Press Release
Patients Out of Time
The Alaska Nurses Association is the eighth state
nursing association to call on the federal government
to allow the reinstatement of medical Cannabis (marijuana)
into the National Formulary of the United States. This
action was taken in September of 1998 and was considered
to be a positive factor in that state's electorate
voting to allow their physicians to prescribe medical
Cannabis to the ill. Patients Out of Time both assisted
and endorsed nurses in Alaska who presented their organization
this opportunity to publicly act as patient advocates.
The original state nursing association to adopt a
resolution calling on the federal government to desist
from it's policy of incarcerating the sick and dying
was from the conservative state of Virginia. The Virginia
Nurses Association which represents 78,000 nurses throughout
that state, did so in the fall of 1994. The sponsor
of that original resolution, Mary Lynn Mathre, RN,
CARN states that "nurses by their oath and code
of conduct are required to protect the public from
misinformation and misrepresentation about health issues
and must promote community and national efforts to
meet the health care needs of the public." Nurses
also play a significant role in politics. With one
of every forty registered voters in the US a nurse,
their position on health issues is formidable and in
direct contradiction of the "drug warriors" untenable
stand that medical use and recreational use of marijuana
are one and the same.
A compilation list of groups that have endorsed medical
marijuana now numbers 63, 35 of which are health care
organizations. Included in this list are the American
Public Health Association (the oldest and largest health
care group in the country), the American Preventative
Medical Association, the medical associations of Florida
and California and the Physicians Association for AIDS
Care as well as the state nursing associations of Colorado,
California, Mississippi, New York, New Mexico, and
North Carolina in addition to Virginia and Alaska.
Patients Out of Time represents six of the eight patients
in the US that receive their medical marijuana from
the federal government. Patients Out of Time has compiled
its list of supporting organizations to confront the
assertions by the drug czar, General McCaffrey and
other federal officials who claim there are no health
care groups that support medical marijuana. We may
be reached at (804) 263-4484; Patients@MedicalCannabis.com;
or www.commonlink.com/~olsen/.
12/98
