I attended NCPA Advocacy Night to prepare for Legislative Day. This event was an exciting evening with great speakers! We were joined by Megan Marchal and Max Peoples, who spoke to us about how they first got involved in advocacy and advice they had for us as students. One of my favorite things about these types of events is that everyone got involved in advocacy for a different reason, and everyone participates in a different way, but in the end we all want the same thing – to see pharmacists allowed to provide better care for patients at the top of their license!

To follow up that great event I attended student legislative day at the Ohio Statehouse. Along with many other student pharmacists from across the state we discussed pharmacy legislation and met with legislators. Every year this is one of my favorite events, and is always inspiring to see so many people that care about our profession and our patients.

After participating in advocacy events I know I am drinking the pharmacy kool-aid, and I hope everyone else is too! Because now we have lots of work to do to push our profession forward and show people that #PharmacistsProvideCare

This past week during our session we spent some time discussing the new hot topic in pharmacy… Medical Marijuana. After research on previous attempted legislation, current legislation both in our state and others, as well as the science (or at least the little science we have) behind it’s use we discussed the pros and cons to today’s Medical Marijuana debate. Unlike many pieces of pharmacy legislation, the Medical Marijuana issue has gone main stream which completely changes our approach and perception to this issue. In any discussion it is important to understand both sides, especially one as heated and debate like as this has become in our modern society. By taking a step back and really looking at everything there is on the table we got a good look at the actual issue.

In any issue where you have a preconceived notion of you opinion on an issue and can be difficult to try to “take the other side” but not only is that helpful in understanding all of the information presented, it also helps you to strengthen your ideals and opinion. This activity allowed us to not only analyze information on an issue, but also to have professional conversations regarding a topic that people have differing opinions on. I think the “open forum” format of this activity allowed a more thorough discussion of information versus a traditional style debate where people are forced into one side or the other.

Overall this was not only a good activity from the standpoint of helping us to grow in comfort with advocacy efforts, but also to grow as professionals that can communicate on difficult issues even if you disagree.