Schooling Doctor Yen: A rebuttal to Oklahoma Senator Ervin Yen's KOSU radio interview on Medical Cannabis

Attention Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Activists: 

UPDATE!! Dr. Ervin Yen lost his senate seat to a primary challenger and 57% of Oklahoma voters said "yes" to medical marijuana. Our voices made a difference! Thanks to everyone who shared!

As you are well aware, as the June 26 Oklahoma primary nears, prohibitionists are coming out of the woodwork with Refeer Madness-type propaganda against Oklahoma State Question #788, which will legalize medical cannabis. Some of your own state legislators are pushing laws to circumvent the spirit of SQ #788 before the public has had an opportunity to vote on the legislation. State Senator Ervin Yen, an anesthesiologist, has written Senate Bill #1120 to limit medical marijuana use to certain medical conditions, which DO NOT include PTSD, Glaucoma, Cancer, and Chronic Pain among others.  Senator Yen is attempting to use his status as a physician to lend gravitas to his statements against cannabis legalization, yet it is crystal clear that he has conducted minimal, if any, research on the topic. The following article is a line-by-line rebuttal to Mr. Yen’s recent statements during an interview with KOSU radio’s Michael Cross. Please, share this article far and wide, and follow my blog if you are interested in reading more cannabis articles.

Michael Cross: “This bill is dealing with medical marijuana. Tell us what you’ve got going on in this bill.”

Senator Ervin Yen: “Okay, you know, I sort of believe that most of America is headed down the road to legalizing marijuana in some manner, okay?”

Damn right, Senator Yen. It’s not so much a road to legalization as it is a track to repeal of prohibition. The legalization train has left the station. A solid majority, 64%, of the American people are for ending prohibition altogether, while support for medical marijuana is at a whopping 94%. That is a clear mandate from We the People, and Congress will be forced sooner rather than later to end prohibition. It’s the end of the line for prohibition, and you’re on the wrong track.

 Yen: Now, I’m certainly not for legalizing recreational marijuana.

Well, that’s no surprise since you are pre-emptively subverting the will of the 66,000 people who signed the petition to get State Question #788 to legalize medical marijuana on June 26, 2018 ballot.  Maybe you should brush up on Article 5, V2 of the Oklahoma Constitution: “The FIRST POWER reserved by the people is the initiative, and eight per centum of the legal voters shall have the right to propose any legislative measure, and fifteen per centum of the legal voters shall have the right to propose amendments to the Constitution by petition, and every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed.” You are attempting to fundamentally change a law that has yet to be voted on as legally submitted, including the entire text as intended. Such arrogance. 

Yen: As a physician, it would be hard for me to be against medical marijuana, but I believe in all the states that have legalized medical marijuana, it’s not really medical marijuana.

Really? How does your status as a physician help you determine whether or not people in other states are really using marijuana recreationally rather than medicinally?  Can you cite a study that shows evidence for this? I searched Google Scholar for relevant research, but came up empty. I did, however, find evidence that states with medical marijuana laws see an increase in adult marijuana users, while teen use has stayed steady or even dropped in states with legal marijuana. In fact, marijuana use among teens is at its lowest level since 1994, two years before California passed the first medical marijuana law.

Let’s put our thinking caps on, shall we? Of course more adults are using cannabis in states with medical marijuana laws; they are using cannabis as a safer alternative to many pharmaceuticals that have horrible side effects. Plus, they don’t have to worry about facing jail time. You understand that when a pharmaceutical rep comes to your office with lunch and free pens to show you their company’s newly FDA-approved anesthesia drug, they are there to educate you on the drug’s uses and try to convince you to use it in your medical practice. Am I right? I’ve certainly signed in with a lot of drug-logoed pens and seen a lot of sandwich trays carried past while I sat in my doctor’s waiting rooms. It seems logical then that the usage of that particular drug will increase as doctors learn about the existence of a new drug and begin to use it. Correct?

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Despite its pre-prohibition place, since 1851, in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, cannabis is in reality a new medicine since researchers only identified the human endocannabinoid system in the mid-1990s. We now know that our bodies have “membrane receptors for the psychoactive principle in Cannabis, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol and their endogenous ligands — now indicates a whole signaling system that comprises cannabinoid receptors, endogenous ligands and enzymes for ligand biosynthesis and inactivation. This system seems to be involved in an ever-increasing number of pathological conditions.” (The Endocannabinoid System and its Therapeutic Exploitation (2004) Vincenzo DiMarzo Maurizio Bifulco and Luciano De Petrocellis).

And to think, the only cannabis research the U.S. government allowed for decades were studies looking only for harmful and never beneficial effects! (Why its so Hard for Scientists to Study Pot – Scientific American April 18, 2013). Just think how much cannabis science will advance once prohibition ends and researchers can obtain cannabis from more than one government-approved source! (Scientists Say the Government’s Only Pot Farm has Moldy Samples — and No Federal Testing Standards - Mar 8, 2017 PBS.org)

It’s sort of like aspirin in that it wasn’t until 1993 that physicians began recommending a daily low dose of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) for people with heart conditions. I’d be truly surprised if 81mg aspirin usage has not increased over the intervening years, especially since it’s now recommended for certain types of stroke as well. Aspirin started with the lowly willow tree around c3000 – 1500 BC. Isn’t it amazing that aspirin is still the subject of around 700 to 1000 studies per year?

Cannabis is just a common weed that was indigenous to Siberia about 12,000 years ago. It spread around the world and is recognized as one of the world’s oldest cultivated crops. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if everyone could grow their own extremely safe, non-toxic pain reliever/antiemetic/anticonvulsant/antidepressant and addiction treatment right in their own backyards? (That link is to the FDA website. FDA, aka the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.)

It’s no surprise then, is it, that cannabis use has increased as the corpus of cannabis science grows and the medicine becomes both legal and easily accessible? Not to mention that people in full-prohibition states are immigrating to legal states to access cannabis. (American Medical Refugees). I’m sure you’re aware of families who’ve moved out of Oklahoma, where they fear DHS coming to take children away and possible arrest, to cannabis-friendly states where their children with Dravet’s Syndrome have used cannabis to dramatic effect. Of course cannabis use has increased in states where medical marijuana is legal. Duh.

You say medical marijuana in legal states is not really medical. How do you know that? If someone claims to feel better after smoking a bowl of cannabis, how can you argue it’s not medicine? It can’t be because it got them “high.” An anesthesiologist would never make such a claim, would they, Doctor Yen?

I still laugh about the time right after the anesthesiologist injected into my husband’s IV line some meds to help him relax as the staff prepped for surgery. Dave was as high as a kite. An aide asked him which staff member had last been in to perform some pre-surgery task. “It was that cute little nurse with the nice breasts.” I’m aware that he appreciates women’s breasts, but he usually doesn’t come right out and call my attention to particularly nice specimens. Well, maybe he has, but they have to be really special set, and he doesn’t tell the whole room. I LMAO! (Twenty-first century acronym for Internet and Text chatting. LMAO = Laugh(ed, ing) My Ass Off.) I’m pretty sure that a surgeon could perform a hemorrhoidectomy without anesthetizing the patient, but I suspect it’s easier for all involved if the patient is stoned. Even stoned to the bone. From what I understand, an anesthesiologist’s job can be pretty entertaining. I can only imagine. Obviously, the fact that a particular medicine gets the patient high doesn’t mean it it’s not the best medicine for the job.

Yen: I think it’s quite easy for people to get a medical marijuana card, and so I’ve said to myself, if we’re going to do this in Oklahoma, let’s do it the right way. And so my bill attempts to do it the right way.

Really? You mean the 66,000 registered voters who put State Question #788 on the ballot don’t know what they’re doing, and you do? As you are probably aware, since 1996, 29 states have legalized marijuana for medical use, each one independently, yet learning by the example of those states that came before them. Over 195,000,000 of the 320,000,000 people living in this country have legal access to medical marijuana. The writers of SQ. #788 learned from more than two decades worth of empirical evidence gathered from states that have legal medical cannabis. Many of those 66,000 registered voters are suffering with ailments that you and your colleagues in the medical profession have been unable to address satisfactorily. They have done their homework and understand what they are getting into by approving medical marijuana. Is the proposed Oklahoma medical cannabis law perfect? No. But don’t let the perfect be this enemy of the good.

I get that you are a medical doctor, but if you’re going to use that to bolster your credibility to make laws that other people are forced to follow, don’t you think it behooves you to do your homework first? Shouldn’t you be as least as educated on the topic as the people you have chosen to nanny, since they, in your estimation, don’t know the “right way” to implement medical marijuana in Oklahoma? There is no shame in being ignorant on a particular topic, but when you set out to make laws controlling the behavior of other people, it morally wrong to remain willfully ignorant when educational sources abound, especially for someone in your position as a physician.

Yen: It (Yen’s proposed legislation) really says that you can prescribe medical marijuana only for certain specific reasons. One of those reasons is not Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is not Depression. I have not read any good studies that show marijuana is effective for those to two reasons.

Once again, the federal government for decades has stifled studies on cannabis that aim to establish any medical use or positive benefits of the plant. Furthermore, just because you haven’t read any good studies doesn’t mean they don’t exist. From what I’ve been able to find in my research, the published research that does exist all agrees that there is enough evidence for the plant’s efficacy that more research is warranted. As I’m sure you’re aware, if that research had shown no medicinal value in treating either depression or PTSD with cannabis, it’s been published. In the publish-or-perish world of academia a well-designed study showing harm from cannabis is gold for its authors and the university that employ them, and you know it. Whatever research exists to show that cannabis is not a useful and safe option among the treatments available for PTSD and Depression, I challenge you, Dr. Yen, to find it and share it with the rest of the class.

While it has been difficult for researchers to study cannabis, the government doesn’t object to Big Pharma manufacturing and doing human trials and selling drugs made with synthetic cannabis. In 1995, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company won the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the synthesized cannabinoid Nabilone (Cesanet) for use in treating nausea and vomiting associated with cancer treatment. It is now widely pre-scribed for many off-label uses. This quote is from a study using Nabilone called Use of a Synthetic Cannabinoid in a Correctional Population for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder–Related Insomnia and Nightmares, Chronic Pain, Harm Reduction, and Other Indications: “This retrospective study of 104 male inmates with serious mental illness prescribed nabilone analyzes the indications, efficacy, and safety of its use. Medications discontinued with the initiation of nabilone were also reviewed. The results showed nabilone targeting a mean of 3.5 indications per patient, thus likely reducing polypharmacy risk. The mean final dosage was 4.0mg. Results indicated significant improvement in PTSD-associated insomnia, nightmares, PTSD symptoms, and Global Assessment of Functioning and subjective improvement in chronic pain. Medications associated with greater risk for adverse effects or abuse than nabilone were often able to be discontinued with the initiation of nabilone, most often antipsychotics and sedative/hypnotics. There was no evidence of abuse within this high-risk population or reduction of efficacy when nabilone was given in powder form with water rather than as a capsule. This study supports the promise of nabilone as a safe, effective treatment for concurrent disorders in seriously mentally ill correctional populations.” Cannabis synthetics chemically created to be exactly like the real plant compounds are useful medications, but the plant found in nature that has several centuries worth of data to prove its safety record is too dangerous to allow into the hands of the suffering public? Seriously? Have you though that position through, Doctor?

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), has categorized several FDA-approved synthetic cannabis drugs as Schedule II drugs, which as you surely know, are those the federal agency says have a high potential for abuse. According to the DEA, drugs on Schedule II include “products with less than 15 milligrams of hydrocodone per dosage unit (Vicodin), cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone, hydromorphone (Dilaudid), meperidine (Demerol), oxycodone (OxyContin), fentanyl, Dexedrine, Adderall, and Ritalin.” Meanwhile, the read deal—a non-toxic plant with its centuries-long track record for safety and efficacy in treating numerous disorders is listed by the DEA as a Schedule I drug. “Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote.” While the DEA doesn’t recognize cannabis as medicine, “some of the basic work on the medical potential of cannabinoids, in fact, was patented by the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (US 6,630,507) in 2003.”

Yen: Now, I will tell you one of the reasons that is currently in the bill that I’m going to take out is something like chronic pain or long term pain that’s unresponsive to other forms of treatment. There are studies that show marijuana can be effective for that, but I think that’s just too easily abused by patients. Somebody could go to their doctor and say I’ve tried ABCDEF and G, and it’s just not working. I still have pain. Can you prescribe me for some marijuana?

Again, are you serious? You’re more worried about a few people who might “abuse” cannabis, by which I believe you mean use it to get high, than you are about all the chronic pain sufferers becoming addicted, and often dying, due to prescription pain relievers? Are you really arguing that it’s worth risking the lives and livers of people who live in constant pain by denying them an opportunity to try a non-toxic, non-addictive plant just so you can make sure some guy with no obvious medical condition doesn’t kick back and enjoy a joint after work? Doesn’t it seem like a person ought to be able to try the medicine with the best safety record as a first line of treatment rather than wait until they’ve exhausted a long list of pharmaceuticals with dangerous and sometimes fatal side effects? Incredible.

Furthermore, if you’re concerned about the higher potency and potential risk of “recreational abuse” of cannabis, you should know that users can and do self-titrate their dosage, and often prefer milder strains. In layman’s terms, that means, no matter the THC content, which is responsible for the psychoactive effects or “high” users experience, people use only enough cannabis to get the desired effect and then they stop. So, it is entirely possible for a person to treat fibromyalgia pain with little to no “high” while working throughout the week, and then decide to get stoned and watch movies on Friday night. And so what if they do? (BTW, nobody is saying that they think people with high-risk jobs should be able to use cannabis while working. We don’t want them popping Vicodin either.)

The American Medical Association, an organization that lists you as a member, chose to publish in 2014 a study that concluded, “Medical cannabis laws are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality rates. Further investigation is required to determine how medical cannabis laws may interact with policies aimed at preventing opioid analgesic overdose.” In plain English that means, “Fewer people are dropping dead from opioid overdose in legal medical marijuana states, so we should study the topic more to see if these awesome results can be replicated in other states.” In other words, your esteemed colleagues in the AMA disagree with you.

Michael Cross: So, the changes to the bill you’ll add that with the Depression and PTSD that those will not be allowed?

Yen: Yeah, those will not be in there, correct.

Michael Cross: Okay, that’s what I thought.

I’d love to hear your justification for disallowing cannabis for PTSD and Depression treatment since there is, as I’ve shown, significant research to show that the plant may indeed be a valuable medical treatment for those conditions. Just like when my physician prescribes medications that either don’t work for me or have uncomfortable side effects, PTSD and depression sufferers will discontinue using cannabis (or try a different strain) if it is not working for them. Come on, it’s non-toxic and safer than aspirin. Shouldn’t people have an opportunity to try the least harmful medications first instead of last, and illegally at that? Shouldn’t you, as a medical doctor, support treatment plans, especially in non-emergency situations, that begin with the least harmful therapy and move up from there?

Yen: Absolutely, so spastic paralysis from multiple sclerosis or paraplegia. So, it’s not to treat multiple sclerosis or paraplegia. It’s to treat somebody who has spastic paralysis caused by either those two things. The other reason is neuropathic pain. That means pain that somebody has that is specifically due to injury to a nerve. So neuropathic just means damage to a nerve. So, like, somebody gets their arm or leg lopped off (is that medical term, Doctor Yen?), and they continue to have pain. They could even have what’s called Phantom Limb pain. That means, like, you’ve had your leg lopped off but you feel like you’ve got pain in your foot, but you don’t have a foot. So, neuropathic pain, that’s the second reason. The third reason is nausea and vomiting from, say, chemotherapy or other reasons it’s not responding. It’s not for any particular disease. It’s for a symptom of the disease, or treatment. Intractable nausea and vomiting. And the final reason: Chronic Wasting Disease from, say, AIDS or cancer. So, it’s not to treat AIDS, and it’s not to treat any form of cancer. It’s for those patients who because of AIDS or cancer they’re just not consuming enough calories, and they’re losing weight. You want to try and do something to stimulate their appetite, and help them gain some weight.

Well, I’m happy to see that you have read some medical research on cannabis. Should you care to further study this issue that you find so pressing that you felt compelled to write legislation to control it, there is actually a significant amount of research showing that cannabis slows tumor growth, and the signs show that cannabis may indeed be a cure for certain types of cancers. Cannabis is showing great promise as a treatment for gliomas, a type of brain tumor for which there is no known cure. In fact, researchers found that delta-9-THC, the major psychoactive component of cannabis, induces apoptosis—programmed cell death—in glioma tumors. Interestingly, in 2014 the FDA granted orphan drug status for treatment of cancer to a synthetic cannabidiol made by pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics. The company has chosen to focus initially on using the drug on a particular type of glioma.

I realize this is merely anecdotal evidence, but I have a friend who, with the blessings and assistance of a leading radiologist, a neuro oncologist, and a world-renowned brain surgeon cured a glioma with whole plant cannabis. Kelly is a medical refugee who fled Oklahoma to fight for her life in California where it’s legal to try cannabis as medicine. She and her husband, a former assistant fire chief in Stillwater, would like to come back to Oklahoma to watch their grandchildren grow and be with aging family members. Maybe you could write or support legislation, like SQ #788, that will help people like Kelly come home. As a doctor you should know that people with good support systems have better outcomes when fighting disease. If you want to have a positive impact on Oklahoma, write legislation that allows Oklahoma’s medical refugees the chance to come home and be with their people.

Michael Cross: Right a lot of times with AIDS and cancer you don’t want to eat because of the drugs you’re taking, and hopefully the idea is that this would make you hungry and want to eat, which you have to go against the drugs you are taking.

Yen: Absolutely, I even spoke with a patient. Not one of my constituents, but one of the other senators referred the patient to me who was asking me about medical marijuana. She had been diagnosed with I think it was ovarian cancer, and she asked me if she should move to Colorado to utilize medical marijuana. And I told her, I said, “look you can move up there and use medical marijuana, but it’s not going to do anything for your cancer. It is not going to make your cancer better. It is not going to make your cancer stop. It’s not going to make your cancer go away. Now, however, if because of your cancer, or the treatment of your cancer you’re just not consuming enough calories, and you need to consume more calories. Okay yes, you can move to Colorado and perhaps try some marijuana and see if it would stimulate your appetite and help you gain some weight.”

Which of your hats were you wearing when you offered medical advice to a cancer victim sent to you by another legislator? Anesthesiologist or State Legislator? Why on earth would you have done anything other than refer her to an oncologist, or at a minimum, research the issue on your own? It seems unethical to me, but what do I know? Should you choose to do the right thing, you could let that ovarian cancer victim know that the FDA has approved another Insys synthetic cannabidiol for the treatment of her condition. The survival rate for ovarian cancer diagnosed and treated at Stage II is less than 40%. You don’t say what stage of cancer this non-constituent of yours had a diagnosis for, but how could you in good conscience offer medical advice on a subject you have not researched fully? Cannabis may or may not have helped her, but you must be fully aware that medical treatment for most types of cancer has a less than 100% cure rate. While I understand advising her to continue with whatever therapies her team of oncologists recommends, the responsible and ethical thing would have been to advise her of the state of current cannabis science and use her best judgment as to whether or not it would be a good idea to supplement traditional therapies with a safe, non-toxic alternative treatment. I hope she’s still alive.

Michael Cross: That makes total sense. I’ve also heard about things like glaucoma. Have you heard about any kind of studies to where it shows marijuana helps in those kind of….

Yen: Marijuana does help glaucoma. Okay, now, when we are talking aboutmedicines, any kind of medicines, we always look at the benefits and the risks, okay? Do the benefits outweigh the risks? That’s what we look at. What’s the benefit of marijuana for glaucoma? Well, it decreases the intraocular pressure in your eyeball. That’s the benefit. Okay? However, to get that benefit you have to be stoned all the time. You have to have your blood level pretty high. So the risk is walking around stoned all the time, and in my mind the benefits don’t outweigh the risks.

Firstly, glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease. Here are the results from my Google Scholar search on the query “cannabis neurodegenerative disease.” As you can see from the search results, cannabis is showing great promise in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other dementias, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS, and schizophrenias.

Secondly, I agree, we do need to do a cost-benefit analysis as we consider any medication. You can learn about the first-line glaucoma treatment, prostaglandin analogs and their side effects here. Information about beta-blockers, another commonly used glaucoma treatment can be found here. Information about Timolol Ophthalmic, a beta-blocker, includes this:

“Get emergency medical help if you have any of these signs of an allergic reaction: hives; difficulty breathing; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat.” {Allergic reaction to cannabis is extremely rare, scientist believe could actually be from mold or other allergens sometimes present in   improperly cultivated or processed cannabis. That’s a good reason to regulate commercial marijuana grows.}

 What are the possible side effects of timolol ophthalmic?

Stop using this medication and call your doctor at once if you have any of these serious side effects:

swelling or redness of your eyelids; eye redness, discomfort, or sensitivity to light; drainage, crusting, or oozing of your eyes or eyelids; depressed mood, confusion, hallucinations, unusual thoughts or behavior; wheezing, gasping, or other breathing problems; swelling, rapid weight gain; chest pain, slow or uneven heart rate; or feeling short of breath, even with mild exertion.

Less serious side effects may include:

blurred vision, double vision, drooping eyelid; burning or stinging in your eye; headache, weakness, drowsiness; numbness, tingling, or cold feeling in your hands or feet; ringing in your ears; dry mouth; nausea, diarrhea, loss of appetite, upset stomach; skin rash or worsening psoriasis; sleep problems (insomnia); or cough, stuffy nose.

This is not a complete list of side effects and others may occur. Tell your doctor about any unusual or bothersome side effect. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

What is the most important information I should know about timolol ophthalmic?

Do not allow the dropper to touch any surface, including the eyes or hands. If the dropper becomes contaminated it could cause an infection in your eye, which can lead to vision loss or serious damage to the eye.

Do not use any other eye medication unless your doctor has prescribed it for you. If you use another eye medication, use it at least 10 minutes before or after using timolol ophthalmic. Do not use the medications at the same time.

Timolol ophthalmic can cause blurred vision. Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be able to see clearly.” What other drugs will affect timolol ophthalmic?

Before using timolol ophthalmic, tell your doctor if you are using any of the following drugs:

clonidine (Catapres); quinidine (Cardioquin, Quinadex, Quinaglute);

reserpine; digitalis (digoxin, Lanoxin, Lanoxicaps); acetazolamide (Diamox), dichlorphenamide (Daranide), or methazolamide (Neptazane); oral timolol (Blocadren); any other beta-blocker such as atenolol (Tenormin), bisoprolol (Zebeta), labetalol (Normodyne, Trandate), metoprolol (Lopressor, Toprol), nadolol (Corgard), penbutolol (Levatol), pindolol (Visken), propranolol (Inderal, InnoPran), sotalol (Betapace), and others;

a calcium channel blocker such as diltiazem (Tiazac, Cartia, Cardizem), felodipine (Plendil), nifedipine (Procardia, Adalat), verapamil (Calan, Covera, Isoptin, Verelan), and others; or

antidepressants such as citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac, Sarafem), fluvoxamine (Luvox), paroxetine (Paxil), or sertraline (Zoloft).

This list is not complete and there may be other drugs that can interact with timolol ophthalmic. Tell your doctor about all the prescription and over-the-counter medications you use. This includes vitamins, minerals, herbal products, and drugs prescribed by other doctors. Do not start using a new medication without telling your doctor.

Wow. Many of those side effects seem very similar to the arguments I’ve heard against medical marijuana. Yet here we are, weighing the pros and cons of using a plant that might be the right medication for certain glaucoma patients. Shouldn’t that be a decision made between a patient and their own ophthalmologist and other physicians familiar with their health history?

Michael Cross: Right, Right

Yen: You know, utilize eye drops that work without such a major side effect. Does that make sense?

See above. Does it make sense to write laws about issues you are uniformed about?

Michael Cross: Yeah, definitely. So, there’s other things out there that you can do besides marijuana.

Yen: Right, there’s other drugs. There’s several medications. Eye drops. And that’s even better because the eye drop, more or less, works only on your eyeball, not on the rest of your body like marijuana would do.

Really? Several of the medications that should be avoided or monitored while using Timolol Ophthalmic work on body parts not connected to eyeballs.

Michael Cross: The Health Department has said that it really doesn’t want to have to worry about regulating marijuana. Does your bill deal with who is going to oversee the drug?

Senator Yen: Yeah, it does say the Health Department. And that’s just the government entity that makes sense to me. Now, if we want to try to make it some other agency, I would be open to that, but I don’t know who that would be.

At least you’re using your noodle on this subject, unlike your colleague, State Rep Claudia Griffith. OMG, this article about the two of you and your shenanigans to pre-emptively circumvent the will of your constituents is freaking hilarious!  Thanks, Lost Ogle! 

Michael Cross: Right, that’s going to be a discussion as the Session goes on.

Yen: Correct. I will tell you also, that when I read what’s going to be on the ballot June 26, I don’t like that at all. I don’t like it at all. I hope to gosh it doesn’t pass, actually. And there are some things in there that I don’t like. It’s a little too open ended. We need to limit the reasons that you could prescribe medical marijuana. The other problem that I noticed is that I think any doctor could prescribe it including veterinarians and chiropractors, and I don’t think that’s appropriate.

Okay, I’m not going to call you a liar, Senator Yen, but have you even read SQ. #788, the law you’re proposing legislation for the sole purpose of circumventing? This is an excerpt from the ballot showing that the law will grant power to neither chiropractors nor veterinarians, despite your deepest fears.

“An individual 18 years old or older who wants to obtain a medical marijuana license would need a board-certified physician's signature. An individual under the age of 18 would need the signatures of two physicians and his or her parent or legal guardian. There would be no qualifying conditions, but a doctor would be required to sign according to "accepted standards a reasonable and prudent physician would follow when recommending or approving any medication.

Michael Cross: Right, and now so you’ve got this bill that’s going to be going through the legislature. Have you talked to anybody, especially within your own party, about whether they support the idea of your bill to kind of help regulate medical marijuana, if it passes?

Yen: I have not spoken with any folks, specifically, any of my colleagues, but I would guess that they will be supportive of this bill. I actually had a bill last regular session that passed on the senate side that was kind of similar to this bill, not quite as in depth about the regulation, but quite similar. It passed the senate and went over to the House, and it’s still in play. It just wasn’t heard in the House Committee, and it could still be heard. So, that’s why I say I think my senate colleagues would be open to voting for this bill.

Thank God you’re an impotent and ineffective legislator.

As a reminder, here is the oath you took as a physician:

                                                   Hippocratic Oath: Modern Version

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

—Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

This is the oath you swore as an Oklahoma Legislator:

SECTION XV-1

Officers required to take oath or affirmation - Form.

All public officers, before entering upon the duties of their offices, shall take and subscribe to the following oath or affirmation:

"I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma, and that I will not, knowingly, receive, directly or indirectly, any money or other valuable thing, for the performance or nonperformance of any act or duty pertaining to my office, other than the compensation allowed by law; I further swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully discharge my duties as _________ to the best of my ability."

The Legislature may prescribe further oaths or affirmations.

Amended by State Question No. 466, Legislative Referendum No. 178, adopted at election held on Sept. 9, 1969.

SECTION XV-2

Administration and filing of oath - Refusal to take - False swearing.

The foregoing oath shall be administered by some person authorized to administer oaths, and in the case of State officers and judges of the Supreme Court, shall be filed in the office of the Secretary of State, and in case of other judicial and county officers, in the office of the clerk of the county in which the same is taken; any person refusing to take said oath, or affirmation, shall forfeit his office, and any person who shall have been convicted of having sworn or affirmed falsely, or having violated said oath, or affirmation, shall be guilty of perjury, and shall be disqualified from holding any office of trust or profit within the State.  The oath to members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be administered in the hall of the house to which the members shall have been elected, by one of the judges of the Supreme Court, or in case no such judge is present, then by any person authorized to administer oaths.

Senator Yen, I believe you have violated two oaths that you swore regarding your duties patients and your constituents. I hope that someone with more time and inclination than I will investigate both your medical and legislative ethics to determine if action should be brought against you for violating these oaths. I’d like to know if you’ve completed all of the continuing education hours necessary for your degree, and specifically if you’ve logged any hours of continuing education related to cannabis. I’d also be interested in knowing if you’ve accepted campaign donations from any pharmaceutical companies. I don’t call for this action lightly, because I understand that in making these serious charges, I am interfering with another person’s livelihood. You, however, are messing around with people’s lives. I urge you to educate yourself on medical cannabis and public policy and either repent or resign from any positions where your lack of ethics and education offer opportunities for you to harm the lives of others.  I await your rebuttal or to reply to my comments in this article.

A final note to interviewer Michael Cross:

Mr. Cross, your KOSU bio shows that you have decades of experience working as a journalist. May I ask, then, why it seems that you did not prepare for this interview by reading up on medical cannabis and the proposed new laws, SQ #788 and SB #1120, before your meeting with Senator Yen? Why did you not challenge him on any of his falsehoods? When I looked up your biography I expected to find that the interview was conducted by a current OSU radio and television student, and not a seasoned professional. I’m sure you’re an excellent journalist, but I would advise doing your homework before tackling such hot-button topics as medical marijuana on your radio program. Cannabis is no longer a topic you can “phone in” on when you’re not in the mood to work.

Readers: Please remember to share this post with anyone interested in seeing Oklahomans have safe, legal access to medical marijuana. Thanks! 

 

 

 

 

Debbie has a BA in English/Technical Writing and an MA in Political Science, both from Oklahoma State University. She enjoys writing on public policy, criminal justice, cannabis prohibition and whatever else pops into her head.