Pubdate: Wed, 17 Oct 2012
Source: Arkansas Times (Little Rock, AR)
Copyright: 2012 Arkansas Times Inc.
Contact:  http://www.arktimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/583
Author: Chris Kell

MEDICAL MARIJUANA SCARE TACTICS

The fight is underway in earnest for voter approval of the initiated 
act to allow sick people to obtain marijuana for medical use, with 
doctors' approval, at state-regulated dispensaries. In recent days, 
the Family Council Action Committee unveiled a wholly dishonest and 
blatantly racist TV ad against the act, and the Arkansas Baptist 
Convention launched an email campaign, also filled with 
misinformation. In response Chris Kell of Arkansans for Compassionate 
Care, the committee working for passage of the measure, offered the 
following point-by-point rebuttal of the opposition. Read an extended 
version with citations from the act itself at arktimes.com/medicalmarijuana.

The proposed marijuana law? Don't kid yourself. It's really about 
making it easier to get illegal drugs.*

Recreational marijuana - its possession, use, distribution, and 
cultivation - will remain illegal in Arkansas; the same penalties 
will apply for violations of the law. The Arkansas Medical Marijuana 
Act establishes a regulatory framework for providing sick and dying 
patients safe access to an effective medicine they need today.

Prescriptions? Pharmacies? Not necessary... No oversight either. The 
grass growers and dope dealers will be in charge.*

Non-profit dispensaries inspected and licensed by the Arkansas 
Department of Health will issue medical marijuana only to qualifying 
patients with a doctor's recommendation. Because of their non-profit 
status, dispensaries will actually have more oversight than 
pharmacies, and unlike pharmacies their numbers will be limited.

The Arkansas Department of Health will entirely oversee the Arkansas 
Medical Marijuana program and will require written certifications 
from licensed Arkansas physicians for qualifying medical conditions.

Almost anyone will qualify grow, use and distribute this dangerous drug.*

Only patients suffering from one of 15 debilitating conditions will 
be allowed to obtain a licensed Arkansas physician's recommendation 
to grow and use medical marijuana. They must live more than five 
miles from a dispensary.

The doctor's certificate, unlike a prescription, never has to be 
renewed and the patient never has to be reevaluated. The certificate 
is good for a lifetime.^

The physician's written certification that a patient has a qualifying 
condition is only used to obtain a license from the Arkansas 
Department of Health - which will then issue a "Registry 
Identification Card" stating the patient's status as a Medical 
Marijuana patient. Pursuant to Section 105, subsection (e)...Registry 
Identification Cards expire one year after the date of issuance, 
unless the Physician states in the written certification that he 
believes the Qualifying Patient would benefit from medical marijuana 
only until a specified earlier date, then the Registry Identification 
Card shall expire on that date. In order to renew your "Registry 
Identification Card" you must provide a new written certification 
from your physician.

If medical marijuana was good medicine, groups like the American 
Medical Association and the American Cancer Society would endorse 
these measures. By and large, the medical community simply does not 
support state marijuana initiatives.^

A large and growing number of medical and health organizations have 
recognized marijuana's medical value.

And in 2009, the AMA - the largest and traditionally the most 
cautious and conservative physician organization - made a major shift 
in its position, calling on the federal government to reconsider 
marijuana's status as a Schedule I drug, which bars medical use under 
federal law.

Surveys of physicians also show strong support for medical marijuana. 
For example, a 2005 national survey of physicians conducted by HCD 
Research and the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion found 
that 73 percent of doctors supported use of marijuana to treat 
nausea, pain, and other symptoms associated with AIDS, cancer and 
glaucoma. Fifty-six percent would recommend medical marijuana to 
patients if permitted by state law, even if it remained illegal under 
federal law.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom