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Medical marijuana advocates pledge new effort
Marchers advocate legal cannabis treatment for war wounds, AIDS
5/4/08|Rapid City Journal| by Kevin Woster, Journal staff

An AIDS patient and a wounded veteran of the Iraq war joined a small group of demonstrators Saturday in downtown Rapid City who advocated the legalization of marijuana for medical uses.

During a relaxed march from Memorial Park to several of the presidential statues, organizer Bob Newland of Hermosa said he was planning another public campaign to make marijuana legal for medical use in the state. The last such effort failed on a statewide vote 52 percent to 48 percent in 2006.

"We were short about 7,000 votes," he said. "An additional $10,000 in that campaign probably would have done it."

Newland, the founder and president of pro-legalization SoDakNORML.org, said he and his supporters would take the issue to the South Dakota Legislature. If lawmakers don't response favorably, there will be a petition drive for another public vote, Newland said.

Tom Faltynowicz and Dustin Patterson support Newland's cause, saying that marijuana is one of the best treatments for their physical and emotional problems.

Faltynowicz, a rancher from southern Meade County, said he uses the herb to treat nausea and appetite loss from the mixture of medicines he takes to treat AIDS. Patterson, a Black Hills State University student now living in Wasta, said he was serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq in January of 2005 when he was wounded by an improvised explosive device. Marijuana has helped with pain from shrapnel wounds but is especially effective in treating his post-traumatic stress syndrome, Patterson said.

Faltynowicz was recently sentenced to a short jail sentence and fined after entering a guilty plea for marijuana possession. He said the herb is cheaper and more effective than his legally prescribed Marinol, a synthetic drug with active similarities to marijuana.

Faltynowicz said he intends to use marijuana again to treat his symptoms.

Patterson said he had a legal prescription for medical marijuana in California but doesn't use the herb in South Dakota because it isn't legal.

Newland said the two different users of marijuana are more proof that South Dakota's laws don't make sense.

"The medical value of cannabis is a fact," Newland said. "Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people in this country are made criminals simply for taking an herb to feel better."