Over the last few years as Medical Marijuana advocates have introduced their concept into the political process, I have heard countless patient stories that leave you in tears.
Stories of pain, suffering, and death, that leave you numb. I have also been verbally abused, threatened, and hounded on social media by marijuana advocates. This issue is a very passionate issue for those who believe Medical Marijuana has and will help their situation. There is also passion from the medical side and government enforcement side which is unsure of the future health and human behavior implications of Medical Marijuana.
The final version of HB136 that passed in the Kentucky House of Representatives, is said to be a more restrictive version of the bill that was discussed last year, but at 118 pages, it is still a very complicated bill that undoubtably has areas of unforeseen unintended consequences. It sets up a whole new state bureaucracy that appears will need hundreds of government employees to oversee those profiting from this, and the possible licensing revenue will undoubtedly fall short of the cost to implement, especially when you figure in skyrocketing pension costs! State government is struggling greatly just performing core government services. To add more duties on State government at this point is only asking for even more fiscal troubles.
The science side of the issue is full of anecdotal stories of positive side effects. There is also plenty of horror stories of abuse that all started with marijuana use. I have talked to pharmacists and doctors alike who are at best neutral and at worst very negative. I have talked to family therapists and counselors who see the destruction of drug abuse in our culture and families. I have also talked to recovering addicts that have pointed to marijuana usage as the beginning of their addiction.
Over the last 30 years, psychiatrists and epidemiologists have turned speculation about marijuana’s dangers into science. Marijuana and THC have been shown to temporarily improve some conditions. It is commonly suggested for pain relief, but it is rarely tested against other pain relief drugs like ibuprofen in double blind, placebo studies. In July of 2018, a large four year study of patients with chronic pain in Australia showed cannabis use was associated with greater pain over time! We’ve been told that cannabis can stem opioid use. In reality, like alcohol, marijuana is too weak as a painkiller to work for most people who truly need opiates, such as terminal cancer patients. Finally, a mountain of peer-reviewed research in top medical journals show that marijuana can cause and worsen severe mental illness, especially psychosis, which is the medical term for a break from reality. The National Academy of Medicine found in 2017 that cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and regular use is likely to increase the risk of social anxiety disorders.
Marijuana use is also linked to several aspects of increased crime. I attended an NCSL conference last year in which a Denver police investigator spent an hour documenting the rise in crime and vehicle deaths following marijuana legalization. His most rememberable comment was, “In the past when you would drive up on a vehicle accident, there would be skid marks. Now there are no more skid marks. The vehicles are not even slowing down, due to the operator’s inability to react properly because of cannabis use!” An Oxford study has connected marijuana use to schizophrenia, and people who suffer from schizophrenia are five times as likely to commit violent crimes as healthy people, and almost 20 times as likely to commit homicide. Violent crime statistics are piling up as marijuana usage increases across the United States.
The question before me and the Legislature is not the simple question that The Gleaner has placed online. The question before me is in the form of a specific piece of legislation. When I take a hard look at HB 136, there are several concerns that are evident. Here are nine concerns that I have with HB 136:
1. The bill does not have any residency restrictions on the owners of marijuana enterprises. So, established out of state marijuana corporations will be first in line with completed applications and will be able to lock out local producers and less experienced local entrepreneurs. These larger, for-profit marijuana production businesses will be removing money from our state and citizens. This new industry will not be a home-owned industry in Kentucky as the bill supporters have been promoting.
2. The language that is used in several areas of the bill creates concerns that employers right to have a drug free workplace could be jeopardized. This could be troubling for safety sensitive industries such as transportation, manufacturing, and construction. Marijuana’s impairing effects last well beyond the feeling of being high (especially when taken as an eatable), and the presence of THC in the blood and tissue creates workplace risks, which translates into trouble for Kentucky businesses as they compete with other states and regions.
3. Not just doctors, but “practitioners” can recommend medical marijuana. This means that out of state “pot doctors” who may do thousands of medical marijuana recommendations per year, via telemedicine could flood the state with recommendations, since there is no limit on the amount of recommendations a practitioner can provide.
4. The bill does not have any labeling requirements related to warnings. For example, if there is a family history of mental illness, cardio or pulmonary disease. It doesn’t require a stated age limit for usage on the package. The lack of warnings will surely lead to medical malpractice lawsuits when adverse drug interactions occur. Where will liability land for these adverse drug interactions since they were not prescribed or dispensed by a licensed professional?
5. HB 136 allows people who have obtained a medical marijuana card in another state with completely different sets of qualifying conditions, to access medical marijuana in Kentucky! In California, insomnia, headaches and constipation all qualify for medical marijuana. Our qualification for medical marijuana will essentially be as low as the most permissive state.
6. A previous draft of HB136 listed qualifying medical conditions. This list of conditions has been removed now and it is being replaced by a “Board” that will decide what conditions qualify for a medical marijuana card. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how that Board will become very permissive and many illnesses could be added by the “Board”.
7. The bill allows dispensing of marijuana for minors with no minimum age, which will create all kinds of issues related to school officials and teachers, and how they will handle student’s “medical marijuana”. In California, a doctor recommended a “medical marijuana cookie” to a 5 year old to control a temper issue! There is nothing in this bill that would stop this from happening.
8. There are major concerns with the potency of the raw marijuana that will be used in the medical marijuana products. Medical professionals simply do not know how to dose marijuana because the plant potency can range substantially. The modern “greenhouse” grown marijuana is much more potent than the marijuana grown in past. How will consistency be regulated? How will you know if the patient is getting the right dosage?
9. HB 136 states that this “DOES NOT ALLOW FOR SMOKED MARIJUANA”, but raw marijuana will be available for sale, thereby making it available for smoking. The only thing keeping patients from smoking is the required label that says, “NOT INTENDED FOR CONSUMPTION BY SMOKING”!
I truly understand that there are hurting people in our state that need help to relieve their pain. There are sick children, whose parents are grieving for their children and want relief for their child, and there are terminally ill patients, like my father who struggled for seven years with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy before he passed away! I am sympathetic and want to help, and for those out there hiding behind their keyboards and phones that would say differently, as they bash me on social media, you simply do not know me or my motivations.
While it is easy to click a button and say yes to the question, “Do you support medical marijuana becoming law in the state of Kentucky for those with legitimate medical necessity.” The difficulty comes when the citizens depend on you to make sure that unintended health, societal, and public protection consequences do not occur from laws such as HB 136.
This session I have voted for HCR 5, which is a resolution that encourages additional Federal studies, and I am currently supporting HB 463 which budgets state dollars for a federally designated research facility at UK. Currently the federal government spends $100 million per year on marijuana research. With UK’s expertise in agriculture and their already federally qualified medical research facilities, we would be well positioned to receive federal funding to really begin to understand THC and its complete effect on the human body.
I am hopeful that research universities like UK, the Federal government, the DEA, and the FDA will soon develop approved uses and forms of the marijuana plant that will eliminate the many negative aspects I have described, but at this time I do not believe it is prudent for a political body, such as the Kentucky General Assembly, to approve the use of medical marijuana as currently described in HB 136.
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