A Republican lawmaker in West Virginia delivered his first speech on the floor of the House of Delegates last week. Delegate Bill Flanigan (R-Monongalia) made his legislative debut in an emotional and very personal defense of medical cannabis.
A little background:
The nationwide opioid epidemic has ravished West Virginia’s residents. The state has the highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in the entire nation, and ranks second in prescriptions per-capita. The epidemic is so bad that President Obama toured the state at the end of 2015, culminating in a town hall centering around the issue. He chose that moment to announce a nationwide initiative to address opiate abuse.
Since that time, the state legislature has struggled to find a solution. HB 4576 was introduced this year to lengthen prison terms for trafficking drugs into the state. The bill would have increased mandatory prison sentences for marijuana from five to fifteen years.
After a lengthy debate, Flanigan made his sometimes tearful debute:
My grandfather started his cancer treatment in ’89 and died in ’96, so seven years of battle. He went through 3-4 treatments of chemo. At that time, I begged him to try medical marijuana. He was wasting away. That is almost 25 years ago. People were telling him: ‘Why don’t you try it?’ He was an ex-law enforcement officer. No way, no how was he going to try something that was deemed illegal.
In 1997, my wife’s mother went through an eight-month battle with pancreatic cancer. She received her treatments in New York – twenty years ago. They had a hospital room set aside for use of medical marijuana to help her while she went through her chemotherapy.
Flanigan’s family illustrates the injustice of our nation’s failed drug policy. One person is forced to suffer through chemotherapy with harsh prescription drugs that caused his body to deteriorate over time while another person in the same extended family was granted access to a more benign drug simply for living in a different state. But Flanigan’s personal experience was even more powerful:
Has anyone else in here been through chemotherapy? I’ve still got the ridges on my fingernails. When I came here, I hadn’t had my hair grow back yet. This is something that effects your loved ones… This is something that, god forbid they ever have to go through it, you are going to want any medical opportunity to provide them with the compassion and care that they need.
I was prescribed 150 pain pills – three prescriptions worth – to walk out. I was only eight days into it, just over a week. I was told ‘That should get you through to your next month. I was given four different anti-nausea medications to get me through the two and a half weeks until I came back into the hospital. A very dear loved one brought me chocolate chip cookies. I started using those because they had THC in them… I finished up my chemo and I had gained 18 pounds, I hadn’t withered away. I still had 142 out of 150 pain pills left and all four bottles of anti-nausea medication were untouched.
We have passed bill after bill out of this body finding ways to treat people that are addicted to opioids. We are finding ways to help them, to save their lives… But when we are presented with a good alternative to the opioids we still want to lump it in.
I heard somebody say that it’s addicting. I have never once craved it. I never once had a physical reaction that I needed to have this. You know jogging – if you jog every day that’s addicting. I read a study recently that said that marijuana addiction is about 9%, and they couldn’t even prove that addiction was physical. It was more of an addiction of wanting to feel better… Jogging, I believe, is 16%. I’m pretty sure that self-pleasure is even higher…
We can prevent people from getting onto opioids. I was scratching four days after being out of the hospital. I’m itching like the guy that you see in the movies looking for my next dose. I’m watching the clock count down, calling my nurse: ‘Can I have another one yet?’ Eight days later, a simple chocolate chip cookie prevented so much. It helped me so much. I urge rejection.
Flanigan’s experience is repeated all over medical cannabis states. In these states, patients are given the choice between harsh, addictive opiates and medical cannabis to manage their symptoms. The result is fewer prescriptions to opioids, so fewer people become addicted in the first place. It is clear that many patients like Bill Flanigan would prefer medical cannabis when given the freedom to choose. The impact on public health is significant. A recent study found that medical cannabis states saw a drop of between 45-50% in annual overdose deaths within 5 years.
Immediately following Flanigan’s impassioned speech, Delegate Mike Caputo (D-Marion) moved to table the bill. The House voted 59-40 in favor of the motion, including two co-sponsors, effectively killing the bill on the spot.
You can watch Flanigan’s speech in the video below, courtesy of WV Public Broadcasting. He begins at the 5h28m15s mark and speaks until 5h36m07s.