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THE POWER OF YOU: A CALL TO ACTION
It’s been a busy month. We are energized by the progress in other states and reflective on our setbacks in the past years’ sessions as well as initiatives setbacks other states. We have learned that persistance pays off. Not the kind of persistence that comes for a few months every two years (when the Texas Legislature is in session), but the kind that is actually persistent and always present.
This is why we have started “early” for 2011 and remain busily working “behind-the-scenes” while our legislature is in recess. With the new bill currently being introduced to key legislators...
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Statement of compassion s
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Churches | Mosques | Temples
Civic Orgs | Law Enforcement
Attorneys | Palliative Caregivers
Physicians | Nurses | Legislators
Please lend your support! Sign our
Statement of Compassion
Texas patients and families need your leadership,
please sign today!
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| Do you have a story about medical cannabis? |
Your personal story can be a powerful inspiration to others. Write an encouraging article/story about your experiences with medical marijuana or about your local efforts working for safe access, we just may include it in a future issue! We'll use first name only, unless you give us permission to use your full name.
Please send you stories to
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Message From the Director t
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THE POWER OF YOU: A CALL TO ACTION
It’s been a busy month. We are energized by the progress in other states and reflective on our setbacks in the past years’ sessions as well as initiatives setbacks other states. We have learned that persistance pays off. Not the kind of persistence that comes for a few months every two years (when the Texas Legislature is in session), but the kind that is actually persistent and always present.
This is why we have started “early” for 2011 and remain busily working “behind-the-scenes” while our legislature is in recess. With the new bill currently being introduced to key legislators...
HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP!!!
We have a bill and we have a Power Point presentation explaining why it is a kind-of “best practices” drafted from lessons learned around the Country, and a good bill for Texas patients, Doctors, Families and Communities. We have addressed concerns mentioned to us by representatives and community leaders and have now come back with a bill that we believe can move Texas forward.
BUT WE NEED EVER TEXANS TO PITCH IN!
1. CITIZEN ACTION ITEM:
Secure a meeting with your senator and/or representative and invite us along
- Last month we asked YOU to write a letter, a narrative, and to be ready to send that letter to your State Legislators. Now, is the time to contact your senator and representative. YOU can find out who represents you by going here .
- When they respond, please forward us an e-mail and let us know the response (Scan it and attach it if you need to). Please send it to us good, bad, or indifferent. In this way, we start our dialogues.
- Next, request a brief meeting. We will then come to your district to meet with YOU and your representative, if you wish. We need to speak with everyone of them!
TCCC volunteers have also been meeting with legislators, but these meetings are much stronger with the power of,YOU , the constituent.
We look forward to hearing from YOU about your contacts.
2. CITIZEN ACTION ITEM
Invite us to your town to give a presentation to your community
We are beginning meetings in key locations across the state starting next month, June 15, 2010, in Houston. In July, we will be having our first meeting in Ft Worth. We look forward to hearing from YOU for an invitation to schedule meetings in South, Central, and West Texas, and in your city.... but, we need YOU on the ground in these locations... THAT’S YOU!
So how can you help with this?
- YOU contact us.
- We will suggest a future date.
- YOU will secure a suitable public location.
- We will provide you with fliers that YOU can use to promote the presentation and meeting.
- We would be best served by having a presentation earlier in the day, and one later in the evening, so that we may be able to invite both citizens AND professionals, legislators, and their staff, to attend.
- We will also provide YOU with a letter of invitation for YOU , your friends and your neighbors to sign to invite your representatives.
- We will have a public organizational meeting that night.
- We also request that YOU see if YOU can secure a place for us to stay for the night.
- We will want YOU to invite local organizations and churches as well.
YOU will have several months to prepare for the visit; so, there should not be too much stress invloved, and YOU will be helping to build on this state-wide movement that is present all over Texas.
Help Texas patients pass safe access in 2011.
Sincerely,
Stephen Betzen, director
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In the News...
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Published April 17, 2010:
AL: OUR VIEW: State Debates Medical Marijuana
The Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act, a bill seeking to legalize medical marijuana in Alabama, passed out of committee this week to return to the floor for a possible vote.
While Alabama will probably not pass the bill any further this legislative session, it is no small feat the bill even made it out of committee.
While Alabama has always had a strong states’ rights bend in its past, such arguments were often used as a means to justify intolerable acts like segregation and denying blacks the right to vote.
Now, we see an Alabama more focused on compassionate care and allowing those suffering from illnesses to maintain a dignity with their pain management.
Medical marijuana has been shown to cause fewer negative side effects than its corporate, prescription drug counterparts, making it a better choice for some patients.
Fourteen other states have legislation allowing for marijuana to be used medicinally.
No other Southern state has passed medical marijuana legislation.
To have Alabama seem to be leading the charge on this issue seems odd, but we are happy to see progressivism and new ways of thinking coming to a place not known for embracing change well.
The new legalized marijuana would be highly regulated and available only to those patients for whom it is deemed necessary due to “debilitating medical conditions” like AIDS, Alzheimer’s, Crone’s Disease, glaucoma and cancer.
Considering the pain and hardship sufferers of those ailments go through, allowing them medical marijuana to manage that pain seems to be the kind, humane thing to do.
The states that have legalized medical marijuana have not seen greatly increased crime rates or violence.
The streets aren’t filled with drug-addled youths and spaced-out hippies and the fabric of society still contains the strong moral fibers that hold it together.
As far as habit-forming drugs go, marijuana is less habit forming than many prescription pain medications like Oxycontin.
Legalized medical marijuana simply offers another pain management option, an option that allows patients to homegrow their own medication.
The money saved from moving from expensive prescriptions to marijuana would no doubt prove a boon to insurance companies and these patients themselves.
The day for medical marijuana is not here yet, but we are confident that day is coming. A kinder, more enlightened Alabama is not far away.
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Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Bill Is Just What The Doctor Ordered
May 7, 7:39 | PMPittsburgh Liberal Examiner
A copy of the bill can be found here:
Steven Snippert
When Pennsylvania law makers proposed legalizing medical marijuana in the Commonwealth, they weren't just blowing smoke. State Senator Daylin Leach (D-Delaware County) announced in a press conference today at the Capitol to introduce legislation that would allow the sale medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.
The measure, which closely mirrors a State House Bill presented by Rep. Mark Cohen last year (H.B. 1393), would effectively permit physicians to to prescribe the drug for eligible patients.
The State Sen. was forthright in his support for the legislation. "It's long past time we move beyond the misinformation and ancient wives' tales and allow people to have the medicine that will make them feel better," Leach said. "Medical Marijuana has been proven repeatedly to help people who are desperately ill. It is nothing more than gratuitous cruelty to deny it to them."
If successful, the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act would allow Pennsylvania to join fourteen other states that currently have medical marijuana laws on the books. Governor Ed Rendell has stated previously that he would sign a well-crafted medical marijuana bill.
The extent of the ailments that would qualify for prescription include patients suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, chronic pain, Crohn's disease among others. Distribution would be handled by state-run or state sanctioned "Compassion Centers."
Reason against allowing the sale of medical marijuana are unconvincing at best. Medicinal value has been well established. To name one reference, a 2007 University of California at San Francisco study found marijuana to be safe and effective at treating peripheral neuropathy, which causes great suffering to HIV/AIDS patients.This is something that medical cannabis users have known for years despite the lack of federal funding for comprehensive study of the issue.
The usual tired argument that it will allow easier access of marijuana to minors (don't forget about the children!) will no doubt be trotted out. Let's just be realistic about this. If kids want to get their hands on pot, they will. Providing a safe distribution method for sick adults will in no way pave an easy route for young ones to get high. Keeping prescription medication away from children is a real problem, but we would have to deal with that issue whether or not medical cannabis is instituted.
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Patient Spotlight
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The Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Utilizing Cannabis Sativa as an Adjunctive Pharmacological Agent
Thomas Stephen Johnston II Committee:
Virginia Bassi, Ph.D. (Chair)
Kathy Tennant, M.D. (Reader)
University: Argosy University, San Francisco Bay Area College: American School of Professional Psychology
Find a cure for PTSD through Legal Cannabis! Abstract: This Clinical Research Project, entitled The Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Utilizing Cannabis Sativa as an Adjunctive Pharmacological Agent, written by Thomas Stephen Johnston II, reviewed the literature on PTSD, treatments for PTSD, pharmacotherapy approaches to PTSD, and cannabis in an effort to explore the primary hypothesis: Should cannabis be considered an efficacious, adjunctive, treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in combination with talk therapy?
This study was a scholarly publication-based critical review and analysis of the literature, subdividing the research question into three separate components: 1) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; 2) Pharmacological treatments (medications) prescribed for the treatment of PTSD; 3) Cannabis Sativa (marijuana), including any research cross-referenced between PTSD and cannabis. Professional peer-reviewed journals, books, magazines, films, documentaries, internet web-based searches and research databases were utilized in gathering, reviewing and analyzing the data. The primary databases used for key word searches and the collection of data were EBSCOhost and ProQuest/Infotrac databases. Side effect tables comparing cannabis with each of the current psychotropic medications commonly prescribed for PTSD were created and incorporated into the discussion section.
Findings supported the hypothesis that cannabis is an efficacious adjunctive pharmacological agent to talk therapy when cannabis is used properly, in controlled doses and under clinical supervision. The research further identified the effectiveness of cannabis in the pharmacological treatment of chronic, long-term sufferers of PTSD, as standard psychotropic medications have historically been less effective with this population.
Discussion was offered in favor of utilizing cannabis in place of psychotropic medications to regulate side effects, allowing patients to be fully present during talk therapy sessions, offering greater ego strength and faster assimilation of data, possibly shortening the treatment time, while deepening the effectiveness of the therapy.
Lastly, recommendations were made regarding the need for psychoeducation focusing on medical cannabis for psychologists, clinicians, medical doctors, health care workers and their patients. Theoretic discussion was offered regarding a new approach to chronic PTSD from the perspective of neurogenesis and the expression of genes, based partly on Ernest Rossi's naturalist trance approach in changing the expression of genes in traumatized patients.
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| Myth of the Month |
MYTH: "The effort to legalize marijuana for medical use is just a ruse to open the door for recreational use."
Fact: Medical use is legitimate. Marijuana has a long and distinguished history as medicine, stretching back to at least 5000 BC when it was one of three primary drugs favored in ancient China.
Fact: Doctors recognize that marijuana offers unique therapeutic benefits. In spite of substantial risk, doctors today still recommend marijuana for nausea, vomiting, muscle spasticity, pain, and other ailments in patients who do not respond well to pharmaceuticals.
Fact: Scientists recognize that marijuana is an effective medicine. Otherwise, why would one of the active ingredients in marijuana, tetrahydrocannibinol (THC), be cloned into a pharmaceutical drug? Why would drug companies engage in research to patent more such drugs?
Fact: Abuse is no argument against proper use. Many drugs that can be abused, such as pain medications, sleeping pills, and tranquilizers, remain legally available to those who need them, in spite of recreational use and abuse.
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Texas Coalition for Compassionate Care
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P.O. Box 35269,
5910 Cedar Springs,
Dallas, Texas 75235
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Director: Stephen Betzen
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Press Inquiries: Steve Haag
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