Tell the SD Highway Patrol to Stop Their Campaign Against Patients

Former police officer and Measure 13 supporter Tony Ryan sent this email today, urging our activists to sign a petition to the South Dakota Highway Patrol to end its Measure 13 smear campaign.

Check it out below for more information:

—

Friend -

I’ve seen a lot of things in my life as a police officer, but this has to be one of the most shameless.

The South Dakota Highway Patrol just announced two months-old marijuana busts in an attempt to smear our campaign and the patients who depend upon it. Even though they can’t say it publicly, there is little doubt that the State Highway Patrol is now trying to stop Measure 13, and deny medical marijuana to South Dakota patients.

We can’t let them portray patients as criminals and outsiders. Medical marijuana patients deserve our compassion, not our persecution.

Sign our petition telling the South Dakota State Highway Patrol to stand down and let voters decide the fate of Measure 13. Click here to add your name and stand up for patients’ rights.

/police-vs-patients/

I spent 36 years working in law-enforcement. Trust me, there are more important tasks for cops in South Dakota than playing politics with patients in pain.

But rather than focusing law enforcement on serious crimes, the South Dakota Highway Patrol is trying to swing a close election with misinformation and non-news. Our priorities are clearly backwards, and we need Measure 13 to set the record straight and protect our most vulnerable citizens.

Help us fight back and tell the truth about medical marijuana.

Tell the SD State Highway Patrol to stop their campaign against patients and let voters decide Measure 13.

Click here to sign: /police-vs-patients/

Police officers are supposed to uphold the law, not try to influence it. With your help, we can put them back in their place.

Thanks for all you do,

Tony Ryan
SD Coalition for Compassion
SDCompassion.org

No Joke

Patrick K. Lynch is the former chairman of the North-Central States Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Pat was diagnosed with MS in 1990 at 27 years of age – since diagnosis of this incurable disease.

For over a decade Pat has continued to raise thousands of dollars for the MS Society to go towards research on MS through the annual bike MS and walk MS events.

Pat has earned a respected reputation as one of the leading advocates in the region to raise awareness about this debilitating condition which afflicts nearly 400,000 Americans, with 200 more being diagnosed every week. More than 2.1 million people worldwide live with MS.

Pat testified at the capital in 2009 in support of the Safe Access Act, which sparked a formative discussion about safe access to medical marijuana in Pierre and around the state. When Pat came back home to Sioux Falls he and other advocates, and may patients and their families came together and formed the South Dakota Coalition for Compassion. The Coalition first made an impact in the community by forming a team in the 2009 Walk MS event at the Sioux Falls Convention Center – the Coalition was proud to be one of the top 5 fundraisers in SD by raising $5,100.

Not long after the Walk MS kick-off for the Coalition members filed a petition drive and began collecting signatures to place the Safe Access Act on the ballot for a statewide election.

33,000 signatures and over a year later the Safe Access Act will appear before the voters as Initiated Measure 13 on the November 2nd 2010 ballot.

Pat Lynch is now asking his fellow South Dakotans to provide compassion to some of the most vulnerable citizens in our state, the sick and dying, by voting Yes on Measure 13.

Measure 13 allows patients like Pat and many others afflicted with MS, Cancer, Fibormyalgia, and other ailments to pursue a safe and legal option through a tightly regulated program under the Department of Health.

Measure 13 is about compassion.

Measure 13 makes sense, the science and personal testimonials cannot be ignored.

Vote Yes for Compassion, Yes on 13!

www.SDCompassion.org

Video by:
Braxton J. Williams
605-351-1872

Pat Lynch and Tony Ryan were featured guests for the Minnehaha County GOP Action Team's weekly forum

Republican voters were supportive at the Old Chicago meeting. A doctor dug deep into the details on how the drug will be regulated, and several others in the crowd noted their own illnesses and desire to have every option available to them.

Measure 13 will be the nation's most restrictive medical marijuana measure in the nation.

The Coalition for Compassion is led by Patrick K. Lynch the former chairman of the Multiple Scleroses Society and Tony Ryan, a retired lieutenant Police Officer. Since our founding, the Coalition collected twice as many signatures as the state requires for a ballot initiative far ahead of the deadline for 2010 – and with such success our grassroots network of volunteers has expanded to an impressive organization of doctors, nurses, current and former law-enforcement officials, and average South Dakotans from every political background, religion, and occupation who are united by a common cause of compassion and empathy for our loved ones living with painful and debilitating illnesses. My grandmother among many others, successfully and safely eased nausea and wasting syndrome during chemo-radiation with medical marijuana, a therapeutic option that is so effective it is often recommended by South Dakota doctors even while it remains illegal.

Measure 13 offers South Dakota a strictly controlled program to handle the need for this type of therapy. Patients and caregivers will be registered with the department of health. IM13 has several explicitly detailed restrictions which make obtaining a recommendation for medical marijuana more difficult then it would be for a patient to obtain many common prescription painkillers.

In a previous AP news article Art Mabry, Vermillion Police Chief, calls the Coalition for Compassion a ‘scam’ and in today’s article he opposes our measure with a somewhat more specific message: “it would create a black market for unused marijuana and it will increase the danger of drugged driving.. I’m curious about what a caregiver does with plants that don’t sell.” These statements clearly indicate that Mabry hasn’t even taken the time to analyze the initiative which is so concerning for he and his fleet of college-town cops.

• Measure 13 strictly prohibits any sale
  of marijuana.
• Driving under the influence is also
  strictly prohibited.

There is an even longer list of rules and regulations, even a requirement that each patient complete a re-evaluation every six months.

I don’t think I’m alone on this one, but considering the logistics of our proposal, there is little logic in Mabry’s vision of marijuana magically falling from the clouds and some how winding up in everyone’s backyard. Denial that marijuana isn’t already an easily available drug for anyone who desires to get their hands on it and use for leisure or any other reason is complete ignorance. Simply put, marijuana is around. If you can’t connect the dots Chief, then maybe you should swing by campus for intro to economics because where there is demand, there is supply. Whether it is alcohol sold underground by the mafia in the 20s, malt beverages and beer being sold by bartenders now, or coffee being sold at Starbucks.. When there is a product that people want, there is someone around to sell it.

So, while some chose to use marijuana for leisurely reasons (distasteful, yes) there is a market that exists for them. The arguments of medical marijuana creating some new substance out of thin air is used and tried, let’s have some common sense about what we’re talking about here, a natural plant on God’s green earth.

The difference between marijuana on the streets and medical marijuana is that the legal, doctor-recommended marijuana is cultivated with every precaution the patient deserves. Safety and control is applied to medical marijuana while black market marijuana continues to be readily available to anyone who wants it without any oversight or control. And again, our proposal does not include any type of sale. IM13 is a not-for-profit, simple, yet strictly controlled approach for patients to have a safe, legal option as an alternative to the black market. Lynch, Ryan, the 100 + nurses in SD, myself and the rest of the Coalition are not looking to get rich.. If that was our interest, there is an abundance of lucrative career opportunities in the marijuana market, and there are no taxes involved either!

What we are proposing, it not to ‘create’ any market for marijuana as Mabry can foresee. With plain rationality, we are simply asking that people like my grandmother, who took 2 puffs of marijuana and ate her first full meal during cancer treatment, have a safe, legal, option to pursue so they don’t have to resort to the already existing black market.. Which is often dangerous, and has absolutely no standards for safety or quality and ultimately degrades the sick persons’ dignity and puts their whole family through anxiety while risking criminal repercussions.

State law should not stand as a barrier when a licensed physician whom a patient has an established relationship recommends a scientifically supported therapy for which the patient can find relief from their symptoms. Measure 13 will set a good example for the rest of the nation and will safely protect the many patients in SD who are and will benefit from the medical use of marijuana.

The Coalition for Compassion and our allies are ready to stand strong for what we’re proposing; we are united by a high-held virtue of compassion: our campaign for IM13 is an honest, sincere effort to extend compassion to the most vulnerable people among us.

Rhetoric and false claims will not appeal to voters in 2010.

Board members for the Coalition for Compassion are meeting this week to prepare an open invitation to debate IM13 with anyone who opposes the measure.

Tonight however, I’m personally extending an invitation to Mr. Mabry to sit down with the Coalition so we can go over the facts. Perhaps a town-hall style discussion or a head-to-head debate, accept this invitation in whichever way you would like. One thing is for sure, the nearly 33,000 South Dakotans who signed the petition and the many more thousands of citizens around the state who have loved ones suffering from cancer or other illnesses are not going to let your crude attempts belittle our cause or go without notice.

Let South Dakota doctors and patients decide!

Vote YES for Compassion, YES on 13!

I encourage everyone affected by any of these illnesses or anyone who has compassion for the sick and dying to join our growing Coalition.

2008 study: Therapeutic use of Cannabis sativa on chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting among cancer patients: systematic review and meta-analysis.

Pat Lynch, Tony Ryan, and other advocates talk to voters at multiple county fairs around the state!

Campaign coordinator Emmett Reistroffer shares his personal story with the Mitchell Daily Republic

Click here to read the Mitchell Daily Republic article.

Pat Lynch and Tony Ryan and Emmett Reistroffer speak on KSFY Action News about Initiated Measure 13.

Pat Lynch and Tony Ryan advocate for the severely ill in the Capital Journal, opponents call safe access a "scam"

Pat Lynch advocated on behalf of the Coalition and IM13: “It’s a medicine that benefits ill patients … In capable hands, it is a medication that people can use in place of more vile drugs that they are prescribed.”

Tony Ryan also answered questions about IM13 and how it could effect law-enforcement, and safe access opponent Tom Huber was quoted claiming that there is no research or science that supports medical marijuana.

Click here to read the Capital Journal article.

Veterans Administration shows compassion! Directive allows patient use of medical marijuana for VA clinics in compliance with state law.

Click here to read the Associated Press news release in the Rapid City Journal.

The Coalition for Compassion is coming to your community!

Sioux Empire Fair, Sioux Falls August 10th – 15th

DakotaFest, Mitchell August 17th – 19th

Central States Fair, Rapid City August 20th – 29th

South Dakota State Fair, Huron September 2nd – 6th