53:42 Mrs. McGuire. Another health issue. Medical marijuana. [Cathy Glasson snickers] Doctors are reluctant to recommend it as treatment because under the federal law it’s still a controlled substance. How do you resolve that without action at the federal level?
Dr. McGuire: Well I think you have to do something with the state to make it more like a regular drug. And I think you can do that with a state — I, you know, it’s hard to know what the federal government is going to do especially with the present leadership — but in the state, you can treat this like any other drug. And you should never take anything out of that pipeline. Because tomorrow there could be another use for that drug. And that’s why we have the rule of pharmacy, so that once a drug is approved and comes in, you can say that it’s going to be treated like any other drug. Then doctors and patients can make those decisions. So, that’s how it ought to be treated.
Moderator: Mr. Wilburn, college town man?
Ross Wilburn: Mmm-hmm!
Moderator: There are people who say if you allow medical marijuana for any condition that that is essentially recreational marijuana. Is that something that you are concerned about, or do you think that more conditions should be allowed to seek medical marijuana as treatment?
Ross Wilburn: I think more conditions should be allowed. I think that’s an overreaction for folks to think that that’s a direct line to recreational use. There are people who are hurting now. My mother died of cancer when I was 25, I mean she could have certainly benefited from, you know medical marijuana. My father died of Alzheimer’s. I remember uh, the, the nurses saying, in this case they don’t know why the doctor wasn’t providing an opioid because he was hurting for the last two weeks. He’s someone that could have benefited. Reduce the schedule. Let’s put this in place to take care of Iowans now.
Moderator: Cathy Glasson.
Cathy Glasson: Medical cannabis actually is used to treat opioid addiction. So evidence is showing that it’s actually beneficial in keeping off as a gateway drug. So just to be clear. We need to look at the evidence hear. Medical cannabis has been very effective at treating lots of ailments. Very serious ones. Uh, you know, even depression and severe seizure disorders, those sort of really hard medical conditions.
Moderator: So, does the Legislature decide which conditions cover, or should a professional board decide that?
Cathy Glasson: The medical professionals should be helping address it. Uh, but we need to make it more accessible, which it isn’t right now. And so the State of Iowa should work a little bit harder. I know it was passed on bipartisan efforts. Uh, I think we need to expand it and make it more readily available to folks, because they are suffering now. And in some instances, the medical conditions are so severe, what we’re offering Iowans right now, is not strong enough to actually help them with their condition.
(Old man grumbles in background)
Moderator: Mr. Hubbell. Five dispensaries will be around the state to allow access to the drug later this year, actually very late this year in December. Is that enough?
Fred Hubbell: No, it’s not enough. If we’re really committed to quality affordable healthcare for all Iowans, which we should be, and it’s certainly been a part of my campaign — uh, the science is clear that there are a lot more forms of medical illnesses and medical issues that medical marijuana can actually be very beneficial for, much broader than what we allow in our state. Other states have gone a lot broader than we have. So we should not only increase that with the advice of the medical community, but we should also allow more kinds of marijuana itself. There’s a lot of different levels of THC that can be used. We have one of the lowest. And and it’s been proven that, different kinds of THC are better or worse with different kinds of illnesses. So, we need to expand on both sides.
Moderator: Mr. Norris?
John Norris: This is a case where the Governor’s not leading when she needs to. People are suffering in this state. She’s spending all of her political capital on tax cuts for millionaires. As Governor I would spend some political capital on educating Iowans on how this helps people. Let’s get over this paranoia with the, recreational drug, and get this fixed for people who need it.
Moderator: Mr. Boulton?
Boulton: Yeah, I I sponsored legislation to expand the use of medical cannabis. And the reality is, we’re not going to get more providers coming into our state to invest in a medical cannabis solution if we don’t have more accessibility. We’re not going to get people to come here, to only be able to offer to a small number of Iowans. What we should do, the Legislature should be involved, but it should be to expressly authorize medical professionals to make the decisions.
Moderator: Andy McGuire you had something you wanted to add…
Dr. McGuire: Well, there’s certainly a discussion we’re having with the Governors. That’s the problem here. This should be a discussion that doctors, looking up scientific medical literature, ought to be making those decisions. This is the problem. You don’t want to have the Legislature, you don’t want to have the Governor involved in this. You want to have it done by physicians with their patients. And to your point of abuse? I understand that. But we have a lot of drugs that are abused and we don’t stop having them. Let’s look at the abuse, rather than looking at why we wouldn’t use it for good purposes.
Moderator: I need to move onto another question. James?
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