OPN held its annual Spring Meeting on the cold and wet Saturday, April 14. Fourteen OPN members attended for a half-day of strategic planning, speech making, networking, and friendship building. The OPAN quarterly board meeting was held in the morning, and OPN's quarterly board meeting followed in the late afternoon.

You can see the results of our strategic planning exercises at http://www.ohiopatient.net/v2/content/view/767/2/.

OPN is in the process of reviving its Speakers Bureau and welcomes the participation of those who are interested in spreading the message about cannabis through public speaking. Please check out http://www.ohiopatient.net/v2/content/view/22/46/ and e-mail speakers@ohiopatient.net, if you are interested.

Meeting attendees discussed ways of expanding the bureau, including the study and adoption of the Speakers Bureau model used to great success by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). LEAP bases much of what it does on tools offered by DrugSense like their DrugNews Archive (www.mapinc.org) to find leads and their Media Contact on Demand database (www.drugsense.org/mcod) for media contacts.

OPN also hopes to expand and make greater use of its Speakers Bureau Training course. We have come to understand that cannabis policy has its own "knowledge base" that speakers need to master in order to be effective. We plan to incorporate this knowledge into our training so that our speakers basically know what they are talking about!

Both Norman Jentner and Eleanor Ahrens gave their respective required speeches to enable them to participate in the Speakers Bureau. Jentner's subject revolved around "Groups That Support Medical Marijuana." He powerfully spoke about the adoption of cannabis-based therapies by the mental health community. Ahrens focused on the commonalities, which bring us together. She concluded with this short poem:

"It's time to change Ohio law.
Let's not hesitate.
Time is running out;
Let our patients medicate."