Medical Marijuana in Maryland

The struggle goes forward. In association as a volunteer with Americans for Safe Access http://www.safeaccessnow.org/ and Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org/ I continue to work for a better medical marijuana law in Maryland. This year we are conducting an education program. We will be holding teach-ins through out the state. By attending one of these teach-ins we hope you will come away with a better understanding of the following:

* Your rights under Maryland Law
* Your rights under Federal Law
* Current research of marijuana as medicine
* How to contact your state and federal representatives
* And much more!

You are not alone! There are thousands of people throughout this nation working to insure you have the right to use cannabis (marijuana) to relieve your symptoms from disease and chronic pain due to injury or disease. I am sure that if enough people in Maryland and the Nation join us in speaking out we will once and for all have the right to avail ourselves of the medicinal properties of cannabis. Marijuana has been used as medicine for thousands of years. We should not be prevented from using marijuana as medicine. Teach-ins are currently scheduled for:

• Baltimore, Md, on Tuesday March, 11th, 2008 from 6 to 9pm, at St. Paul's Church, 2460 St. Paul St., Baltimore, Md. 21218; For more information call (415) 283-7404
• Salisbury, Md. on Tuesday March 18th from 5:30 to 8:30pm, at Wicomico Public Library, 122 S. Division St., Salisbury, Md. 21801; For more information call (410) 713-5374
• Silver Spring, Md. on Thursday March 20th, 2008 from 6 to 9pm, at NAPWA, 8401 Colesville, Rd. Silver Spring, Md. 20910; For more information call (415) 283-7404
• Hagerstown, Md. on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 from 6- 9pm, at Hempen Hill BBQ, 13208 Fountainhead Plaza,
  Hagerstown, Md. 21742; For more information call (415) 283-7404
  
  

On a more personal note, I have been active in the movement to pass a truly compassionate, Maryland Compassionate Use Act, for about a year and as half now. There is an awful lot of support for this legislation. Even some of the more conservative representatives to the Maryland General Assembly are on board to vote in favor of a better law than the current Darrell Putnam Compassionate Use Act. It is extremely important to all of us to support medicinal marijuana laws. While most do not currently qualify for such protection, life's a bitch and you never know what's around the corner. For instance, how many of us know someone who was fine one day and facing a lifetime of pain the next due to a car accident. I have a neighbor, who we all thought was the picture of health. Than suddenly they are diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. How about cancer, how many of us know someone in our extended families facing cancer? We never know when we will find ourselves in need of the protection to use cannabis to relieve our suffering. I hate that word suffering it is a defeatist word. While I am in pain 24 hours a day I don't like saying that I am suffering even though by definition it fits my circumstance. Why, for the same reason I don't refer to myself as a polio victim. I prefer the more positive term polio survivor. I don't suffer with pain, I live with it because that is all a person can do. I prefer marijuana over Vicodin because I trust Mother nature more than I trust Pfizer.