URGENT: VA Senate Considering Medical Marijuana Repeal

The Virginia bill to repeal the state's medical marijuana law has passed the house and is on the fast track in the state senate. Virginians please call/fax/write/e-mail your Senators NOW and ask them to leave the medical marijuana law in effect. Ask them to oppose HB 1621, the medical marijuana repeal bill. People in Virginia can call the constituent hotline at (800) 889-0229, 7am-7pm Mon-Fri. Persons with web access can e-mail their state Senators via http://208.9.8.6/comment.htm on the web.

It is especially important that support for medical marijuana be demonstrated now, in order to persuade the Senate Courts of Justice Committee to allow doctors and patients to testify. In addition to contacting your own State Senator at the Constituent Hotline, please call Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph V. Gartlan, Jr., (703) 339- 0033 (district) and (804) 786-6691.

You can also fax the State Senate at (804) 786-0095. From outside Virginia you can reach your state Senator, or find out who he or she is, by calling (804) 786-3838 (legislative information) or (804) 786-2366 (clerk's office).

Remember, we are opposing HB 1621, which would repeal medical marijuana in Virginia. Remind your Senators that Dr. Jerome Kassirer, the editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, possibly the top medical journal in the world, considers the government's medical prohibition of marijuana to be "misguided, heavy-handed, and inhumane" and decried "the absolute power of bureaucrats whose decisions are based more on reflexive ideology and political correctness than on compassion."

Please also ask your Senators to oppose the following bills:

• HB 2673, workers' compensation, mandates that all insurance companies participating in Virginia's workers' comp program offer their clients a 5% discount for establishing a drug-free workplace -- i.e., drug testing their employees. This would hit marijuana users hardest, because traces of marijuana remain in the bloodstream for weeks after all use has ceased. The bill has passed the House and has gone to the Senate.
• HB 2306 would repeal the current law that allows minors to give consent, as though they were adults, to treatment for substance abuse. It's passed the House and gone to the Senate. If it becomes law, minors who want treatment for their drug problems will have to get their parents to consent -- which means that many of them will go untreated!

Please call your Delegate at (800) 889-0229, and also Delegate James F. Almand, chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee, at (804) 786-6893, and ask them to oppose:

• SB 704, Drug Control Act. This bill, which has passed the Senate, raises what are now misdemeanors to Class 5 or Class 6 felonies.

Also ask your Delegate to support restoring the original provisions of SB 776, which would have expanded opportunities available to drug offenders for rehabilitation instead of incarceration.

For more information, contact Lennice Werth, Rt. 3 Box 692, Crewe, VA 23930, (804) 645-8816, (804) 645-8324 (fax), [email protected].

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