THE RATIONAL USE OF CANNABIS

Vermont needs a medical cannabis (marijuana) law to correct some unintended
consequences of the current law. Some people who are very ill do use
cannabis as medicine, but the potency is unknowable, black market forces
inflate the price, availability is uncertain and they risk arrest by local
authorities.

As a neurologist, I have treated patients who use cannabis illegally and
find that it treats symptoms of their epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and
severe musculoskeletal spasms. What these patients need is access to a
product of consistent potency, at the lowest cost possible, that can be
used safely and discretely, as medicine is usually employed.

A consistent potency product cannot be obtained on the black market, where
what is available is what slips through the borders in a given week.
Availability is presumably variable and the price is inflated by the black
market. The proposed amendment to H750 will not improve availability or
quality.

A product grown in controlled conditions from consistent seed stock can be
of a reliable potency if handled properly. Ideally, this would be grown in
a local non-profit place and distributed through pharmacies at as low cost
as possible. But John Walters and Asa Hutchinson have demonstrated that the
Federal government will not tolerate public medical cannabis production.

This leaves the patient growing a personal amount of medical cannabis. As
virtually all arrests for personal amounts of cannabis are by state or
local law enforcement, the legislature can make a difference to patients by
protecting them from local arrest, seizure and prosecution.

Some patients, especially those who are very ill or near death, cannot care
for themselves, let alone procure an ounce of cannabis for medicine.

Caregivers for such patients are not given an affirmative defense under the
amendment to H750. Providing a patient with less than a half an ounce of
cannabis can cost a caregiver two years in prison and $10,000 in fines.

Patients too sick to care for themselves, for whom there is least objection
to palliative measures, are given no consideration by the amendment to H750.

I hope Senator Sears gives further consideration to H645, which provides
for the legal use by the very ill, allows for personal production of a
reliable product by the patient, protects the patient's caregiver and also
protects the physician who might discuss the rational use of cannabis. The
amendment to H750 sustains the unfortunate aspects of the current law and
does not treat the sick fairly.

Joseph W. McSherry, Richmond