74% of Voters, Across the Political Spectrum: Stop Interfering with State MMJ laws

[RainDog]

42. x-posting the judge's plea for pot

from this thread - http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002698108

Because this is why so many Americans want the Federal Govt. to change this law NOW.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/opinion/a-judges-plea-for-medical-marijuana.html?_r=1

...I did not foresee that after having dedicated myself for 40 years to a life of the law, including more than two decades as a New York State judge, my quest for ameliorative and palliative care would lead me to marijuana.

Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep. The oral synthetic substitute, Marinol, prescribed by my doctors, was useless. Rather than watch the agony of my suffering, friends have chosen, at some personal risk, to provide the substance. I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately needed sleep.

This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue. Being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I am receiving the absolute gold standard of medical care. But doctors cannot be expected to do what the law prohibits, even when they know it is in the best interests of their patients. When palliative care is understood as a fundamental human and medical right, marijuana for medical use should be beyond controversy.

Given my position as a sitting judge still hearing cases, well-meaning friends question the wisdom of my coming out on this issue. But I recognize that fellow cancer sufferers may be unable, for a host of reasons, to give voice to our plight. It is another heartbreaking aporia in the world of cancer that the one drug that gives relief without deleterious side effects remains classified as a narcotic with no medicinal value.

This judge's experience mirrors the reality that the Attn. Gen. for the State of Utah found when he was dx'd with cancer and he, too, became familiar with the actual experiences of others whose use of cannabis made it possible for him to survive.

This judge's experience will not, hopefully, mirror that of Peter McWilliams, who was killed by the DEA when he was forbidden the use of the medical marijuana that allowed him to keep down his life saving medications, but who was constrained from its use in order to avoid financial ruin for his mother.

STOP HURTING PEOPLE, Michelle Leonhart.

Stop KILLING PEOPLE, Michelle Leonhart. Your inaction, your refusal to reschedule cannabis is killing people. That makes you a murderer.