Pubdate: Fri, 31 May 2013
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2013 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Author: Glen Garcica
Page: 8B

GROW YOUR OWN

To the editor:

While I fully support legislation to better allow the sick to use
marijuana for medical purposes, Senate Bill 374 has been amended to
prohibit patients from growing their own medicine. This is a horrible
idea.

One of the most important things for patients who have terrible,
life-threatening diseases is to be able to grow their own medicine so
they can control the use of pesticides and chemicals, as well as the
quality of the medicine. These people must be allowed the ability to
grow their own medicine or to have their caretakers do so. The
medicine at dispensaries is often so loaded with cancer-causing toxins
that a cancer patient does more harm than good in using it.

This aspect of the bill must be changed. People can buy a home brew
kit to make beer. How is this any different?

Growing marijuana isn't an easy task. The patients put so much work
and money into growing it, and then they barely get enough to treat
themselves. Existing law doesn't allow patients who are aggressively
treating a disease to own enough plants.

I hope lawmakers reconsider and remove the ban on home growing and
also change the number of plants to a more realistic number, because
the patient needs to have plants in different stages of development at
all times. Let patients have a little extra finished medicine for
other patients who can't grow their own at all. The plant takes months
to reach maturity, and once it's harvested, it can no longer be used
again, so a patient needs another set of plants right behind it to be
ready for the next harvest.

Glen Garcica
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MAP posted-by: Matt