Ethereal
11-21-2016, 02:12 PM
How Idaho's Drug Warriors Stole Hope from Epileptic Kids (https://reason.com/archives/2016/11/21/idaho-cbd-epilepsy-drug-war)
A Reason investigation uncovers how cops, prosecutors, and lobbyists conspired to restrict a promising cannabis-derived seizure treatment.
Eric Boehm | November 21, 2016
In December 2014, Josh Phillips' mother answered the phone to news no parent wants to hear. Her son, an epileptic high school senior and champion wrestler, was in the hospital.
The whole Salmon High School wrestling team was waiting at Steele Memorial Medical Center when Jeanette and Gary Phillips got there. The team had been on its way home from a match at West Jefferson High, more than an hour away and out of cellphone range in the rugged backcountry of northeastern Idaho, when Josh Phillips suffered the worst seizure of his life.
...
With pharmaceutical and surgical treatments unsuccessful, the Phillips family and others in Idaho placed their hopes in the legalization of cannabidiol oil, or CBD, a form of medical marijuana. Though not guaranteed to work for everyone, CBD has been shown to be effective in controlling seizures in some epileptic patients. For that reason, it's been legalized in dozens of states as a medical treatment, including many states where more widespread uses of medical marijuana remain banned.
In Idaho, a bill to allow people like Josh Phillips to access CBD oil was passed by the state legislature in 2015, only to be defeated by a group of powerful special interests—including cops, prosecutors, and pharmaceutical companies—with direct access to policy makers in Boise. Emails obtained by Reason reveal a behind-the-scenes effort organized by the state's Office of Drug Policy to derail the CBD legislation and, after it passed against the wishes of Gov. Butch Otter and his administration, to use executive authority to replace the bill with an alternative treatment program that has done nothing to help Josh Phillips or many other Idahoans suffering from seizures.
...
A story about how law enforcement groups and pharmaceutical lobbyists killed a bill that would have legalized the medical use of non-psychoactive CBD oil which has helped many individuals treat their epileptic seizures.
Reading stories like this makes me sick to my stomach. These vultures, whose only concern is their own job security and profits, employed the typically mendacious drug warrior propaganda to ruin a bill that could have helped so many suffering people.
They don't have a single fact or shred of evidence at their disposal, so all they're left with is histrionics and fear-mongering about "public safety" and the like.
My only comfort is in knowing that drug prohibition is dying a slow but steady death in America and that someday the madness will end.
But in the meantime, we have to subjected to horror stories like this where the unholy alliance of law enforcement and pharmaceuticals conspire against liberty and reason.
A Reason investigation uncovers how cops, prosecutors, and lobbyists conspired to restrict a promising cannabis-derived seizure treatment.
Eric Boehm | November 21, 2016
In December 2014, Josh Phillips' mother answered the phone to news no parent wants to hear. Her son, an epileptic high school senior and champion wrestler, was in the hospital.
The whole Salmon High School wrestling team was waiting at Steele Memorial Medical Center when Jeanette and Gary Phillips got there. The team had been on its way home from a match at West Jefferson High, more than an hour away and out of cellphone range in the rugged backcountry of northeastern Idaho, when Josh Phillips suffered the worst seizure of his life.
...
With pharmaceutical and surgical treatments unsuccessful, the Phillips family and others in Idaho placed their hopes in the legalization of cannabidiol oil, or CBD, a form of medical marijuana. Though not guaranteed to work for everyone, CBD has been shown to be effective in controlling seizures in some epileptic patients. For that reason, it's been legalized in dozens of states as a medical treatment, including many states where more widespread uses of medical marijuana remain banned.
In Idaho, a bill to allow people like Josh Phillips to access CBD oil was passed by the state legislature in 2015, only to be defeated by a group of powerful special interests—including cops, prosecutors, and pharmaceutical companies—with direct access to policy makers in Boise. Emails obtained by Reason reveal a behind-the-scenes effort organized by the state's Office of Drug Policy to derail the CBD legislation and, after it passed against the wishes of Gov. Butch Otter and his administration, to use executive authority to replace the bill with an alternative treatment program that has done nothing to help Josh Phillips or many other Idahoans suffering from seizures.
...
A story about how law enforcement groups and pharmaceutical lobbyists killed a bill that would have legalized the medical use of non-psychoactive CBD oil which has helped many individuals treat their epileptic seizures.
Reading stories like this makes me sick to my stomach. These vultures, whose only concern is their own job security and profits, employed the typically mendacious drug warrior propaganda to ruin a bill that could have helped so many suffering people.
They don't have a single fact or shred of evidence at their disposal, so all they're left with is histrionics and fear-mongering about "public safety" and the like.
My only comfort is in knowing that drug prohibition is dying a slow but steady death in America and that someday the madness will end.
But in the meantime, we have to subjected to horror stories like this where the unholy alliance of law enforcement and pharmaceuticals conspire against liberty and reason.