Madison NORML

Hopefully this will inspire some activism up in the Green Bay area and Fox Valley area. Medical cannabis supporters need to pull out all the stops. Please contact your legislators, the Assembly Speaker and GOP Majority Leader and Rep. Vukmir and demand the bill see action this session. To find out who represents you click here.
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Newshawk: Is My Medicine Legal YET? www.immly.org
Source: Green Bay Press Gazette
Pubdate: January 11, 2008
Author: Gary Storck Guest commentary

GUEST COLUMN: STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW REMAINS ELUSIVE

I was sorry to read of the passing of former Wisconsin Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus. Gov. Dreyfus signed Wisconsin's first medical marijuana bill into law April 19, 1982. As a glaucoma patient fighting each day to save my precious eyesight, I had already been using cannabis for 10 years at that time, and had lobbied for the bill.

The Therapeutic Cannabis Research Act passed both houses easily, the Assembly 77-19 and the Senate 32-1. Similar legislation was passed in more than two-thirds of U.S. states. Unfortunately, these bills were written with the expectation that the federal government would supply the program's medical marijuana. With federal authorities unwilling to supply marijuana to sick and dying U.S. citizens, the law became symbolic.

While Dreyfus remained a supporter of medical marijuana in his later years, even writing about it, many of the Republican legislators who followed him in state government have failed to honor his compassionate vision by blocking medical marijuana legislation each time it is introduced. This session, the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act is awaiting action in the Assembly's Health and Healthcare Reform committee. So far, committee Chairwoman Rep. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, a nurse, has stated the bill will not receive a hearing. If the bill does not receive a hearing soon, it will die in committee like previous attempts dating more than a decade.

Polling has established popular support for medical marijuana exceeds 80 percent in Wisconsin. As an advocate for medical cannabis, I constantly receive calls from patients and family members who indicate there is a crisis in pain management in our state. I know the good folks who call me and tell me about their pain represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Memo to the GOP leadership: The sick and dying are not your enemy. I get calls from Republicans, too. Serious illness knows no party affiliation.

Let's get this done, this session, in honor of the memory of a man ahead of his time, Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus, who did his best to try to help patients and families with nowhere to turn, as well as the thousands and thousands of Wisconsinites who died in pain and those still suffering and waiting for state lawmakers to finally do the right thing.

Please make passage of AB 550, the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act, a true priority when the Legislature reconvenes Jan. 15.

Gary Storck of Madison is a longtime medical marijuana patient and advocate. He serves as director of communications of Is My Medicine Legal YET? (www.immly.org) and co-founded the Madison and Wisconsin chapters of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).