jeanie, consult your dr. to see if medical marijuana is right for you. side effect might be opening up your mind to see that a harmless plant may help a person suffering with pain.

Jeanie Lowe,

Marijuana is ALREADY treated as medication by our federal government. Look at the marijuana which is grown, harvested, cured, processed, and shipped to patients on a monthly basis by the University of Mississippi, all paid for by U.S. taxpayers. The federal government KNOWS marijuana is medicine! Nixon himself commissioned the Shafer Report in 1971, hoping its findings would support his planned War on Drugs. When the findings SUPPORTED marijuana as a non-fatal, medicinally-sound substance, Nixon buried the report, ignoring its fact-based findings, and pressed on with his agenda.
It’s medicine. Face it. Legalize it. Stop causing the suffering of sick and dying people!
Ms. Lowe, if your child were howling in pain after devastating chemotherapy treatments, you may well change your tune…

Any doctor or pharmacist will tell you that there are drugs on the market that do the exact same thing as marijuana. They are regulated to precise measurements, tested, and approved by the FDA, ensuring that Americans receive precise dosing prescribed by their doctor. That assurance of your health and safety is not available when you smoke a joint, given the many variables in type and size of marijuana cigarette, type of plant, etc. In only the rarest of circumstances does a situation arise where for some reason the medicine is not able to be used or not effective for an individual. In those specific instances, I doubt anyone wants to deny a dying man marijuana if it helps him through the final chapter of life. But those cases have been hijacked by pro-pot advocates who know that the more marijuana is made available to them, the easier it will be to acquire for everyone. They have found willing partners in physicians who, ethically or unethically write marijuana “prescriptions” for “patients” who may still have other approved options of treatment available to them. In California, some doctors write prescriptions for 30 or more people at a time. I can’t think of any patient that would willingly seek to be seen en masse by their physician with a legitimate medical problem.

In 1870 cannabis as medicine was added to the US Pharmacopeia.Twenty pages long of medical uses for it. It was the primary pain relief remedy around the world till asprin was produced. In 1941 Harry J. Anslinger head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics had it removed. Anslinger threatened to send researchers to jail if they didn’t get his personal permission. Which of course, wasn’t gonna happen. JFK fired him, but the damage was already done.By the way JFK used it for pain. So those that use, are in very good company.

Thankfully, 80% of Illinoisans are smart enough to see through your weak arguments. Prescription pills are abused all the time, do you want to stop prescribing those too? Nearly half of the United States population has tried Cannabis despite it’s illegality, and that number is rising. High schoolers readily admit that obtaining marijuana is much easier than obtaining alcohol. By opposing medical marijuana, you are denying other human beings the right to have relief from their terrible symptoms. This is immoral and selfish. If you had a loved one wasting away in severe agony from chemo, and a doctor said Cannabis could alleviate some of that suffering, surely wouldn’t you want them to be banned from accessing that medication.

Marinol, the pill form of THC, is not the same as ingesting all the substances found in Cannabis. That is only one of the hundreds of compounds that make up Cannabis. Therefore, their effects are different. There is a library of scientific evidence that supports marijuana as a medicine. This bill is about compassion, not drugs.