The Pot Nurse

[Pinch]

Read this and thought I would share it with you all.

Letters: Cannibis a safe, therapeutic drug

I’ve only recently met Ed Glick, but have known of him for years. As a nurse, Mr. Glick has a professional ethic to uphold, and it appears his advocacy for medicinal use of cannabis may have superceded his excellent record of patient care with Samaritan Health Services.

The May 16 GazetteTimes article, “Nurse claims he has fired for pot advocacy,” fails to ask Samaritan officials at least two relevant questions:

Why does Samaritan lack a specific criteria for cannabis? In Oregon, there are now more than 12,000 registered patients and 2,000 doctors making the necessary recommendations for a patient’s use of cannabis.

Also, how many doctors in Samaritan’s employ have made cannabis recommendations for patients?

In spite of the recent proclamation by the Food and Drug Administration that cannabis has “no medical use,” there is abundant evidence to the contrary. Ed Glick is a serious advocate for a substance that has a recorded history of human use at least 5,000 years old without a single toxic overdose.

In a 1989 hearing on the drug’s effects and uses, Drug Enforcement Administration administrative law judge Francis L. Young concluded not only that marijuana’s medical usefulness had been adequately demonstrated, but that the plant had been shown to be “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”

Thank goodness there are health care professionals like Glick and the 2,000 doctors in Oregon who recognize the medical value and safety of cannabis.

Allan Erickson