Dear Mayor Bloomberg, Recently you made some comments that were not only ignorant, but insensitive and dangerous to the lives of many people who depend on medical marijuana to provide for them a quality of life that pharmaceutical drugs have not been able.
Without giving too much away, ADW2 tells the story of a young Montana family battling what has to be every parent's worst nightmare. After their two-year-old son Cashy Hyde suffering with a brain tumor lies in a coma for 40 days, the hospital staff instructs the Hyde family to make funeral arrangements. In a last desperate attempt to save Cashy's life the Hyde family starts sneaking cannabis oil into their dying son's feeding tube and soon a miracle takes place.
Well Mr. Bloomberg, if Cashy's story doesn't convince you, maybe the federal government that you are so cozy with can. If medical marijuana is such a hoax you should call your buddies in D.C. they didn't get the memo. It seems that the some doctors at the Health & Human Services Dept have held a patent on cannabis for medical purposes since 2003.
ADW2 delves into cutting edge research on medical and nutritional cannabis, highlighting the work of Dr. Robert J. Melamede PhD, Dr Donald Abrams PhD Chief of Hematology-Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and Dr. William Courtney MD, all of which treat patients medically and nutritionally with cannabis.
The documentary also takes a look at the story of Kristen Peskusky who as a teenager suffered from lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis and many other life-threatening medical ailments some of which were exacerbated by the pharmaceuticals she was taking for her many conditions. After discovering that cannabis not only treated the pain of her ailments but actually cured them she began juicing raw marijuana (which has NO psychoactive or "high" effect.) Today Kristen enjoys a healthier life and her children the doctors told her she could never have.
Mr. Mayor I know from your war on salt, trans-fats and sugar that you are very concerned with health, what if raw marijuana could increase the health of all Americans? Wouldn't you support that if the science show you the evidence? Your resistance to the research showing clear and present benefits to medical marijuana leave me wondering if your interest in denouncing medical marijuana was to discourage the NYS legislature from passing medical marijuana. (Which by the way the Assembly overwhelmingly passed this week.)
In the film Dr. Robert Melamede calls marijuana prohibition "welfare for law enforcement." Your Honor, I start to get the feeling that is true when you compare that with your statement: "drug dealers have families to feed. If they can't sell marijuana, they'll sell something else. And the something else will be something worse. The push to legalize this is wrongheaded."
Sounds to me like legal marijuana may cut into the revenue generating activities of your NYPD "personal army?" Will the NYPD have one less reason to stop and frisk? Will it drive down the tens of thousands of marijuana arrests every year? Maybe its pressure from the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency are they threatening to cut subsidies of the NYPD if you stop enforcing marijuana laws?
I understand you are concerned with recreational marijuana users having an easier time toking up, your own hypocrisy aside; filmmaker Kevin Booth had this to say in response; "I have been investigating the drug war now for ten years, and it never ceases to amaze me that most people only start to care when something bad happens to them or a family member, and by then its usually too late. Allowing the government to dictate what we can or cannot consume shatters the very basis of what our forefathers fought for. I obviously want people to see this new film, but I also want them to know that this is not about getting stoned. We spent over three years compiling this evidence and have boiled it down to 90 minutes in hopes that the average person can at least understand what's really at stake."
Mr. Mayor I hope you will accept my invitation to view the film American Drug War 2: Cannabis Destiny which can give you insight into the cutting edge of medical marijuana research as well as personal stories of people whose lives have been changed for the better by cannabis.
Sincerely,
Danny Panzella
