Rep. Kevin Koester
I live in an interesting Iowa House district. My state representative is a Republican. His name is Kevin Keoster and his profession is school administration. Another interesting character who lives in our neighborhood is Dale Woolery, Deputy Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy. As you can imagine, Kevin and Dale know each other and have worked together in the past.
Last week I got an email from Kevin saying that he was going to meet with the medical staff at the University of Iowa to follow up on the study that was called for in the 2014 Medical Cannabidiol Act. He said he might have some questions after that meeting. I didn’t hear from him and I was busy writing my trial brief which was due on Friday.
At our legislative forum yesterday, I asked Kevin how his meeting went with the medical staff. He said it sounded positive for CBD and epilepsy, which of course was the only thing the 2014 Medical Cannabidiol Act asked the University of Iowa to look at. Nevertheless, I was glad to hear the results were positive.
There were three couples there supporting medical marijuana. Two of them spoke and said they had Crohns Disease and wondered why Crohns Disease had been stripped from the bill that is currently pending, HF 2384. Kevin said that legislators were having a hard time understanding the science. The couple asked him what kind of science he was looking for, because they had it. Kevin said he would not understand it if he saw it.
I’ve been following this in the news a lot, and it seems like every legislator in Iowa says they support moving forward on this issue, but none of them can agree on what to do.
After the forum, I met another couple that had contacted me earlier in the week and were just there to listen. Another couple was talking to Kevin and they had a medical condition (I can’t remember if it was a child with epilepsy). A man sitting next to me said he knew one of the patients that spoke at the capitol on March 22, 2016. I’m amazed at how many people are expressing support for medical marijuana at these forums.
Kevin told the couple talking to him that I had single handedly presented this issue to the Iowa Board of Pharmacy in 2009 and the board agreed it was medicine. I told Kevin that we presented evidence to the Iowa Board of Pharmacy in 2009 because the law says that board is the authority in Iowa, but the legislators would not listen. So, that is why the legislators don’t understand the science now. When the board looked at it, as they are required by law to do, the legislators did not want to hear it. So, now medical decisions are being made by legislators who can’t agree on what to do. Oh my!
I asked Kevin if he could send me anything from the University of Iowa presentation earlier in the week and he sent me these two files. The first one is the slide presentation Dr. Joshi presented to the Iowa House legislators last week. The second one is a presentation by Dale Woolery of the Office of Drug Control Policy.
Stay tuned for further developments on this story.
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