United for Care to Petition for Medical Marijuana Amendment in Florida

UPDATE out of Maine
Medical Marijuana Law Changes Help PTSD Patients
WABI News 5
By Catherine Pegram
Posted Tuesday, October 1st, 2013



Mainers living with post traumatic stress disorder will soon have another option to manage their symptoms.

Next week, state law will allow doctors to legally recommend medical marijuana for patients.

“Until I found medical marijuana, I was a ticking time bomb.”

When Marine Corps Sergeant Ryan Begin’s elbow was blown off by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004, that was just the beginning of his pain.

Doctors also diagnosed him with post traumatic stress disorder.

“Any situation you see, all you see is the danger side of things. You don’t just see a street, you see a road that could be full of bombs. You see drunk drivers, you see people being unsafe, you see all of these horrific things around any daily event.”

Begin finally found relief in marijuana, then started working with advocates like Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine so others could find relief, too.

“We ran in humvees and we dealt with IEDs and stuff, so when I go under an overpass now, I still – the hair on the back of my neck, it’s still nerve wracking. But now with the use of medical marijuana, it only occurs for a brief second, a couple of seconds. It’s there and then it flows through me. It’s not just beating me in the back of my eyeballs continually.”

Supporters, like former Marine Corps Corporal Bryan King, say legally allowing patients to use pot will help anyone dealing with PTSD.
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There are many conditions medical marijuana helps treat. Alzheimer's disease, Epilepsy, Multiple sclerosis, Glaucoma, Arthritis, Hepatitis C, Cancer, Morning sickness among others but the ones we should talk about here are Depression and Anxiety because they are part of PTSD.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN recently wrote a great report about how he became informed and change his mind of legalizing it.

The medications veterans are on have been more about numbing them than helping them live a better quality of life. Pot helps their bodies calm down but does not leave them feeling as if they are zombies. It doesn't freeze out their emotions. Given a choice between the side effects of most PTSD medications the VA provides getting chilled out and having the munchies isn't that bad. Then there are more that actually do not work any better than a placebo.

If you think that people will just abuse pot, think again. People abuse all kinds of things but we do not make them illegal. We put laws on them like drinking and not being able to drive drunk. They get arrested. Medical pot should not be any different just as there are laws to control the use of all medications. The other factor to consider is that veterans are very respectful of the law. They don't want to break the laws of the nation they risked their lives to defend, so even if there is something out there that helps them, they will not seek it if it is illegal.

On the flip side they end up with medications that are more dangerous to them because the drugs the VA provides are legal. Do we want to help them or not? Do we want to numb them or take care of them to give them the best quality of life they can have?

If you are still against it then think of this. Most medications are taken from plants. Pot is a plant too. Just because a pharmaceutical corporation doesn't have their label on it, doesn't mean it isn't a good thing.

United for Care to Petition for Medical Marijuana Amendment in Florida

With John Morgan leading the charge, United for Care has said they will petition Florida’s Secretary of State in the 2014 election to add an amendment to the state’s constitution that will legalize medical marijuana.

“I have the finished product in front of me,” John Morgan, founder of Morgan and Morgan and chairman of United for Care, said. “I’m going to have it delivered to the Secretary of State office by Friday or early next week at the latest.”

United for Care have solicited approx. 700,000 signatures necessary to get the item added to the 2014 general election ballot.

United for Care, a statewide organization at the forefront of the push to legalize medical marijuana in Florida, and the subgroup behind the campaign, People United for Medical Marijuana, have solicited around 700,000 signatures necessary to get the item added to the 2014 general election ballot.
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