Madison NORML

And while the State Journal seemingly could not find a reporter to cover Tuesday's press conference announcing the "Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act", they did print an item by gossip columnist Melanie Conklin two days after the fact, making fun of medical marijuana.

I think most people would agree that when a seriously or chronically ill patient cannot access their medicine, it constitutes a medical emergency. This is the plight Wisconsin patients who need legal access to medical marijuana face each day!

I don't know which is more offensive, the State Journal failing to cover the press conference and then making light of patients need for medicine, or unnamed (as in cowardly) Republicans making light of the suffering of sick and dying constituents in the course of playing attack politics as usual.

Rather than making fun of the sincere attempt by two Assembly Democrats to change the law and get medicine to patients, which has the support of most of us, why not actually send a reporter to the press conference and report what happened, or in the case of lawmakers, listen to your constituents and cosponsor the bill?

The State Journal has covered the issue well in the past few years, and quite sympathetically. Is it old news now because the GOP leadership through the last 5 sessions (1997-2006) has sent each medical marijuana bill to a committee to die?

It is really all about the patients, and if the State Journal had actually bothered to show up and listen, they would have heard suffering patients and family members talk about how cannabis helps them manage painful and debilitating conditions.

If the State Journal wants to help set the record straight, how about inviting Jacki Rickert, myself and other medical cannabis patients to share their stories with the editorial board? My number's on the press release I sent about Tuesday's wheelchair march and press conference.

Conklin: For designers, BioShock more than fun and games click here

September 20, 2007

[snip]

Smoking allowed?

Rep. Frank Boyle and Rep. Mark Pocan issued a press release announcing their co-sponsorship of a bill legalizing access to medical marijuana for patients with "debilitating medical conditions ... if authorized by their doctor," as the release put it.

But the subject line on their e-mail was titled, "WI Clean Elections Fund," causing Republicans to have much fun pondering whether Boyle and Pocan were "sampling the product they hope to legalize when they put this together," as one put it.

[snip]