Marijuana use gains support, but not here

Supporters of legalizing marijuana in Wisconsin for medicinal use announced a rally for it that was to be held at the Lake Delton Walmart parking lot Saturday, but no participants could be found in a visit to the site Saturday.

Public backing is growing, say supporters of a movement to have a bill in the Wisconsin legislature passed to allow marijuana for use by certain patients.

A poll from the Pew Research Center found that nearly three-fourths of Americans (73 percent) support allowing the sale and use of marijuana for medical purposes.

Demonstrations were held Saturday in some 30 cities across Wisconsin and Michigan, according to Wisconsin chapter of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws field director Jay Selthofner. Rallies were held in Eau Claire, Oshkosh and Berlin, Selthofner said. They also were scheduled in Green Bay, Appleton, Wisconsin Rapids, Platteville, Dodgeville, La Crosse, Fond du Lac, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Madison.

Selthofner is collecting participants’ photos from the events on the group’s Facebook page, Wisconsin Residents for Assembly Bill 554, which is the bill in the state Legislature that would legalize marijuana for people with serious health problems.

He called last Saturday’s rallies the “largest event ever” in medical marijuana activism in Wisconsin, considering all the new activists that he said came to the locations.

He was a witness to the amount of T-shirts sold for the cause.

“The support was there. It was really just amazing,” he said.

The group chose to demonstrate on public streets by Wal-Marts, Selthofner said, because it’s a well-known location in communities and recently a Battle Creek, Mich., Wal-Mart employee, Joe Casais, was fired because he tested positive for marijuana even though it’s legal for certain patients to use marijuana in that state. Casais has cancer and was tested for drugs when he filed a workman’s compensation claim over a sprained knee at work, according to a report by The Grand Rapids Press.

According to NORML, there are 14 states that have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes. Wisconsin activists think it’s only a matter of time before it’s condoned in Wisconsin.

A bill has been sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Mark Pocan and state Sen. Jon Erpenbach. It still needs to be approved by committees and the state Senate and Assembly and have a signature from Gov. Jim Doyle who favors the bill as long as patients accessing the drug have a prescription. The end of the current legislative session is April 22. If the bill isn’t passed by then, the bill-making process starts over.

According to the Legislative Reference Bureau, the bill would make marijuana use legal for “a debilitating medical condition” like cancer, glaucoma, AIDS, a positive HIV test, Crohn’s disease, a Hepatitis C virus infection, Alzheimer’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, nail patella syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, or “the treatment of such a disease or condition, that causes wasting away, severe pain, severe nausea, seizures, or severe and persistent muscle spasms; or any other medical condition or treatment for a medical condition designated as a debilitating medical condition or treatment in rules promulgated by the Department of Health Services.”

The maximum amount of marijuana a patient could be in possession of would be 12 marijuana plants and three ounces, or about 85 grams. Users would need to register and have a card to access the drug and a physician’s prescription.

Gary Storck, a Dane County resident, is on the boards of Wisconsin NORML and Is My Medicine Legal Yet?, two organizations advocating for marijuana, or cannabis, use for medicine. He has also written a series of articles that appeared on Examiner.com chronicling the debate around AB554/SB368, the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act.

Storck happens to use marijuana to ease his own discomfort stemming from Noonan syndrome. Storck suffered a variety of birth defects and has glaucoma and has needed several open heart surgeries as a consequence of his health condition. He said the marijuana is effective, adding it allows him to still climb stairs even with his respiratory ailments. He said he’s not on any other cardiac medications and he has no symptoms from his heart condition.

Storck said he can use marijuana in Wisconsin because he has a prescription for it from a California doctor.

A report in The Capital Times from November lists several organizations supporting and opposing the bill to legalize marijuana as medicine. It has support from the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, the Hospice Organization and Palliative Experts of Wisconsin and the state Epilepsy Foundation.

The Wisconsin Medical Society doesn’t support the bill because of worries about negative effects from smoking it. Supporters of the bill believe other ways of taking marijuana can include inhaling vapors, swallowing capsules, lozenges, candies and applying salves that wouldn’t hurt the lungs.

“There’s nothing to fear about passing this,” Storck said.

When asked if the bill would make it easier for people with non-medical conditions to access the drug, he said the risk shouldn’t be any greater than it already is. People are already obtaining it on the streets anyway, he said. And there are other prescription drugs like oxycontin that are falling into young peoples’ hands who are dying from consuming it, he said.