Meet the Youth who won Medical Marijuana in New York By: Anna Saini * It is Wednesday June 19th 2014, the second-‐to-‐last scheduled day of the New York State legislative session. I am inside the glass doors to New York State Governor Cuomo’s chamber, a few yards away from the closed press conference he is hosting. Outside of the glass doors are over 100 of my fellow medical marijuana advocates. We made a decision as a group to “bird dog” Cuomo’s press conference, an activist tactic where you crash an event that your target is attending and use it as an opportunity to confront them on your issue. But security was quick to prevent us access into the Red Room where the press conference was held. I stand in the corridor outside the press conference with only about a half dozen other advocates surrounded by almost as many state troopers. We are “holding the space” until the press conference finishes so that when the media, legislators and staff leave we can try and hijack them to talk to them about medical marijuana, I explain to Mackenzie Annable, 19 years old, and Delaney Emerson, 14 years old. Both are older siblings to children living with severe seizure disorder. I am explaining this to the two of them with the cool and collected demeanor of a community organizer who knows the ropes and is in control of the situation. But the troopers make me nervous. I suffer from trauma caused by previous police abuse at rallies. When the state troopers make an effort to remove us from the corridor so that we are on the outside with the rest of our crew, I am frozen with fear of a potential physical altercation. Mackenzie and Delaney are nonplussed, cheerful even. Delany grips her Compassionate Care New York sign and plants her feet on the floor. “I cannot move,” she says in a robotic voice. Then she mimes prying her feet off the floor unsuccessfully, “My feet are glued to the floor.” Mackenzie doubles over in laughter. I giggle hesitantly. Soon the troopers are snickering too. The emerging violence dissipates in an instant. One of the troopers and I exchange a shrug and a look that reads, “I give up”. Mackenzie asks each of the troopers if they will wear a Compassionate Care NY sticker. One of them answers for the lot, “Ask me again when I’m off work, kid.” We receive word from inside the press conference that Missy Miller managed to get in with her son, Oliver and another advocate, Reverend Emma Loftin-‐Woods. One of the reporters tells me that the Governor was “visibly shaken” to see Missy and Oliver in the press conference. They negotiate for a meeting with our lead advocates in exchange for Missy, Oliver and Reverend Emma’s departure. This meeting proves pivotal to the success of our campaign. Oliver and the disabled children who advocate with their families on our campaign are a formidable presence. They inject a dose of blunt reality into a political system that most often operates to make life and death decisions in the absence of accountability to the peoples whose lives are impacted by those decisions. Looking at Oliver, handsome and bright in his wheelchair, debilitated by an in utero brain stem injury that causes hundreds of daily seizures, there is no denying he deserves access to medical marijuana. There is no denying that he deserves access to whatever treatment that has the potential to help. It is a political problem that the Governor and the State Legislature are forced to resolve despite their best efforts at avoidance. The Governor issues a message of necessity so that his proposal for a medical marijuana program will get voted on without the regular aging process and legislators agree to extend the session so that they can vote on and pass it before they close up shop for the season. After the historic vote where a republican led senate voted in favor of medical marijuana, 49 in favor and 10 opposed, I overhead amongst tear and hugs Mackenzie’s mom Kathy telling a journalist, “My daughter Kaley has never walked a day in her life but today she walked miles for thousands of New Yorkers who need medical marijuana.” Weeks later, another child who suffers from seizures, nine year old Amanda Houser, holds Governor Cuomo’s hand while he pens the final strokes signing New York into becoming the 23rd medical marijuana state in the nation. We know that the Cuomo’s program is not enough. There are significant limitations to the program that are dictates of politics rather than science as well as an 18 month implementation period that may result in loss of life amongst children and adults who require medical marijuana as a treatment for life-‐threatening conditions. Despite these major drawbacks I look onto Amanda, the politicians and the media enamored by her effortlessly adorable charm and almost feel sorry for everyone who tried and will try to stand in our way. Harnessing the incredible will and power of the young advocates of our campaign makes our success inevitable, I think. Meanwhile, Amanda announces to the cheers of the audience, "I want to be a normal girl and I want my seizures to stop. P.S. I want to be off this diet. Right everyone?" * Statewide Community Organizer, Voices of Community Activists and Leaders – New York (VOCAL-‐ NY)