The state Board of Pharmacy will hold the first public forum before it makes a final decision on the use of medical marijuana. Three more hearings will take place later this year in Iowa City, Council Bluffs, and in Mason City. Once all hearings are complete, the Pharmacy Board will make a recommendation to lawmakers on whether medical marijuana should be legalized.

For more information, contact: tel: 515-281-5111 or Sarah.Macht@iowa.gov.

Specifically, the Board is seeking information including, but not limited to, the following:

* Marijuana's actual or relative potential for abuse
* Marijuana's pharmacological effect
* Current scientific knowledge regarding marijuana
* The history and current pattern of abuse of marijuana
* The scope, duration, and significance of abuse of marijuana
* The risk to the public health from moving marijuana to a different controlled substance schedule
* The potential of marijuana to produce psychic or physiological dependence liability, and
* Whether marijuana is an immediate precursor of a substance on some other controlled substance schedule

The Board is interested in hearing from medical practitioners including physicians, mid-level practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, and hospice workers; patients; care-givers; law enforcement personnel; regulatory agencies; legislators; educators; scientists; researchers; other interested parties; and members of the general public.