the United States of America, “… This newfound property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.”
I’m both angry and sad that I, and others like me, could be denied the right to this medicine. How can anyone for whom this is working be expected to go without it?
Montana’s marijuana program has been gutted. Those who are sick are the ones who will suffer most.
My hope is that Montana voters, the compassionate people who first approved the use of medical marijuana in our state, will return to the polls with their initial resolve.
The Montana Cannabis Information Association is proposing a new initiative to give real reform, fair reform, to our medical marijuana program. It would set up a regulatory system with standards, labeling and testing. In order to be placed on the 2016 ballot, 28,000 signatures are needed.
I urge Montanans to once again take action on this issue and defend our right to utilize this plant to care for ourselves. Visit the MTCIA website, www.mtcia.org, to learn where you can sign the new initiative.
I anticipate that Montana will once again show its compassion.
