(NETWORK IN) A letter against medical marijuana has been sent to the state’s “drug czar”, Jim McClelland. It’s from the Assoc. of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys, and it says the prosecutors are totally opposed to medical marijuana, on the grounds that it is not medicine.
David Phipps, communications director for Indiana Normal, the Indiana branch of the national organization, says Attorney General Curtis Hill and the prosecutors should back off.
“I’m asking IPAC and out attorney general to back off of medical cannabis. Leave this to the medical professionals and the legislators and let them take care of this for the people that want it,” said Phipps. He’s been working to try to have medical pot decriminalized by the legislature for several years.
“I’m very concerned with the non-chalant, almost cavalier attitude that putting the word medical in front of marijuana somehow magically makes this anything more than smoking pot,” said Hill, in a September interview on WIBC. “Much of the substance abuse that we have in more harsh drugs, most get their start in marijuana.”
Phipps disagrees that Hill has any basis to say marijuana is not medicine. Town hall meetings at the State House and around the state led by Phipps, have included medical professionals who support cannabis as medicine, he said.
“We have 29 states, plus the District of Columbia, that says this is not only medicinally valuable, but they’ve made it legal and accessible for their patients,” said Phipps.
He also said that marijuana can help people who are addicted to opioids get off the more dangerous and addictive drugs.
“We are in an opioid epidemic. We’re losing more Hoosiers to this epidemic than we hare homicides and firearms combined. For him to be spending any time and energy on medical cannabis, it just doesn’t make any sense to me and it doesn’t make sense to the majority of Hoosiers.”
“The suggestion that there is a correlation between marijuana smoking and decreasing opioid addiction is almost laughable, if it weren’t so serious a topic,” said Hill, who said he doesn’t believe people who are hooked on drugs so hard could find relief from addiction with another drug.
Phipps said he believes the prosecutors and Hill’s letter and actions against medical pot will backfire.
“Now that they are becoming more publicly against this, they are going to be hearing from more Hoosiers. And they’re not going to be pleased with our attorney general’s actions.”
