Michigan residents: Stop arresting patients and vote Yes on Proposal 1

Your Daily Chum is fervently behind the effort to legalize marijuana for medicinal use in the state of Michigan. In graduate school, The Chum Master has read more policy papers and patient and doctor accounts than you can imagine. Having personally met dozens of Michigan citizens who utilized marijuana to ease their sufferings from diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and AIDS, we strongly urge all Michigan residents to vote “Yes” on Proposal 1 on November 4th. It’s a simple issue: will we allow the seriously ill to choose their method of treatment or will we continue to buy into the decades of lies spoonfed to us by the federal government and pharmaceutical companies?

The Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care (MCCC) is a grassroots organization devoted to passing Proposal 1, the medical marijuana initiative on the November 2008 ballot. Proposal 1 will protect seriously ill Michiganders suffering from illnesses like cancer, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis from the threat of arrest and jail for simply trying to alleviate their pain.

If Proposal 1 is passed by a majority of voters on November 4, Michigan law will allow these patients – some of the most vulnerable members of our community – to use, possess, and grow their own marijuana for medical purposes, with their doctors’ approval. It will create a registry of patients and a system of ID cards, so that law enforcement will easily be able to tell who is a legitimate participant in the program and who is not, and establish penalties for false statements and fraudulent cards. And by maintaining current prohibitions on public use and driving under the influence of marijuana, Proposal 1 will ensure that the law does exactly what it sets out to do – protect the seriously ill from the threat of arrest and jail, and do so responsibly.

Please take time to watch the interview below of how marijuana eased the sufferings of a woman facing cancer.

This ad features Manistee, Mich. resident Dr. George Wagoner, whose wife of 51 years, Beverly, succumbed to cancer in 2007. During her ordeal, she found that few prescription medications effectively combated her chemotherapy-related nausea as well as medical marijuana, which Dr. Wagoner procured for her. Since her passing, he has dedicated himself to ensuring that no one else has to break the law in order to relieve their loved ones’ suffering. As he notes in the ad, “It shouldn’t be a crime to follow a doctor’s advice.”

Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care

Tags: AIDS, Cancer, cannabis, chemotherapy, coalition for compassionate care, compassion, Crohn's Disease, DEA, Drugs, election 2008, fda, hiv, lymphoma, Medicinal Marijuana, Michigan, MS, proposal 1, safe access, stop arresting patients, the drug war is a disaster