AUBURN — About two dozen people — some in their 20s and 30s, others old enough to be grandparents — filled a meeting room at the Auburn Public Library on Saturday to learn about medical marijuana and a marijuana dispensary that's coming to the city.
Dustin Sulak, D.O., of Hallowell speaks on the medical aspects of marijuana during a public forum held at the Auburn Public Library on Saturday.
The meeting was hosted by Timothy Smale and his wife, Jennifer "Jenna" Smale, founders of the Remedy Compassion Center, a dispensary that is scheduled to open this spring at the Auburn Plaza on Center Street. Timothy Smale told the group that he and his wife want the dispensary to be a way for patients to get medical marijuana "with dignity, respect and compassion."
"No longer will people have to go to drug dealers on the street," he said.
During the first hour, Smale and his wife spoke about their experience with medical marijuana — he suffers from debilitating migraines and she administers doses of the drug when he is too sick to do it himself. They also talked about the dispensary, likening it to a pharmacy "that's a little more compassionate."
Afterward, Dustin Sulak, a Hallowell doctor with experience prescribing marijuana to his patients, spoke about the drug and how it effects the body. He also talked about the pros and cons of using it in various forms — for example, he said, smoking is fast and easy but exposes patients to carcinogens. Water pipes don't irritate the lungs as much as smoking but patients don't get the concentration of medication they sometimes need.
"Any different delivery system is going to change the medicinal effect to some extent," he said.
Some at the meeting were patients who already use medical marijuana. They wanted to learn about the coming dispensary or about the drug itself. Others weren't taking marijuana, but wanted to know more about it.
Crystal Flynn works in the medical field and has a family member with cancer. She said she wanted to learn about marijuana both because it's a topic among patients and because she thought it might help her ill family member, who is now taking morphine and other narcotics.
After listening to some of the presentation Saturday, Flynn said she hoped the people of Auburn would accept the dispensary. Too often, she said, marijuana users carry the stigma of being "big, bad, druggie people."
"It's not that. It's not what it's about," she said. "You don't even have to like it or choose to use it, but at least support the people who do."
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THANK YOU DR. SULAK! WE NEED
THANK YOU DR. SULAK! WE NEED MORE DOCTORS TO BE EDUCATED THAT ARE WILLING TO PRESCRIBE THIS WONDERFUL MEDICINE TO THEIR PATIENTS AS A ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT. MANY PEOPLE COULD BENEFIT FROM THIS INCREDIBLE PLANT AS OPPOSED TO TAKING PHARMACEUTICAL'S WHICH HAVE MANY SIDE EFFECTS, ADDICTING AND ARE HARMFUL TO THE BODY. I'M GLAD TO SEE THAT DR. SULAK IS EXTREMELY WELL EDUCATED AND IS HELPING TO BRING HIS PATIENTS RELIEF!
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Price/Government Profit
I'ts a weed' The government will be making about 150.00 per ounce over current street prices and it's no better quality. The goverment might argue that it's pure and nothing bad would be added that we don't know about as the medicine manufacturing will have the best govermental quality standards They said that about cigarettes. Just legalize it.
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I hear of people setting up green houses and gainfully employed by this allowance of an old drug.
I read maybe 500 jobs?
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Why smoke it?
Most medications are ingested; some administered intramuscularly, subcutaneously or intravenously. Why does medical marijuana have to be smoked? Can't patients perhaps brew it into a tea? Can't you make a pill out of it? It seems like a very ineffective way to administer a drug for medicinal purposes.
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You don't have too smoke it, many ways to get it... I have a stepfather living in California. His doctor has given him a recommendation for marijuana for the first time in his life for nausea, it works better than any other medicine for this. He is 82 years old. They make it in cookies, pies, cakes, beer, just about anything you can think of. They also make a vaporizer that doesn't light or smoke the stuff, just heats it up and the medicine comes off the herb and you don't get all the carcinogens you get with smoking it. They are doing studies right now on this, seems it might be a way to keep your lungs healthy? You can get pills too, but a piece of cake sounds better to me. But be careful when ingesting it. My stepfather OD the first time he ate the stuff. They were having a special at the dispensary he goes to, and they gave him two muffins, he ate both of them, in about a hour he barely made it to the hospital emergency room, as he thought he was going to die, couldn't talk, almost couldn't walk,,,,, :)
So watch out, takes about 45 min sometimes for full effect after eating, so take it easy if you try that...
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Hi Dr. Sulak
yay Dr. Sulak...
Thank U for all of your wonderful work.
Sincerely,
your patient
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