CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY

RESOLUTION 93.28

Passed and adopted by the Executive Board at the California Democratic Party Executive Board Meeting

Anaheim, California

June 12 - 13, 1993

WHEREAS, seriously ill Californians and other Americans are unnecessarily suffering because of federal and state policies which legally prohibit marijuana's prescriptive medica use; despite significant scientific and medical study demonstrating that marijuana is safe for use under medical supervision, and that the Cannabis plant, in its natural form, has important therapeutic actions that are often of critical medical benefit to persons afflicted with a variety of life and sense-threatening illnesses, including glaucoma, cancer, AIDS, and neurologic conditions such as paralysis, epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis, and

WHEREAS, the California Medical Association, representing 34,000 physicians statewide, recently endorsed a resolution recognizing marijuana's therapeutic value and requested that the state legislature provide for the development of prescriptive protocols for marijuana's medical use, and a majority of cancer specialist have said that they would prescribe marijuana for their patients if it were legally available, and

WHEREAS, the people of California strongly believe, as evidenced by the overwhelming approval of medical marijuana's resolutions by 80% of San Francisco voters, 77% of Santa Cruz County voters, and a unanimous vote of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, that well-trained medical professionals, and not remote federal bureaucrats, should be responsible for determining a patient's routing of medical care; and

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the California democratic Party encourages and endorses all administrative and legislative efforts, by elected and appointed Democratic officials, in California and Washington, D.C., to end federal and state prohibitions against marijuana's legitimate medical use by creating a rational system of legal, prescriptive access to marijuana, and

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the Secretary of the California Democratic Party shall transmit the letter and spirit of this resolution to President Clinton, Vice President Gore, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Attorney General, the Democratic members of California's Congressional and state legislative delegations and the Democratic National Committee.

Adopted by the Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee, February 24, 1993