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Foreword

by Steph Sherer

Founder and Executive Director

Americans for Safe Access

In 2000, I sustained a severe neck injury that left me with lack of mobility in my neck, neurological spasms, and severe chronic pain. I had to take painkillers, muscle relaxants, and high doses of ibuprofen to relieve the pain and calm the spasms. After about a year, as a result of the medications, problems developed with my stomach and kidneys. Six months later, my doctor warned me that I might have to start dialysis. I was 23 years old and terrified.

One day in the examining room, my doctor shut the door behind him and asked me in a whisper, “Do you smoke marijuana?” I said no, and he replied, “Do you know anyone who does?” I thought he was trying to buy marijuana from me! My doctor reassured me that my assumption was wrong. He explained that he did not know very much about medical cannabis, but he had had other patients with similar intolerance to pain medications who were able to cut their medication intake by at least half by using cannabis. He was reluctant to put me on dialysis. If I could find some marijuana, we should try it.

It was the first time that I had ever really thought about marijuana as medicine. I probably had the same amount of information on the subject that most Americans had at the time. I thought medical cannabis was only for people with AIDS or cancer. In favor of it in principle, I knew little about the emerging scientific developments nor had considered the needs of patients. Now facing my own medical crisis, the choice between dialysis and cannabis seemed an easy one to make, regardless of the law.

Finding information about cannabis as medicine was extremely difficult. I started by calling friends and friends of friends, but none of these individuals could explain how to use cannabis as a medicine and why cannabis worked. I felt alone as I started experimenting. It wasn’t until months later when I could visit the medical cannabis centers in California’s San Francisco Bay Area that I was able to get the kinds of information found in this book.

Access Means Action

So much has changed over the past years. Resources like this book make learning about cannabis therapeutics and policies easier for patients. But indisputably the battle for safe and legal access to this medication rages on.

The history of medical cannabis in the U.S. is filled with stories of the heroic patients who had laid the foundation of safe access. At the heart of this movement are individuals willing to commit daily acts of federal civil disobedience to provide medicine to people like me—a movement of people willing to stand up against injustice, people willing to fight in the courtroom, and people willing to spend their last days concerned about the welfare of others.

I decided to work with other medical cannabis stakeholders to create an organization that would stand up for the rights of people like me who were seeking safe access, as well as the rights of those willing to provide it. As a cannabis patient, it was my turn, my responsibility, and my honor.

In 2002 the opportunity came to found and direct Americans for Safe Access, ASA, the first organization dedicated to safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic uses and research.

ASA created a vision for what safe access should look like, and the legal framework to support that vision, through the passing of state and local laws and numerous court battles. Our extensive monitoring of law enforcement activity has helped thousands of patients, and held law enforcement accountable to state laws. We continue to work with members of Congress and the Administration to resolve the federal conflict.

By even considering cannabis as your choice of medicine, you are formulating the future of medical cannabis in your city, state, and nation. My hope is that as you discover the utility of cannabis as a therapeutic in your life, you will also join in to guarantee safe and legal access for everyone who needs it.