MEDICAL MARIJUANA TESTIMONY WORTH HEARING

The debate over legalizing marijuana as a medicine arrived in
Pennsylvania last Wednesday. The House Committee on Health and Human
Services heard testimony from patients, doctors and members of
advocacy groups who say medical marijuana should be legal because it
is effective in treating chronic pain, nausea and other ailments

Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, sponsored the bill, which would
allow the state Department of Health to issue ID cards to patients
who have been diagnosed by a physician with a debilitating medical
condition, such as cancer or HIV, and whose physician recommended the
use of marijuana. The department would establish or license
dispensaries to grow and distribute marijuana.

Committee Chairman Frank Oliver, D-Philadelphia, plans more hearings
on the bill before a vote is taken, but Attorney General Tom Corbett
and the Senate's Republican majority have already lined up against
the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-9, of Chester, said the
chamber's GOP members have no plans to consider such a bill, even if
it were to pass the Democratic-controlled House.

Maybe Sen. Pileggi and his GOP friends and soon-to-be-running for
higher office Tom Corbett should listen to some of the testimony
before they decide how to vote or when to voice their opinion.

Testimony lasted three hours in Harrisburg, with an HIV patient
telling the committee marijuana is the only thing that relieves his
pain, while another man said he watched his mother smoke marijuana to
ease the pain of her terminal breast cancer.

While 13 states already allow the medical use of marijuana without
penalty, relying on a doctor's recommendation, others considering
implementing the drug include New Jersey and Wisconsin.

During testimony to the Legislature in Wisconsin, a woman said her
three-year ordeal of hardly being able to move ended when she threw
away 25 different pills prescribed for her chronic condition and
began using marijuana.

Testifying in Harrisburg against the use of medical marijuana was a
woman whose daughter died of a heroin overdose. The mother blamed
marijuana for leading her daughter down the path to drug addiction.

There is no argument some drug addicts began their lethal habits with
marijuana. There is also no argument that many others have smoked the
Cannabis sativa plant and not gone on to addiction. Just as many
alcoholics started with one beer, many people continue to drink beer
with no need to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

It is amazing how years of indoctrination lead people to believe that
a plant that has been cultivated for thousands of years is more
dangerous than the chemically manufactured pills making drug
companies rich.

One pill deemed safe by the FDA and, apparently, not causing alarm
among Pennsylvania's GOP senators or Tom Corbett, is OxyContin.

OxyContin is in a group of drugs called narcotic pain relievers. The
extended-release form of the medication is for around-the-clock
treatment of pain.

The Daily Times ran at least 72 stories in the last seven years about
OxyContin. They ranged from the death of a 14-month-old boy who
ingested its tablets to the arrest of a man for illegally
distributing OxyContin and other pain medications over a three-year
period to prescription drug addicts. Yet, no one is carrying signs
warning about the dangers associated with pharmaceutically supplied
pain medications.

Medical marijuana patients do not need to "smoke" the medication,
there are other forms in which it can be dispensed.

No one has ever overdosed on marijuana, but many have overdosed on
the medications marijuana would replace.

Medical experts think this naturally grown substance can help people
suffering from pain. Shouldn't legislators listen to doctors when
deciding what is in the best interests of patients suffering from
chronic pain?