Cannabis has been a medicine since at least 2800BCE. It was regarded as a patented medicine used in numerous tinctures and extracts in the 1800s and early 1900s. It was listed in America’s Pharmacopeia until the 1940s when Harry Anslinger pushed a racial agenda under the guise of a harmful and unfamiliar “Marijuana drug substance” deluding the American people, and demonizing the social minority. Today’s anti marijuana campaigns are no less ignorant, and policy makers need to shift their focus from prohibition to harm reduction. Adopting a harm reduction strategy to Cannabis policy means finding ways to minimize the harmful impact on society, and must include a careful reexamination of drug laws in our country (Holland 2010). I agree with the great Jimmy Carter that penalties against the possession of a drug should not be more damaging than the use of that drug. How can we propose law to punish people who are helped by Medicinal Cannabis?

An estimated 3.5 million U.S. citizens report smoking Cannabis daily or almost daily, 14.5 million report smoking cannabis at least once a month, and more than 100 million have tried it at least once in their lives (SAMHSA 2008). American users are only a fraction of the estimated 162 million reported regular users worldwide (United Nations 2006). Drug use does not seem to be related to drug policy however as countries with more lax policies – for example the Netherlands – do not report higher levels of illegal drug use than countries with more rigid drug laws like here in the U.S of A. Forty-three percent of Americans have tried cannabis as opposed to only twenty percent of the Dutch (Macoun and Reuter 2001). What the Dutch have figured out is by setting cannabis apart from the harder drugs; they can impact the kinds of drugs people end up using. As all harder drug use in Holland is much lower than American reports too. Perhaps our own drug policy officials should borrow some harm-reduction theory from our Dutch friends. The only way to increase common knowledge about the subjective effects of cannabis is to study it scientifically, but first our congress has to tell the FDA to move it off of Schedule I. In the more than 19,000 published scientific studies documenting the medical efficacy of cannabis the plant has been found to have a multitude of cannabinoids all with different effects on the body.

By the time this article makes it to print, they might have pushed all legislation through both house and senate. There could possibly be a MMJ repeal bill sitting on Schweitzer’s desk, as well as a bill that would ban the use of certain kinds of contraceptives including birth control pills, IUDs, and emergency contraception. Legislators should be focused on fixing the economy, not amending our constitution in a way that would put lives at risk and undermine their ability to make private medical decisions. My plea to Mr. Schweitzer is please sir don’t let a handful of misinformed individuals take the liberty of self care and the empowerment of using a natural substance in place of a pharmacopeia of synthetics away from nearly 30,000 MT citizens.

I am employed by the Medical Cannabis industry. My employer provides benefits, a retirement plan, gym memberships, and MSU extension classes. We participate in educational conferences such as the MT Pain Initiative, and MT Women’s Policy Leadership Institute. We follow HIPPA standards of patient privacy, have ample security, are Chamber members, and Master Gardener volunteers. We abide by state and local ordinance 100 percent. We sell Medical Cannabis, donate a portion of our proceeds back into the community, and we offer many alternatives to smoking as a means of ingestion. I am a full time salaried manager who employs two other full time, and two part time employees. The Legislature so far has failed to imagine the actual effects repeal would have on people’s financial well-being and on the broader economy, statewide. Consider, for example, how many people are now employed, able to feed their families and pay their rents and mortgages, as a result of jobs created in the legal cannabis production sector. Consider, further, all the long-established Main Street businesses (from garden supply and hardware stores, to accountants, lawyers and numerous others) that remain in business solely or in part because of the new customers legal cannabis has created.

Marijuana laws aside, what is going on in our states capital right now is a shame. Montana has always been a state full of people who value their freedoms, but I have never heard of such radical policy coming out of a legislative session. In my opinion not one legislator (or lobbyist for that matter) is holding to their promises to accurately represent their constituents. To pull the rug out from under one another right on the floor of the house after feigning support in the hallways, to even be messing with a United States supreme court decision regarding a woman’s private right to have absolute control over her own body, to have the audacity to believe that debunking the EPA is in any way a benefit to one of the last self sustaining eco systems in the world, to cut for the sake of cutting. To as representatives of the people buy into the social construction of a drastic dichotomy between parties and let it affect your decision making skills. I feel like the pre-k individuals in our communities would be more effective, fair and balanced policy makers. The popular vote made medical cannabis a possibility in this state and if anyone should have the power to repeal it then it should go back on the ballot to ask the population what they think. Please write your governor and ask him not to let a bill pass that will take our jobs away. With all the self serving interests coming out of Helena right now my question is: What about the patients?

Carley Rae is a registered caregiver in the state of MT. The views expressed here are solely hers and not a reflection of the views of her employer. As always she is delighted to receive all questions, comments, and lively rhetoric at peacefulproviderpr@gmail.com