Title:
Ask Governor Parnell to support efforts to reclassify marijuana
Message:
As you may
have heard, Governors Christine Gregoire of Washington and Lincoln Chafee of
Rhode Island recently
submitted a petition asking the federal government to change its policy
with respect to medical marijuana. Marijuana is currently considered a “Schedule
I” drug, with a high potential for abuse and “no currently accepted medical use
in treatment in the United States.” As the hundreds of thousands of patients protected
by state medical marijuana laws can tell you, that is patently false.
Unfortunately,
the petition only asks that marijuana be moved to Schedule II, which would
still leave it very difficult for patients to obtain medicine. And
regrettably, Chafee and Gregoire have used the petition as cover for their
failure to implement laws passed by their state legislatures that would have
made medical marijuana available to patients through well-regulated channels.
Nonetheless, moving marijuana out of Schedule I is an important step in the
right direction that other governors should support.
Please ask Alaska Governor Sean Parnell to
join other governors in asking the federal government to reclassify marijuana.
Alaska needs a well-regulated
system through which patients can obtain medical marijuana, and this change to
federal law would eventually help facilitate access. Moreover, there are 34
states with no medical marijuana laws at all. Governors from Vermont and Connecticut
have already announced that they will join the rescheduling effort, and you can
ask Governor Parnell to do the same by emailing
him now.
