Time to stand up

Hello all.

I know. I have been silent for far to long. Today I awoke with a clear vision of what must be done in our state to protect growers and patients alike. First one word "VOTE." If you dont do the research on who's running and what they stand for, then we all loose. Most of the state office's are won by a very small number of votes. WE CAN CHANGE THINGS AT THE STATE LEVEL. So vote, tell your patients to vote. Dont forget your families also.

Next, I think months ago, sitting in a room with the board members of this group, Chris said the words that are still ringing in my mind; self regulation. So how do we do that? I am open to ideas and I have some of my own. So we need a plan and we need it fast. Senator Jim Stockley (R) district 45 is tring to get enough people to sign a petition to get on the ballot an intiative to repeal I 148. Now that is a bad thing. But I will say this they have a plan and they're moving on it. How do we responed? Do we get angry? NO! We get our own plan and we make it happen.

The next thing that MUST stop is this infighting between people in our industry. The media loves it because they sell newspapers and tv spots. How can we self regulate if we take our internal problems to the news stations before we have a meeting amoung ourselves. WE should meet first and decide if some one,or some group is operating outside of the vision of what is ethical and good for the patients. Fighting in the media does nothing for us.

The next thing I have to say today is education. I am not talking about teaching someone how to grow. I am talking about educating the people of Montana. Right now, due mainly to the media, they think were just a bunch of pot heads. Ask any of them why marijuana helps relieve pain. They will not know. Ask them if a patient can do anything other than smoke their medication. They may make some comment about brownies, but do they know anything about tinctures or dose controlled edibles? I have even heard crazy things like "If you grow that stuff near children the pollen will float through the air and get my kids addicted." That comment came from someone that is not against patients rights, but just uninformed.

What next? How do we protect ourselfs and our patients? First start giving us ideas about what you think should be done. LET ME KNOW HOW TO HELP YOU. Maybe write a letter to the Medical Board of Examiners and tell them that we don't need to hunt down doctors that help patients and fine them. We need more doctors that will recommend. Dont scare the doctors away from the patients. If a doctor is scared to help a patient or even talk to them than we all loose. Doctor Cole was fined for not spending enough time with each patient to provide proper care for that patient. The problem I have with that is this. HMO's tell doctors to spend only 7 minutes with a patient. 7 minutes to diagnose a patient they may have never seen before. 7 minutes to decide what is the best treatment for this person and prescribe medication that may have side effects that could include death. All Dr. Cole did is look over records from another doctor and make a decision about a natural herb that "the potential benefits of medical marijuana will likely outweigh the helth risks for this patient". This took an average of 6 minutes per patient. Most of those patients had faxed their medical records to her ahead of time. Was the time she spent pre-screening records taken into account? How about the time saved by denying those that did not qualify under state law? We are talking about one minute of time and just for a recommedation. A recommendation like "stop smoking" or "take the dog for a walk and get off the couch."

These views are mine alone. Robert Sims, Bozeman Self Treatment, MMGA board of directors