Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
Copyright: 2015 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/
Website: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Note: Accepts letters to the editor from Arkansas residents only
Author: Jaime Adame
Page: 4B

MEDICAL MARIJUANA VIEWS AIRED

Panel gives both sides chance to voice opinions on controversial
issue

FAYETTEVILLE - A panel discussion on medical marijuana offered
Fayetteville city attorney Kit Williams a chance to describe his
wife's personal story of how the drug helped her while she underwent
chemotherapy treatments for cancer.

Fayetteville city attorney Kit Williams admitted that about five years
ago, before his wife's diagnosis, he thought advocacy for medical
marijuana "was a bunch of smoke and mirrors."

But the panel at the Arkansas Health Disparities Conference at the
University of Arkansas also gave a Little Rock doctor, David Smith, a
chance to express his concerns about the chemicals in marijuana.

Williams said his wife, Emily, suffered greatly from nausea while
being treated for lymphoma, a type of cancer.

But once she began using marijuana, "the pain that she had been
feeling, the nausea that had been wrecking her system, started going
away almost immediately," Williams said.

He admitted that about five years ago, before his wife's diagnosis, he
thought advocacy for medical marijuana "was a bunch of smoke and mirrors."

He said he and his wife, now free of cancer symptoms, considered
keeping her usage a secret during public efforts to make medical
marijuana legal in Arkansas.

"But it wasn't right. Not everybody is going to be as brave as my
wife," Williams said.

Smith, a palliative care physician who treats gravely ill patients at
Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, said he agreed that more
research should be done on certain types of chemicals in marijuana.

"The things that influence us based on our isolated cases or our
personal experience, we can't just practice medicine because those
things are not reliable," Smith said. "They don't hold up to
statistical scrutiny. We need much more."

He offered reasons why he would be concerned about medical marijuana
as proposed previously in Arkansas, however. For example, he expressed
concern that children might have easier access to the drug.

He also doubted that marijuana dispensary workers had the training of
a pharmacist, for example.

"If you use a medical model, we need to make it a medicine," Smith
said.

Also on the panel was Melissa Fults, campaign director for Arkansans
for Compassionate Care. She spoke about what she described as the
overly harsh restrictions on research into the benefits of marijuana.

In an interview after the panel, Fults said her group has drafted a
new proposal that would legalize marijuana for medical use in
Arkansas. She said the group has set of goal of gathering 140,000
signatures by January to have the measure - which she described as
having more restrictions than a previous draft from the group - on the
state ballot in 2016.
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MAP posted-by: Matt