There are so many reasons to support this bill – including humanitarian concerns, fiscal benefits, reversing overincarceration fueled by the failed drug war, and protecting medical privacy and individual autonomy – just to name a few.
But what really brought us out to support this bill are the patients we have come to know over the past few years while working to improve Maine’s medical marijuana law.
Sgt Ryan Begin speaks to the press.
Me (Alysia Melnick/ACLU of Maine) with Becky DeKeuster, executive director of the Wellness Connection of Maine, Rep. Mark Dion (bill sponsor), Dr. Dustin Sulak, and Paul McCarrier of Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine - gathered to support access for patients.
Since 1999 when Maine’s first law was passed, voters have consistently and staunchly taken a compassionate approach to medical marijuana – supporting access for seriously ill patients. And the focus should remain on them.
Over the past decade, we have learned more and more about the range of illnesses, conditions and treatments for which marijuana can provide relief, and about the relative safety of marijuana – both in terms of negative side effects and societal impact – as compared to many of the drugs it replaces.
I don’t have to tell anyone in Maine that we are facing a serious crisis in terms of prescription opioids and barbituates. I was speaking recently to the Commissioner of Public Safety about the skyrocketing rates of elderly home invasions in Maine and to a friend who won’t let his wife or daughter walk into a drug store anymore because of almost weekly pharmacy robberies. And in addition to ravaging our communities, many of these drugs, especially used in large quantities or over long periods of time, are ravaging our individual friends, neighbors and loved ones.
We hear daily from people who, because of car accidents, cancer, armed combat, or some other serious illness or condition – are turning to marijuana both because they get better results, and because they can reduce their use or dependence on some of these other more harmful, more addictive drugs.
Patients and their doctors should be able to make these highly personal, vitally important health decisions without fear of state interference, arrest or prosecution. And we drafted and passed a good law in Maine, so that some patients can.
But others – like Sgt. Ryan Begin – have been left out – and that is unacceptable.
We shouldn’t be pushing veterans and other sick Mainers into the black market or onto harsher, less effective pharmaceuticals because they don’t have the specific conditions defined by bureaucrats and lawmakers – almost none of whom have any medical training.
This bill would solve that problem - allowing access to marijuana for whatever the doctor deems appropriate in consultation with their patient. Just like any other medication.
Doctors do not have to consult a government created list when they decide to advise dietary changes, recommend physical therapy or prescribe pharmaceuticals that carry risk of injury or death – so why should they have to for marijuana?
This bill is about bringing Sgt. Begin and others like him out of the shadows, away from the black market, and into doctor’s office. These patients were fully within the spirit of Maine lawmakers who last session voted to protect patient privacy and expand access to patients, and they too deserve the protections of Maine law.
Unfortunately, current Maine law still fails to reflect the compassionate intent of voters and lawmakers. Despite vast improvements the law is still a work in progress, and one of the primary flaws is its failure to include any mental or behavioral health conditions or to provide an adequate process for adding new conditions.
The law, therefore, manages to serve a portion of patients who could benefit from cannibas, while simultaneously, stubbornly denying the medical benefits of marijuana to other patients equally ill and equally as deserving of relief.
In fact, for these patients, the law continues to infringe on individual privacy, perpetuate the misguided portrayal of medical marijuana patients and caregivers as criminals, and create unworkable contradictions that could force patients to violate the law.
Those of use here today will tell you that we hear all the time from veterans and others who use cannibas to relieve their PTSD, anxiety, insomnia or other mental or behavioral health condition or for a physical ailment not yet on the list, so there is an urgent and pressing need to return this decision to it’s proper place – the doctor’s office – not the legislature.
It has been several years since the state was charged with setting up a system to review and add new conditions – yet no system exists. This bill would address that by putting decisions about who can benefit from medical marijuana where they belong - in the hands of doctors. Seriously ill patients and their loved ones shouldn’t have cross their fingers and hope that their medical condition was one of those included by lawmakers or bureaucrats or wait to lobby the legislature to add their condition while, in the meantime suffering needlessly or being forced underground.
These kinds of highly personal medical decisions – especially when loaded with stigma and potential backlash – belong in the privacy of a doctor’s office, not the halls of the legislature. This bill properly allows patients to keep their medical condition and treatment decisions between their doctors and themselves. By returning medical decisions to the doctors instead of bureaucrats, we will ensure more patients will be able to lawfully use the medication they need to alleviate their suffering and fulfill the compassionate intent of our citizenry. So we are back, to try again. To ensure all Maine patients have lawful access to the vital medicine they need.
Please tell your legislator to support compassionate care and medical privacy. Read more here and here about the bill and its support. And watch a video of Sgt. Begin on Youtube here.
