As Executive Director of the Utah Patients Coalition (UPC), Desiree Hennessey knows why cannabis is natural medicine that works. Hennessey discovered cannabis as a life-saving medical treatment for her son who like so many others, found the usual treatment wasn’t the right cut.
“When the first person to suggest cannabis — my son’s massage therapist — came to me eight years ago while my doctors were telling us he was going to die from pain if we didn’t medicate him, I walked out. I thought they must be joking. Why would cannabis work after everything we tried?”
Desiree Hennessey, Executive Director, UPC
Many of Utah’s active medical cannabis cardholders experience uncompromising health conditions that are sometimes also life-threatening. Often, and inexplicably, the standard barrage of medications don’t always work as expected.
If that isn’t prickly enough, many of Utah’s legal cannabis consumers know, among the most debilitating but no less damaging of conditions are secondary conditions that don’t yet merit use of medical cannabis in Utah. A painful reality at present, but not the finish line, I’m sure.
This freshly-baked human interest story is where you’ll find Hennessey working on behalf of Utah’s medical cannabis patients every day. As a patient advocate, Hennessey is actively involved in the evolution of Utah medical cannabis at many intersections. We’re talking about change blossoming on capitol hill as we speak.
Urgent new growth with such a newly sprouted medical cannabis program can only be expected. Maybe the best way to find such things out is to take part in the process. As Hennessey says, eyeballs, manpower and voices are always needed to help people realize cannabis is medicine. Find out more about how to get involved at utahpatients.org.
Among the numerous faces of that change are patients and caregivers, policymakers and lobbyists, cultivars, educators, community organizations and dispensaries. At the center of all that is where you’ll find Hennessy who has for more than eight years, been helping lead the fight “against all odds” to make medical cannabis a reality in the state of Utah.
UPC was established to support patients in writing and the collection of signatures for a ballot initiative to establish a medical cannabis program in Utah.
Its ongoing function as a political action committee is patient advocacy for access and rights, and as a bridge between patients, the medical community, and various state agents.
Hennessey’s Involvement started in 2016 while working on parental defense issues at the capitol where she saw people working to legalize medical cannabis. She recounted an instance where she mentioned her son would benefit from medical cannabis to then-Senator Madsen, also a medical cannabis patient, and among the first on the bill. Alas, no joy there.
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She thought medical cannabis would pass as a “no-nonsense issue” as it had in other states, but no one was listening. Hennessey said, “If you tried to talk to a rep about medical cannabis there was little chance they’d even look at you.”
It was at this point Hennessey began spending her downtime as the Secretary of the Republican Party in Cache Valley to open doors for medical cannabis. Despite the journey being bumpy and full of strange compromises Hennessey said, “When things don’t go our way, it’s important to walk away friends.”
Realizing in 2017 that medical cannabis would no longer be heard at the capitol, it became clear a ballot initiative with some teeth around it was needed.
“That’s what bad media does,” Hennessey shared. “We’ve always been Utah strong, but without legislative support, nothing passes.”
Saying farewell to a rubbled 2020, Utah patients can celebrate and be thankful to friends of cannabis like Hennessey for its fledgling medical cannabis program.
“Patients are getting access; pain has been alleviated, and hope given,” Hennessey said. “There was nothing before cannabis in our toolbox, and for the first time since Prop 2 passed, we had an opportunity to all get into the car and go see Christmas lights. It’s amazing to have something.”
While Hennessey remains shocked there isn’t more cannabis education out there, she’s also keen to see if inhalants will work for her son. Meanwhile, a combination of cannabis butter or oil in his “g-tube” are helping.
Though it is fair to say our medical cannabis program has room to grow, its roots are now ink on paper. “We have a huge foundation to make something great, and we’re doing that.” Hennessey said.
Although it wasn’t a number one priority, Hennessey’s son now experiences a huge decrease in seizures from cannabis treatment. “The biggest mistake we could have made would have been to make this movement about a small group, one person, or a single face,” Hennessey said. “Our smartest has been supporting all cannabis groups. The more we know, the better.”
Watch our FaceBook Live interview with Desiree Hennessy, Executive Director, Utah Patient Coalition
Published in Salt Baked City Print Magazine – Spring 2021
