Press Release

Patients Out of Time takes great pleasure in announcing a new beginning in medical education.

This national non-profit which represents the rights of patients and their caregivers in the struggle for medical marijuana has joined with the College of Nursing and the College of Medicine at the University of Iowa in hosting The First National Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics. This pioneering educational forum will be held at the University of Iowa on April 7 & 8, 2000. It will feature experts in the clinical use of Cannabis as well as six of the eight patients (two wish to remain anonymous) in the United States who receive their medical Cannabis from the federal government.

Six states at present have, by popular vote, allowed physicians to prescribe Cannabis to their patients when appropriate. Tens of thousands of the sick may be helped. By the same vote these states have overcome the federal government's unwarranted prohibition of this medicine and the federal refusal to provide this medicine to the sick and dying, by authorizing either patients or licensed providers to grow their own. The District of Columbia also voted for the same measure, judged by exit polls to be in the 70% approval range. In the capital of our nation, in the country that holds the vote a sacrament, our Senators and Congressmen refused to allow the votes to be tallied. The one dollar and sixty-two cent cost was more important than democracy or people dying in pain to elected federal officials.

The report of the Institute of Medicine about the therapeutic efficacy of Cannabis released March 17, 1999, is stronger but holds the same conclusion as their 1982 study of marijuana. Cannabis is an extremely safe medicine and the study determined there is "no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."

The issue of patient care to the sponsors of this conference is contrary to the callousness of Foggy Bottom. The millions of citizens of these six states and the thousands of patients who may be helped by therapeutic Cannabis expect their health care professionals to provide this medicine based on the latest knowledge about the therapeutic values of Cannabis. To that end this accredited conference will present a program that will include discussion of the proper dosage and administration; case presentations concerning pain control, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury spasticity; the wasting syndrome and AIDS; its efficacy as an anti-emetic; psychological and physiological effects; use during pregnancy; historical medical use and open discussion sessions.

The removal of Cannabis from the National Formulary in 1941 also effectively removed the knowledge base of this medicine as well. This conference is the beginning of the reeducation effort that must now take place to insure health care professionals and the patients they treat receive the best possible care. While this conference is of immediate need to those physicians and nurses in six states, there are 30 other states that have laws allowing for the prescription of therapeutic Cannabis. It is imperative that the health care communities of these states are brought to the state-of-the-art in these applications as well, in preparation for the day when their legislatures will follow compassion and allow local production. Mary Lynn Mathre RN, MSN, CARN, editor of the acclaimed and recently published Cannabis in Medical Practice, said today that "This conference will provide clinicians with the essential information regarding the medical use of cannabis to enable them to prescribe it appropriately and with confidence."

Patients Out Of Time may be contacted at Patients@MedicalCannabis.com or (804) 263-4484

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