Anne Starr was on her way to the state Capitol to lobby legislators on behalf of the Iowa's mentally ill youth when I called her earlier this month.
She had marijuana on her mind.
No, not for personal use, or even medical use. Starr is CEO of Orchard Place, a Des Moines organization that provides mental-health services to children.
She was thinking about marijuana in terms of lobbying. She recalled the 2014 session, when scores of people came forward to testify before the legislature about chronic pain, epilepsy and other ailments that cannabis oil is supposed to help alleviate.
Starr was, in a sense, a little jealous.
"You had these parents who very passionately spoke about their children with epilepsy," she said. "They can come forward. There isn't any stigma or shame that's attached to that."
But for her clients — youth struggling with sometimes profound mental illnesses — there absolutely is.
The youth "don't want their peers to know, because they don't want to be one of those 'crazy kids,' " Starr said. "And parents often feel as if someone is going to judge them, that they've terribly screwed up their kid."
So the Fort Dodge native must fight for legislation and funding without one of lobbyists' most powerful tools: stories of deep personal impact.
That hasn't stopped Starr, who enters her second year leading Orchard Place, one of the top providers of mental-health services to Iowa youth.
Orchard Place began as an orphanage in 1886, but eventually evolved into the psychiatric institute it is today in 1965 — 50 years ago this year.
[For more of this story, written by Daniel P. Finney, go to http://www.desmoinesregister.c...anne-starr/23049419/]
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