This year’s focus is on the endocannabinoid system. For details about the program, lodging, registration, CME credits, etc., go to medicalcannabis.com. To get a sense of the quality and scope of Patients Out of Time presentations, check out the links at the end of this article.
Patients Out of Time is a pro-cannabis reform group led by Al Byrne, a retired Naval officer, and MaryLynn Mathre, a Vietnam era nurse. Byrne survived two catastrophic events in which others died and over the years he’s had to deal with post-traumatic stress. He calls it PTS not PTSD. He says, “It’s not a disorder, it’s a rational response to what you’ve seen.”
Byrne is a big, lanky man who played outfield for Notre Dame before he went off to war. He has spent years counseling vets in Appalachia for the Department of Veterans Affairs Agent Orange Class Assistance Program. MaryLynn Mathre, who goes by ML, is an addictions consultant. Her publications include “Cannabis and Harm Reduction: A Nursing Perspective,” in the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics. They are married and based in Virginia.
Byrne and Mathre had been active in NORML but split off in 1994. (Every-one’s faction fights seem inconsequential and avoidable except one’s own.) In 1995 they formed their own group, with participation from Irvin Rosenfeld, Elvy Musikka, George McMahon, and other surviving patients from the federal Investigational New Drug program. Neurologist Denis Petro was also involved from the start.
Since 2000 Patients Out of Time has organized a conference every two years to update doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers —none of whom heard a word during their education and training about the medical uses of cannabis or the body’s endogenous cannabinoid signaling system— about recent research and clinical findings. You don’t have to be a healthcare provider to continue your medical education at a Patients Out of Time conference.
Here are a some past O’Shaughnessy’s Articles featuring Patients Out of Time
Hope to see you in Tucson.
—Fred Gardner
