Judy Kreamer and I first met when Illinois legislators were going to have a hearing in the spring of 2004 to look at the so-called “medical marijuana” issue. We shared the podium at a press conference organized by concerned citizens in the state at which I presented the Bush Administration’s position against using ballot initiatives and other tactics to subvert the regulatory process of approval of medications. This process has served American’s for over a 100 years and protects the public health and us from snake oil salesmen who would make unfounded claims to use the hopes of the sick and suffering for their own gain.

At the time of the press conference I offered to help Judy work with parents trying to protect children from the dangers of drug use in any way I could. Little did I know at the time my time to help would be sooner than I thought.

In July 2004 I left the Drug Czar’s office and returned to Illinois. Soon after I heard from Judy who wanted to take me up on my offer to help with the situation in Illinois. A group of us got together (see picture of one of those meetings) and began meeting as concerned citizens for the health of our community. One of the first things we are addressing is the high rate of marijuana use among our teens and the environment that fosters, rather than prevents, use.

We called ourselves “concerned citizens” and set to work with a laptop and out convictions. We have developed a strategic plan that we have started to implement. We have already held a press conference (in October) to educate the media and the public about the harms and dangers of marijuana. We know we need to address how parents and other prevention groups misunderstand marijuana. To make sure we all have the same current information we decided to create a series of lectures throughout the state presenting the most recent scientific and demographic data on marijuana. We also thought in order to move the strategic plan we needed others to look at it and decide where they could help. We have organized the Illinois Marijuana Lectures by reaching out to one person in a community who brings 15-20 interested people to a two-hour lecture. We intend to conduct at least 18 of these lectures before mid-year. We want the people who are attending the lecture to commit to something and connect with others in the state through the Internet.

We are not seeking donations; we do not intend to create a new organization. We are reaching out to the Community Coalitions that exist in the state, and their prevention partners.

You can see from the schedule that we are making two sweeps of areas of the state. We have in mind to do a Springfield and south sweep next followed by a Springfield and east sweep. I am also scheduled to do one of these in Geneva and one with LEAD in the north suburbs. We'll put on other dates in the Chicago area as soon as possible.

Keep coming back to our web site for updates to the schedule, alerts and information. We want you to work with people locally to do something to protect our children from dangerous drugs. We know we have to start with marijuana.

Sincerely,

Andrea G. Barthwell, MD, FASAM