MEDICAL MARIJUANA: SUPPORT BILL IN HOUSE COMMITTEE

I suffer from severe epileptic seizures. Over the years, doctors have
prescribed me some of the strongest anti-seizure medications
available, to no avail.

I read that marijuana has shown promising results for epilepsy
patients and decided to try it. Once I began smoking marijuana, my
seizures completely stopped. I smoked marijuana for more than a year
until I started going to church. Two weeks after I stopped smoking
marijuana, my seizures came back with a vengeance.

I'm a devout Christian. I've expressed my opinions about medical
marijuana to members, pastors and theologians from different
denominations and have found the majority of Christians I've talked to
support medical marijuana.

House Bill 42, the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act, will come
up in committee this month. It would protect doctors who recommend and
patients who use marijuana for medical reasons. Please contact the
House Judiciary Committee and your representative and urge them to
pass this bill.

Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia have passed medical
marijuana legislation. But because I live in Alabama, I am considered
a criminal for trying to alleviate my suffering. Geographic location
should never determine criminality. I am a patient, not a criminal.

Samuel Barksdale

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