PRESS RELEASE

In October of 1994 the Virginia Nurses Association joined Patients Out of Time in crafting a resolution calling for the immediate availability of therapeutic cannabis - medical marijuana for the sick.

This demand echoed that of a sister organization the Virginia Nurses Society on Addictions who first voiced the needs of physicians to be able to prescribe cannabis as a medicine in August of 1993.
In May of 1995 the National Nurses Society on Addictions (NNSA) joined this call to compassion.
The sponsor of the VA resolutions, Mary Lynn Mathre RN, an expert in substance abuse and consultant in that field to the University of Virginia's Health Sciences Center, said of the NNSA resolution,

                     "This is a clear demonstration that addiction experts and specialists
                            understand that cannabis has potential therapeutic value and
                                    patients should be allowed access to this medicine."

The Mississippi Nurses Association passed a therapeutic cannabis resolution in October of 1995 as did the Colorado Nurses Association in November 1995. Also in November the annual conference of the American Public Health Association issued their demand for therapeutic cannabis, to be published in their March 1996 journal, after "sailing through" the voting process according to their representative. Patients Out of Time either prepared or spoke for all of these resolutions. Patients Out of Time is an organization that recognizes the need for some patients to be accorded the compassion and dignity to alleviate their pain and sickness by using a natural plant, cannabis, under a doctor's care. Patients Out of Time is composed of legal and illegal cannabis using patients; health care professionals; and tolerant but affirmative citizens who desire a pro choice modality of treatment for the ill and dying.

Mary Lynn Mathre RN, MSN, CARN, president of Patients Out of Time will be presenting "Therapeutic Cannabis & the Law: Ethical Dilemma for Nurses" at the 100th Anniversary Conference of the American Nurses Association on June 17th, 1996 in Washington, DC. With her will be Barbara Douglass, a Director of Patients Out of Time and one of eight legal marijuana patients and Irvin Rosenfeld, the second patient to
receive U.S. Government supplied marijuana and National Spokesman for Patients Out of Time.