WRAL Your Voice: Viewers overwhelmingly back medical marijuana

State Senate lawmakers could vote soon on whether to legalize medical marijuana in North Carolina. It would be allowed for conditions ranging from multiple sclerosis and ALS to nausea from cancer treatment and PTSD.

Senate Bill 711 passed a key committee last week.

Thirty-eight other states have already legalized medical marijuana for at least some health conditions.

We asked you to tell us what you think of the idea.

Our WRAL Your Voice tool is not a scientific survey, but those of you who responded said, by a margin of 43 to 1, that North Carolina should be next.

Some viewers spoke from personal experience with medical marijuana.

"I support medical cannabis because I'm a veteran of the Iraq war. And I was diagnosed with PTSD after I got out of military," said Thomas Baker in Wake County. "I was living in California at the time, and was able to access medical cannabis, and it truly helped save my life."

Others said it could help them with their current medical conditions.

"I hope the North Carolina General Assembly will approve medical marijuana for those of us that deal with chronic back pain due to failed back surgeries, failed nerve issues, multiple sclerosis, war victims, and so on," said Johnston County's Tanya Clemmons Cook "We deserve a break."

The bill as it’s written would cover multiple sclerosis, ALS, nausea from cancer treatment, Parkinson's, wasting disease and PTSD. It would NOT include chronic pain – and many viewers said that needs to be included.

Some said it could be a pain-management alternative to opioids, without the risk of overdose those drugs continue to pose.

Donald Chaney of Wake County said it should be up to doctors to decide who could benefit from it.

"I think we should consider broadening the application of the law to long-term chronic type of pain, and illnesses such as fibromyalgia, severe arthritis, degenerative disc, all kinds of issues that require pain relief," Chaney said.

"Medical marijuana has been shown to really help people who have seizure disorders, cancer, glaucoma, other kinds of issues like multiple sclerosis or other kinds of PTSD, depression," Lee County's Kristen Hernandez told us. "It really needs to be legalized for use under controlled circumstances and under a doctor's prescription."

Others like Laura Smith in Wake County and Julianne Cornwell in Durham said the state should just legalize it for all purposes, even recreational.

"It is not a bad drug. If it were legal, people would be able to use it for a lot of different things," said Smith, who told WRAL News she suffers from three types of arthritis. "I could use it for all my medical conditions."

"It's a plant. It has medicinal purposes. And North Carolina and other states that haven’t legalized it yet, I think, are way behind on the times," Cornwell said. "I think it's time to legalize it. It could help and save so many people."

Out of forty-four viewers who responded, only one was opposed to medical marijuana. Larry Lazarus of Wake County said he believes people who truly need the active compound in it, THC, can already access it in other ways.

"Legalizing a drug of this type and with its mental effects would indeed be insanity!!" Lazarus said.