Student group supports medical marijuana

The newly formed Students for Iowa Medical Marijuana group held several events Nov. 17, 18 and 19. From showing the colored rendition of the 1936 film, “Reefer Madness,” to hosting a lecture by Carl Olsen of Iowans for Medical Marijuana, SIMM is looking to change the minds and attitudes of medical marijuana opponents.
   
Amy Hatcher, the initiator of SIMM, said the group started as a class project in Ruth Chananie-Hill’s Social Movement class.

“We started out with people individually picking issues,” Hatcher said. “Then we were grouped into similar issue groups and there (were) four of them. Then those smaller issues had to present their argument to the rest of the class, and then the whole class had to decide what (issue) to take from there.”

Originally, two issues split the class: the environment and medical marijuana. Hatcher believes her group won because her issue is currently being debated by the Iowa Board of Pharmacy and would allow the class to get involved and make a difference.

“This is a well-developed argument that’s been put together for a (long) period of ... time,” Olsen said. “The environment: they’ll still be arguing about that when this is resolved.”

In May 2008, Olsen petitioned the IBOP to recommend marijuana be removed from Schedule I of the Iowa Controlled Substances Act because it no longer fit the Schedule I criteria that marijuana “(h)as high potential for abuse; and has no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States; or lacks accepted safety of use in treatment under medical supervision.”

He argued that 13 states have already legalized marijuana for medical use. Therefore, it has a medical use in the United States.

On Nov. 19, Olsen spoke to a crowd of 47 people in the Elm Room of Maucker Union.

“My petition was ‘do whatever you want with it, just take it out of Schedule I,’” he said. “I’m not telling you to put it into (Schedule) II, III, IV or V ...  It has medical use; it can’t be in Schedule I. And we can all agree on that.”


 

2 comments

common sense

Wed Dec 16 2009 16:08

They should make it more than medicinal. If you make it available through pharmicies or other legitimate dispencaries you take away revenue from criminals and gangs. Obviously they'd still have meth and crack and stuff like that, but the highest bought/sold drug in the US is marijuana. The proceeds can go to support the US's unending policy of occupying 132 foreign nations so our military is spread so thin it sinks us deeper and deeper in to debt.

Storm Crow

Thu Dec 3 2009 14:49

Cannabis is an amazing healing herb! Alzheimer's, nausea, osteoporosis, arthritis, epilepsy, MS, PTSD, certain cancers, fibromyalgia, ALS, glaucoma, Crohn's/IBS, neuropathic pain, diabetes and Parkinson's can ALL be treated with cannabis! But PLEASE, do NOT believe me! I want you to read the scientific studies and articles for yourself! I've made it easy for you- all you have to do is run a single search on "Granny Storm Crow's list- July 2009" to access hundreds of cannabis studies.

The list is not a collection of "High Times" articles and fuzzy-minded hippie ravings- the studies are from exactly the same sources that your doctor would use- MedScape, Pub Med and other medical journals, plus a few newspaper articles about the studies (for those of you who don't want to wade through the scientific jargon). I just want you to educate yourself about medical cannabis and see what it can do for you. Thank you.

To Amy and the rest of SIMM- Good work, kids! Keep it up! If your group (or any of you reading this) would like a copy of my list (PDF or WORD), you can get a free copy by emailing me at i.wantgrannyslist(at)greenpassion.org . This knowledge is too valuable to be ignored!

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