Statement by Senator Joe Bolkcom
Iowa Medical Cannabidiol Board Meeting
August 2, 2019
Members of Iowa Medical Cannabidiol Board, with all due respect. It’s time to face facts.
Between the misguided actions of the Governor, the Republican controlled legislature and this Board, you have created the nation’s worst medical cannabis program.
Residents of 32 other states — the majority of all Americans — have much better access to affordable, effective medicines made from cannabis.
In Iowa, the medicine is too expensive and not potent enough to help most people. Getting approved as a patient is cumbersome and bureaucratic. There are only five dispensaries, none located in rural Iowa.
After five long years, only 3,300 sick Iowans have been able to cut through the red tape to legally obtain medical cannabis. More than 70 percent of these patients suffer from intractable, severe and chronic pain.
Patients want the choice of medical cannabis when they are faced with serious, life threatening medical conditions.
Sadly, a few short months ago this board derailed very modest improvements supported by 137 Iowa legislators that would have helped these patients suffering from intractable pain.
Meanwhile, Iowa remains awash in powerful, highly addictive narcotic pain pills. It’s astonishing that in the first six months of 2019, Iowa doctors wrote 850 thousand narcotic prescriptions for 307 thousand Iowans. More than half were prescribed addictive opioids like fentanyl.
So follow this. There are more than 300 thousand sick Iowans taking narcotic pain pills while only 3,300 patients have been able to access safer, medicines made from cannabis.
When are we going to start protecting Iowans from deadly, drug company opioids?
The board’s misplaced obsession with THC has clouded your ability to actually help people. THC is medicine and Iowa patients are capable of managing it.
This is NOT about having a party, it’s about helping people that are dying and sick.
Earlier this year Illinois ended marijuana prohibition.
On January 1, adults 21 years of age and older will be able to legally buy products made with marijuana.
The good news is that Iowa medical cannabis patients will have much easier access (albeit illegally) to less expensive, far more effective medicines closer than Colorado.
The bad news is that this could put Iowa medical cannabis companies out of business.
These companies that have invested millions are all losing money now and they will lose much more as their patients take their business to Illinois.
Like it or not, without thoughtful and immediate improvements to Iowa law, Illinois businesses will become major suppliers of medicine to Iowa patients.
This mess is Governor Reynolds, the Republican legislature’s and yours to fix.
It won’t happen until you start listening to patients and put their needs first.
Thank you.