[420 Girl]

As the director and chief executive officer of Compassionate Cannabis Information Center, I feel compelled to address my community about this business.

It is my sincere wish that the Visalia community and residents throughout the Valley could see that medical marijuana use is not a black and white issue, but a gray one.

This issue has been hotly debated, even among our law enforcement, and the law still exists in a gray area, and most certainly will be in front of several judges across the state.

I believe in what I am doing, and I feel it is a noble cause. The medical marijuana community consists of people who believe in natural remedies over ones made by a biochemist in a lab. Our enemy should not be our local community; it should be the big drug companies that make drugs that harm people. You see on television, commercials for law firms who are raising class action law suits for medications that cause damage to people from adverse side effects.

Marijuana is a proven, safe drug that causes people to relax, eat, drink and sleep. It is difficult to hear people say that it is harmful when there is no evidence for this.

We should not abandon a medical practice for fear of a few abuses. There are abuses of several pain medications, including Vicodin, morphine, Soma, codeine, etc., but no one is talking about this. These drugs are harmful, and marijuana is not. A person who continually takes these medications will undoubtedly have liver, kidney and pancreas problems. Instead of hearing a drug counselor who has struggles with his own addictions and lacks real medical knowledge, listen to a bona fide doctor. I have yet to find one who will say marijuana is harmful.

The link that many people are making for its harm effect is that it could be a gateway drug. It is true that if people have addictive personalities, they will flush their lives away with their addictions. If a person starts out sniffing paint, should we do away with all paints?

I do not advocate that any medications be given to our youth unless they need it to live. I believe in protecting our young minds from any medications. It is interesting to me that the same people who are against medical marijuana are the same people giving Ritalin ( ADHD medication ) to their children and taking sedatives for themselves.

Be wary of what is in your medications. It is most likely more harmful than good. Meanwhile, the drug companies who are making it will get rich while you will suffer from adverse side effects.

I was inspired to open Compassionate Cannabis Information Center while waiting for a doctor at Fresno's Veterans Hospital. I sat next to a man who had taken shrapnel internally and could not take pain medications because of his compromised digestive system. The only thing that could relieve his pain was smoking marijuana.

Not only is marijuana a safe and effective pain medicine, it is also extremely effective against psychological disorders. No chemical-laden drug can relieve post-traumatic stress disorder as marijuana does. Historians will agree that during the Vietnam War, the soldiers who endured what they saw, felt and were a part of, were more easily overcome by use of marijuana. The soldiers who smoked marijuana did well compared with others who did not take this drug.

It takes courage to see an issue from another point of view. If I were God, I would support a natural remedy versus one that is man-made with obvious harmful side effects.

It is my sincere hope that Visalia and the Valley's residents will see this issue differently and allow me to conduct my business.

If the members of my association have to buy marijuana from the streets, it will be more costly for them and dangerous because now the drug will be in the hands of people who are doing it illegally and with that comes more crime.

If the collectives are allowed to exist, there can be more control over who has access to this drug. My staff and I are very careful not to allow anyone who doesn't have a prescription to have access to marijuana. I, too, have questioned the validity of some members of my association on the need for marijuana, but that is something to take up with the doctors not the collectives.

Safe access to obtain medical marijuana will keep our community safer, because the people who use it will go home and stay in a condition of sedation instead of out in the community seeking it out or stealing for it. This is what will be the consequence of the new ordinance.

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