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"Thank you for your excellent column Mr. Pearcey. If not number one, this issue should be one of the very first things that Oklahomans correct in the new year. Helping people with cancer and severe pain should rank at the top!
Dr. Donald Abrams is the Chief of Hemotology and Encology at San Franciso General Hospital, and a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. He told me that he wrote letters to Senator Brian Crain and Senator Brian Bingman a couple of weeks ago, explaining to them that the government had made it difficult to study cannabis, but that he had done several clinical studies on medical cannabis, and explained how he has treated thousands of patients with cancer or HIV who experience nausea, weight loss, pain, insomnia, and depression. With cannabis, he can recommend that a patient try one medicine instead of five or six prescriptions that will interact either with one another or with their other primary treatments. For many patients, cannabis is a safer option, with fewer side effects. Cannabis’ side effects are mild and well tolerated. Unlike many other medications, it has never been shown to cause a fatal overdose.
Alcohol kills thousands of people every year from overdosing, yet Oklahoma is having such a hard time to even get the politicians to even discuss it, much less allow Oklahomans to vote on it like so many other states are doing now. Medical cannabis is now legal in 17 states, and recently made legal in 2 states as recreation, and will be treated the same as beer and alcohol.
I have had neck and back surgery where my spine was fused in several places, which made it so that I could use my arms again, but I would like to see medical cannabis legalized in Oklahoma so I can see if I could contol the severe chronic pain that I have in my neck and back. I would like to eliminate the strong pain pills that I have to take twice a day, but I can't find out for sure unless it is legalized here. I have been told by several people that have my problem that they were able to eliminate several pills they used to have to take, which saved them money at the pharmacy. This makes me wonder if our politicians are fighting for us....or are they fighting for the big pharma companies. It a shame that we should even have to ask that question.
It's time to quit sweeping this issue under the rug, and time to think about the many patients that can benefit from legalizing medical cannabis. Actually, it's the politicians that need to quit sweeping it under the rug, because the latest Oklahoma poll indicates that 81% of Oklahomans are in favor of legalizing it as medicine.
While we are on this issue, we should also help Oklahoma farmers out by legalizing the growing of help, which could help this state's economy a great deal. We can save the cutting of trees, use hemp rather that our food supply such as corn and sugar for fuel, which should lower the price of our foods. Hemp can also be used to make building materials that are actually better that the materials we use today!
All of these pluses, but the first thing we must do is just get our politicians to talk about it. We cannot make any progress until they will discuss it."
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