FROM BERNIE ELLIS: My rapid response to the Tennessee Department of Health after their surprise appearance at yesterdays Koozer-Kuhn hearing. After the hearing, Rep Jones and I met with two TDOH officials to respond to their misconceptions and to agree to schedule an immediate follow-up meeting. My email to them is below. If any of you have the time to watch yesterdays testimony by the TDOH official and compile a list of his objections point-by-point and get that to me, I will go to that meeting with an even bigger briefing package. Please let me know here if you can do that. I just need an abbreviated list of his objections. Now heres my first response: ---------- To the TDOH Good morning. It was a pleasure meeting the two of you yesterday and discussing concerns around the proposed Safe Access program to be authorized by HB 1385. I am writing to see if we can meet sometime on Thursday to follow up? I can meet with you anytime that day. As a farmer, Im an early riser so whatever works for you is fine with me. By copy of this memo, I am asking Sharon Peters to get two of our Koozer-Kuhn briefing packets to you. It is a thick packet but I think it will answer many of your concerns about safety and efficacy. The two med journal meta-analyses and the download from the National Cancer Institute web-site include over 250 peer-reviewed articles as their basis for accepting the many medical benefits of cannabis and its remarkable safety record. Youll also find references that address your impaired driver concerns and that contradict your concerns re: the impact of medical cannabis programs on traffic fatalities (they go down) and adolescent marijuana use (it stays the same or goes down compared with teens in states without such programs). While we hope all of the material in the packet is informative, be sure to look at the piece on reducing opiate use in pain patients using cannabis and the paper that discusses vaporizers as an exceptionally safe way for patients to use medical cannabis. I also hope youll read the patient profiles and watch their testimony at the full Health committee several weeks ago. Again, it was a pleasure to meet with TDOH officials for the first time in this seven year effort to re-establish a medical cannabis program in Tennessee. As pivotal as your role will be in this program, it will be good to synchronize our perspectives. I do believe we can cover much ground in our next meeting and tighten HB 1385 in the process, particularly the list of eligible conditions that will initiate the program. Please let me know what time is good for you tomorrow. Feel free to invite others to join us. If we have to meet late today, that will also work for me. Rep Jones said that if we get everything done tomorrow, we can skip the Friday meeting with her. Look forward to hearing from you. Bernie Ellis, MA, MPH
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:14:41 +0000
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