By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Listening to families who could find no other help for their children convinced State Rep. Tim Brown to support a medical marijuana bill for Ohio.
Brown, R-Bowling Green, served on the committee studying medical marijuana, and is co-sponsor of House Bill 523 which is being voted on by House members today.
“It’s been very eye opening to me to hear from patients and parents with children with seizures who have found no relief from anything except marijuana,” Brown said. Some of the children were having as many as 300 seizures a day prior to being treated with marijuana.
“It just really pointed out that we as a society are behind the curve on this,” he said.
Parents desperate to help their children have to break the law to give them the only medicine known to reduce their seizures, Brown said.
“It’s the responsible way to do this,” he said of the legislation.
House Bill 523 would allow doctors licensed in Ohio to recommend marijuana to their patients. The marijuana can only be legally produced by state licensed growers.
“It doesn’t allow people to grow in their basements or backyards,” Brown said.
Though the bill is expected to pass today with bipartisan support, it is facing criticism from both sides – those who think it’s too restrictive and those who are opposed to any marijuana use.
Those supporting medicinal use are concerned this bill will take two years to implement, and doctors are required to fill out so much paperwork that it may discourage them from participating.
But Brown defended those measures. “We want doctors to be licensed to do this and have a definitive relationship with the patients.”
On the other side of the issue, the Wood County Prevention Coalition has taken a stand against legalization for any purpose, saying the bill is “disappointing and frightening.”
“States which have legalized marijuana for either ‘medicinal’ or recreational purposes have seen an increase in youth substance use and abuse, earlier age initiation and decreased perception of harm,” according to Milan Karna, coordinator of the Wood County Prevention Coalition.
However, Brown pointed out that states with legalized medicinal marijuana showed a 25 percent reduction in prescribed opiates.
“To me, that is an extremely compelling fact. Opiates are highly addictive,” he said, calling them a “four-lane highway to heroin use. They are killing substantial numbers of our citizens.”
Brown said studies suggest that marijuana is not addictive to most people and can benefit patients with seizures, cancer, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other conditions.
“We have an obligation to try to shift people,” away from addictive and deadly opiates, he said.
The Wood County Prevention Coalition supports research and science-based medicines that could be produced from marijuana plants, as long as they are held to the same testing standards as all medicine.
Brown said House Bill 523 will allow Ohio to collect data on medicinal marijuana use and tweak regulations as needed.
“We have an obligation as a government to study this,” he said.
The bill includes several restrictions regulating the types of conditions for which a doctor can recommend marijuana, the growers, the dispensaries, and how the marijuana can be used. The bill does not allow it to be smoked, but it can be used as vapor, pills, edibles, oils and patches.
A nine-member Medical Marijuana Control Commission will be set up to recommend regulations to the Department of Commerce. That is one of many differences from the Constitutional amendment on the ballot last fall to legalize all marijuana use in Ohio, Brown said. Voters rejected that issue by a wide margin.
The group Ohioans for Medical Marijuana is working to put its own medicinal marijuana initiative on the ballot this coming November.
If passed today, House Bill 523 will go to the Senate, and then to the governor for signing possibly by the end of May, Brown said. Ohio would become the 25th state to allow medicinal marijuana.
