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Indiana Legislators Vote To Study Medical Marijuana

The resolution is not an endorsement of medical marijuana, but a signal that legislators are open to studying the issue.

Noon Edition airs Fridays at 12 p.m. on WFIU. 

Indiana lawmakers took a step toward legalizing medical cannabis last Thursday by voting to study the issue further.

The unanimously-passed resolution pushes for a state legislative study committee to examine the potential impacts of medical marijuana legislation.

The move is not an endorsement of medical marijuana, but signals that Indiana lawmakers are open to exploring the issue.

This week on Noon Edition, our panelists discussed the potential future of medical marijuana in Indiana.

Guests:

Bobbie Jo Young: President and CEO of IndyCann, Indianapolis, IN

Jonathan Caulkins: Professor Of Operations Research And Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour: Indiana State Representative District 69

Heather Bradshaw: Associate Professor, IU Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences

Conversation: Indiana Legislators Vote To Study Medical Marijuana

House Representative Jim Lucas (R-Seymore) was once indifferent to the issue of medical cannabis, but is now a champion of the cause.

"It's a moral issue to me. It's not a legal issue to me anymore," Lucas says. "I've talked to parents whose children, or family members, who have experienced the benefits of this without experiencing the debilitating side effects of many of the prescription medications that we're currently using. It's a no brainer."

Bobbie Jo Young is the CEO and president of IndyCann, an Indianapolis lobbying group for medical cannabis. Young says we need to step away from using the word "marijuana" when we have conversations around legalization.

"The word "marijuana", it's a slang term. It's improper English," Young says. "If we want these legislators to take us seriously, [. . .] we want to put our best foot forward and use proper terminology."

She prefers to use the scientific term "cannabis." House Resolution 2 only uses the term "medical marijuana."

IU Professor Heather Bradshaw studies the effects of cannabis on the nervous system, and says its federal classification limits our knowledge on the substance.

"Anything from cannabis is considered Schedule I so it makes it really challenging to perform certain clinical trials," Bradshaw says.

Jonathan Caulkins is a Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Caulkins warns that while there are many studies out there on cannabis, anecdotal reporting is not enough.

"The individual case reports of people saying "I felt better after I started using it, I felt worse after I stopped" are really not persuasive for a psychoactive substance," Caulkins says. "There are other forms of researched like randomized clinical trials that are really what you need to avoid getting seduced in to wrong conclusions."

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