Press Release

Patients Out of Time has added to the list of organizations that support the reclassification of Cannabis as a viable medicine a category of groups that are operating outside of the United States. The knowledge that Cannabis has been a safe and valuable herbal medicine for 5,000 years is spreading quickly worldwide. Germany is in the forefront of Europe and the world in reacknowledging the importance of Cannabis in that country's formulary as is indicated by the 7 health orientated organizations that signed the "Frankfurt Resolution" and are identified on our present and attached list.

The addition of non US groups to our growing roster of supporters is done to both acknowledge this broad support for the rights of patients to have access to this safe medicine and to further inform the media industry that the efforts of Patients Out of Time and numerous other reform organizations in the US are not simply a diversionary tactic in the "war on drugs." These organizations and future additions are a confirmation that the zealous theorists who have foisted the false premise that the Cannabis plant is "an evil weed" and solidified this sham in a policy called the "war on drugs" are not supported by millions of health care professionals in the US or abroad. A co-founder of the national non-profit, Patients Out of Time, M.L. Mathre wrote in Cannabis in Medical Practice, "the paradigm for the war on drugs is based on a belief that there are bad drugs and that the solution to our drug problem is to prohibit the use of these drugs. This basic premise is faulty and must be challenged."

This challenge is in the open and expanding. Our first list of groups supporting the return of Cannabis into the realm of heath care control, instead of law enforcement, was printed in mid 1995 and contained under three dozen groups. The list was prepared to directly counter the false statements made by the drug czar and others in the federal government's employ that NO health organization supported Cannabis as medicine. Since the publication of that list all such statements by our government has ceased. The list, less than four years later, now totals 73 foreign and domestic groups that represent tens of millions of health care professionals, voters and citizens.

Patients Out of Time believes that all the world's citizens have the personal right to determine what is proper in the care and maintenance of their bodies. These decisions must be based on accurate and replicated science, informed health care counseling and the personal experience of each individual with their own unique life support system. To insure that informed therapeutic Cannabis information is disseminated to patients and their caregivers Patients Out of Time is again emphasizing that The First National Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics will be held at the University of Iowa on April 7&8, 2000. This breakthrough conference is jointly sponsored by the College of Medicine and the College of Nursing of the University of Iowa, with the assistance of Patients Out of Time. All professional health care participants will earn continuing education credits as well as be provided current state-of-the-art clinical information about Cannabis as medicine. A complete outline and speaker identification will follow in a future press release.

Contact Patients@MedicalCannabis.com or call (804) 263-4484 for information about therapeutic Cannabis, the April 2000 conference or what you can do to help.

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