Today: Patients and Caregivers from Across State Travel to Albany to Urge Legislature to Pass Comprehensive Medical Marijuana Legislation

Albany – Today, the first day the legislature resumes it session following their spring recess, nearly two dozen patients,  families, caregivers and healthcare providers from across New York will gather in Albany to press for passage of  a comprehensive medical marijuana bill known as the Compassionate Care Act. The patients are living with cancer, multiple sclerosis, severe seizure disorders, and other serious, debilitating medical conditions, and the families include parents and grandparents of children who suffer from severe and life-threatening forms of epilepsy, such as Dravet’s syndrome.

Travelling from all corners of the State, they will call on the Senate and Assembly to pass the Compassionate Care Act – comprehensive legislation that would allow New Yorkers with serious and debilitating conditions access to medical marijuana under the supervision of their healthcare provider.  The group includes members of the Decker family, who were forced to leave their Kingston home and move to Colorado so their daughter Mabel, who has a serious epileptic seizure disorder, could participate in a workable medical marijuana system.

What:            Patient Lobby Day  with patients, healthcare providers, and parents
When:           Monday, April 28, 2014
Location:      Outside Senate and Assembly Chambers, Capitol Building Albany, NY

Patients and family members will be available throughout the day for interviews.

A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 88 percent of New Yorkers support medical marijuana.There are 21 states, and the District Columbia, that have passed laws creating legal access to medical marijuana for patients with serious and debilitating conditions. Advocates, many of whom have already waited years for relief,  have vowed to return to Albany every week until the bill is passed.