Virginia Nurses Again Demand Medical Cannabis

eMedia Wire

The Virginia Nurses Association, representing some 80,000 nurses, have recently reconfirmed their support for Medical Cannabis and are continuing their support for immediate legislation legalizing its medical use.

(PRWEB) September 3, 2005 -- The Virginia Nurses Association, representing some 80,000 nurses, have recently reconfirmed their support for Medical Cannabis and are continuing their support for immediate legislation legalizing its medical use.

The Virginia Nurses Association (VNA), representing 80,000 Nurses, at their October 2004 VNA Delegate Assembly, resolved that:

"The Virginia Nurses Association will continue to support legislation that would legalize the medically prescribed use of cannabis/Marijuana for the purpose of relieving pain and distressful symptoms of acute, chronic, or incurable illness."

The VNA "will continue" to support this patient care position since the VNA was the first of now 14 state nursing associations that have taken written published positions in support of the therapeutic use of cannabis. The VNA leadership in 1994 has been echoed over the years by the American Nurses Association, the American Public Health Association, the National Nurses Society on Addictions, and dozens of other medically orientated groups. (List available at www.medicalcannabis.com).

The combined membership of health care professionals that are publicly demanding therapeutic cannabis is in the several millions.

Mary Lynn Mathre, RN, MSN, CARN, a central Virginia addictions specialist, author, educator and the individual that sponsored the original 1994 VNA resolution in support of a patients right to medical cannabis was very positive about the role of the professional nurse and others health care professionals in this demand action.

"Nurses are the most respected profession in the US and their opinion counts, or certainly should count, more than the absurd to ignorant statements made by US government officials, most of whom are attorneys or law enforcement specialists that have no true understanding of medicine, or the medical use of cannabis. Nurses, Medical Doctors, Social Workers and all other health care professionals have spoken with resolve through their professional organizations and they have said patients need cannabis now. These are the experts politicians should be guided by in this demand for compassion and reason."