Being currently involved with patient advocacy and especially in the newly passed Compassionate Care Act (the medical marijuana law, co-sponsored by Assemblyman Dick Gottfried and Senator Diane Savino). We are extremely proud to have been a part of making history in New York State. The newly enacted bill will see many challenges going forward and our leadership at CCNY is prepared to help advise the NYS Dept. of Health (DOH) in it's implementation period. We will strive to shorten the 18 month start-up time designated to the DOH by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. We intend to make recommendations to add back diseases like PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis, and other conditions removed from the bill by Gov. Cuomo in June 2014.Update January 2015: Gov. Cuomo and Dr. Zucker have taken a fair and well rounded law and tied it up into so many tight knots that we will be lucky if anyone succeeds in getting to use the beneficial drug for any disease or ailment. The regulations the government has produced are the most restrictive and useless rules ever written in the United.States. I must admit that this is very discouraging after such a long and well fought fight by our advocates around NY state.