MAMAS REACH OUT

Twenty-five years ago, in a cabin in Mosier, Sandee Burbank and a
group of other mothers began talking about the futures they wanted
for their children.

The discussion grew into a group called Mothers Against Misuse and
Abuse (MAMA), a nonprofit organization whose members travel the
state, hoping to educate Oregonians about what they say are the
dangers of some widely used legal drugs and the misconceptions about
some illegal drugs.

Burbank was joined by Alice Ivany and Jack Thomas on Tuesday
afternoon at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library to discuss
the group's approach to drug education, and to talk about the
benefits of medical marijuana use.

As more and more federal money is being focused on hardcore illegal
drugs, including methamphetamine, less is being targeted toward
treatment of alcohol, which is a far more deadly drug, Burbank said.
Nationally, 101,000 people per year die from alcohol abuse, while
17,000 die from all illegal drugs combined, she said.

"The issues in our family are with legal drugs," said Burbank, who
had an uncle die of alcohol abuse and other relatives die from tobacco use.

MAMA works to avoid the fear-based approach of many drug prevention
programs and focus on education and facts, Burbank said.

"We wanted some kind of different approach to teach our children and
ourselves," she said.

Some drugs, such as marijuana, are demonized even though they have
proven health benefits and a better safety record than some legal
drugs, Burbank said.

Thomas and Ivany are both legal medical marijuana users, and talked
about how they only came to use cannabis when their other options ran out.

Thomas said he suffered from severe nerve damage and intense pain,
and years of ibuprofen use ended up destroying his stomach. Vioxx
worked but was pulled of the market for safety issues, and Thomas
said he was left with one viable choice, cannabis.

"I'm 57 and I still have to work," Thomas said. "I have such intense
pain that I have chronic muscle spasms, so I do tinctures or tokes,
it's gone and then I go back to work."

Ivany said that although her doctor recommended cannabis to treat
pain, she was hesitant to use it because of the stigma involved.

"It was embarrassing to be reduced to cannabis," she said. "But it's
not about getting high or stoned. It's an herbal treatment."

For more information, go to http://mamas.org