What do you do when the state violates a law? Who do you troll when government is willfully prohibiting access to important medicine? Or when your elected representatives pocket millions from Big Pharma and healthcare conglomerates, but won’t let patients seek the treatment they want? The treatment they need?
If you’re the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance (MPAA), you show up pissed on Beacon Hill with a couple dozen fellow marijuana advocates, and tell the media that Governor Deval Patrick is an inhumane phony. And a liar too. (Our words, but you get the picture.)
“We’re outraged,” said MPAA Executive Director Matt Allen at a State House press conference this morning. Along with commonwealth residents suffering from chronic pain and seizure disorder, Allen lambasted the state for giving those in need the runaround. All spoke with a high degree of aggravation. “We’re done being patient,” Allen said.
Reporters on hand for the presser heard familiar nightmares – of folks with disabilities being assaulted and robbed while trying to buy pot, of MS patients unsure of where next month’s grass will come from, of heartbreaking cases in which children can’t secure compassionate epilepsy treatments. It’s important for these horror stories to be shared, but let’s not pretend the governor has not already heard them. To make sure of that, last week Nicole Snow, who also spoke today about her using pot to stave off nagging and debilitating pain, hand-delivered a letter to Patrick detailing her own plight.
The list of grievances is long. Snow, Allen, and people statewide (including those of us on the DigBoston Blunt Truth squad) could reel for hours on the state’s negligence. And then spend another week railing local media geeks for their coverage of marijuana, as too many insist on seeking comment from an agency that’s proven itself pathological. In all of our rants, a few mutual points of frustration would emerge:
- The caregiver system, a refuge through which patients are permitted to obtain medicine from personal growers, has been effectively trampled by the state, and with no replacement apparatus in sight.
- There is still no adequate marijuana patient registry in place. Advocates have been promised for more than a year that such a portal’s in the final stages. We now know that the DPH was full of shit. Lying. Not. Telling. The. Truth.
- Certain state officials, at various notches on the bureaucratic totem pole, refuse to meet with patients and prospective dispensary owners. Who the heck are they getting information from?
Today was hardly the first time medical pot advocates roared. They’ve been to the Department of Public Health, the Boston City Council, and to Beacon Hill on countless prior occasions. Every step of the way, from decriminalization through implementation, politicians have been numb to the topic, in many cases asking questions that a high school freshman could answer. It’s political posturing, and for what? Constituents have overwhelmingly supported green at the ballot box, especially for those with serious ailments. It’s not saying a whole lot these days, but nationwide marijuana enjoys higher approval ratings than President Barack Obama.
Moving forward, MPAA and its allies want an expedited process to license more dispensaries. Plus fast-tracking for those that are already pre-approved. For starters. More importantly, they want respect, which they’ve demonstrated in their own right all along. It should be noted that before the scare set in of Patrick leaving office without tending to dispensaries, the MPAA even defended the DPH at certain times, even after more than a year of inexplicable procrastination.
“Then everything fell apart,” Allen told reporters. “Five months later there is plenty of blame to go around … and it lands at Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s feet.”
Sure does. Right under his designer shoe, and next to the roach I flicked on my way into the State House today.
FURTHER READING
PATIENTS PROTEST DPH COMMISSIONER
CAREGIVER HEROES VS. THE MASS DPH
HEY DPH – WHERE’S THE MEDICINE?
