As the Georgia Legislature nears hopefully passing a bill that adds conditions to Georgia’s medical cannabis law, there have been several recent inconsistent and misleading reports as to what this law has done and will do.
My daughter suffers from uncontrollable seizures, and we have seen success using medical cannabis oil. This law has allowed us the opportunity to work with our doctor to determine what medicine is best for her. Contrary to what a vocal minority of opponents say, we are not trying to legally smoke pot and we are not trying to make money. We are trying to gain access to the best medicine available, backed by research, that helps our daughter’s condition. Period.
Because of these inaccuracies I feel it is important to lay out what these medical cannabis laws are, and what they are not.
This is NOT about recreational use. Despite our opponents’ insistence, or complete lack of understanding, medical and recreational use of cannabis are two completely different sets of issues and arguments. We and many others simply want medical cannabis as an option to treat our debilitating conditions. We want a safe, consistent, lab-tested product that our doctors can work with.
This is NOT about drug abuse. If you want to abuse marijuana, then you can easily do so today. Our children and other patients actually get more “high” and addicted to all of the current pharmaceuticals we are forced to take today. Our opponents point to studies that show teen use of marijuana “may” cause some long-term impacts to developing brains. These studies were conducted on non-sick teenagers who were smoking pot. Our children are already on 4 to 10 medications per day that CAN cause much more severe side effects.
This IS about putting medical cannabis on the same playing field as every other single medication that our doctors are allowed to prescribe. The opponents say they want research showing the benefits. The research is out there, they just refuse to read it. They say they want double-blind placebo trials. Those are out there too, but in small quantities because the federal government blocks this kind of research, at the same time as asking why it’s not available. Why is medical cannabis treated so differently?
As a parent wanting what is best for their child, we are forced to fight for state laws to circumvent the immoral federal laws. All these state laws do is allow a patient to work with their doctor in determining if medical cannabis even works for them.
This IS about the success stories we’ve already seen here in Georgia. Georgia’s current program has over 1,300 patients, over 300 registered doctors, ZERO instances of abuse, and over a thousand success stories.
There’s the child with seizures, whose seizure count has been drastically reduced from 20 to 50 per day to an average of 1 per day. There’s the elderly churchgoer with severe pain from a damaged nerve in his face, who is now able to drive, go to eat with his family, and drop two of his dangerous pharmaceuticals. There’s the autistic child, who previously had to be locked in her room because of rages and her danger to others, who can now carry on a conversation and go to a restaurant with her parents. There’s the Tourette Syndrome patient whose tics have been drastically reduced. There’s the MS patient whose spasms have decreased dramatically. There’s the teen-age Crohn’s patient whose symptoms and pain have been greatly reduced, and he can now attend school again. And there’s the namesake of Georgia’s first medical cannabis bill, Haleigh, who instead of being in a hospital bed with numerous seizures, just said “Momma” for the first time. And on and on.
These are real stories of real Georgians who have been given their life back – all because of medical cannabis.
We need more success stories. The only way to get them is to allow more people the ability to work with their doctor to see if medical cannabis is an option. Why would anyone want to prevent a doctor from having ALL the options available to them?
Blaine Cloud, along with his wife Shannon, are the parents of Alaina Cloud, who suffers from Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy. They are co-founders of Georgia’s Hope and live in Smyrna.
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