Well it has been a while since i have had time to sit down and add entries to our blog. A lot of driving for patient deliveries and setting up our physician clinic in Ennis this coming Thursday.

In the time I've been preoccupied a lot as been brewing in the news about cannabis, specifically the report that Tom Berry out of Round Up is going to be introducing legislation in the upcoming session which would only result in more restrictions on patients access to their medicine. There is some talk of limiting a caregiver to 5 patients under the guise of some thought that if you really are caregiving you can only focus on 5 or less patients. Well my rebuttal to that would be that a good caregiver is EXTREMELY hard to find and if a good one is available and has 300 patients, then so be it. The patients DESERVE the right to quality medicine through their caregiver as per the Montana Medical Marijuana Act.

The simple fact is that the MMMA was written and voted for because of the many thousands of patients in Montana that have debilitating conditions that get relief when using cannabis to treat their conditions.

Tom doesn't seem to understand that the law was written in a fashion that it would be self-maintaining in regards to caregivers. Patients are the absolute center of the law, a patient can change their designated caregiver with a simple form that cost nothing to submit. This simple process is the safety that was built into the law to ensure that patients are taken seriously and kept in the forefront of the law and its implementation with out state. Caregivers that are worth their weight in salt understand that a patient is the center point and that the caregiver is simply an assest available to the patient to ensure their easy access to their medicine while following the letter of the law. A quality caregiver is VERY HARD TO FIND, darn near impossible in some areas of our great state, why in the world would we want to limit access to the quality caregivers and force patients into having to designate a subpar caregiver?? It doesn't make logical sense to me. We strive to be the absolute best caregivers in the state of Montana all the while understanding and focusing our efforts on our patients and nothing else. Would punishing the patients on our waiting list because we are a quality caregiver service and have more then 5 patients really be benefiting the patients???..??!!! I highly doubt so.

The simplest analogy I can come up with would be, do we restrict the number of patients the manufacturer of hydrocodone is allowed to dispense their medicine too?...??..??? ABSOLUTELY NOT, it is made available in many locations and very easy to obtain. Why would someone be so callus as to introduce changes to the law that would limit their access to their medicine? It doesn't make sense if they are in fact understanding of the fact that cannabis is a viable treatment for many hundreds, if not thousands of ailments common to humans. Tom Berry received a brief but poignant email from me today stating something similar to this blog posting, I hope he will really take the time to reconsider his view on medicinal cannabis and its accessibility to the patients that need it before introducing legislation that is simply anti-cannabis (like his previous bills he has attempted to and/or submitted).

I call to action all Montanans and citizens of our great country that believe law is what We the people say it is, period and not something to be construed and twisted by ideologic elected officials. Remember Tom, you're only where you are to be a puppet for the constituents that put you into that office so you had better go out and listen to them, they want accessible cannabis under the law. Do not make it more difficult for them to obtain from a reliable, dedicated caregiver.

This is a call to action for all physicians as defined by Title 37, Chapter 3 of the Montana Code Annotated¹ to stand up and find a way to become more accessible to the patients of Montana that have conditions that could qualify them for acceptance into the Montana Medical Marijuana Program. The law is clear as to what a debilitating condition is, so why is it so difficult for patients to find a doctor willing to sign the recommendation? The norm is that patients have to go outside their own primary care doctors and find an alternative means to get the signed recommendation.

Montana is not a highly taxed state or a state where the majority of the residents have a lot of capital at their disposal thus economics plays a large role in health care in our great state.

Cannabis is a viable, relatively inexpensive alternative to pharmaceuticals that they are comfortable administering themselves. Patients know when they are sufficiently medicated without having to pay for repeated visits to the doctor to have their dosages monitor. A lot of the news I am reading as of late appears to be heading down a road of "we can't control legal cannabis, so lets control the process by which a patient gains access to it, the doctors recommendation and forcing rules upon it".

This is blatantly wrong in our opinion. A doctor/patient relationship is not something that should be governed or maintained in a fashion that is destructive to the patient just because of the unjust attitude towards this miracle plant. We have to remember that this is not about control or money, it is about the well being of the patients that are benefiting from the medicinal uses of cannabis.

We tend to get side tracked nowadays when we discuss topics of contention, but the fact of the matter is that we have to recognize the reason the law exists and look at it from that sole perspective, not the perspective of our political party or our religious affiliations or anything else. The medical marijuana laws in the states that have them are for the sole benefit of the patient. Lets remember that and start making it more accessible to the patients that can so they can live their lives to the fullest.

Patients are actively seeking doctors willing to do consultation reviews for medical cannabis recommendations, not for another primary care physician, and we get daily calls for the names and numbers of doctors offering this service from all over the state. If you're a doctor interested in learning more about the Montana Medical Marijuana Program and how you can be an active part of it and the financial benefits associated with it, contact us today!

¹ "Physician" means a person who holds a degree as a doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathy and who has a valid license to practice medicine or osteopathic medicine in this state. Reference: Montana Code Annoted http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/mca/37/3/37-3-102.htm