Pubdate: Thu, 04 Apr 2002
Source: Willamette Week (OR)
Copyright: 2002 Willamette Week
Contact:  http://www.wweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/499
Author: Chris Lydgate
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

SENSE SINSEMILLA

Is "Green Medicine" A Lifesaving Therapy Or Just A Great Way To Get Over On 
The Man?

Ken Brown's world collapsed on Nov. 6, 1991, at approximately three o'clock 
in the afternoon, when he was on his way to the hardware store for a 
49-cent plumbing fixture.

While he sped north on a busy stretch of Highway 101 toward the coastal 
town of Florence, an Audi full of teenagers locked in a high-speed drag 
race hurtled toward him from the opposite direction. Without warning, the 
Audi zig-zagged across four lanes of traffic, veered into an embankment, 
flipped over twice and crash-landed on top of Brown's 1971 Datsun station 
wagon--flattening it down to the door handles.

"It was like...being hit by a meteor," Brown remembers.

The occupants of the Audi crawled from the wreckage relatively unscathed. 
Brown was not so lucky: The collision broke his neck in three places, 
crushing his spinal cord at vertebrae C2, C3 and C4. When he regained 
consciousness, 13 days later, he was lying in a hospital bed in a tangle of 
tubes, his lungs ventilated by the mechanical whoosh of a respirator. He 
tried to sit up, but his legs wouldn't move. He tried to lift his arm, but 
his biceps wouldn't contract.

He was paralyzed from the neck down.

Ten years later, lying in a Tigard rest home, Brown's hairless body has the 
texture and color of a Vietnamese salad roll--a translucent pinkish white 
with the hint of the blue veins beneath. He breathes through a tube 
sticking out of his Adam's apple. Tasks as mundane as taking a sip of Diet 
Coke can be accomplished only with the help of an attendant holding a cup 
and straw to his mouth.

To cope with the intense pain that accompanies his paralysis, Brown takes 
massive amounts of morphine. He also uses pot. "The marijuana is...10 times 
better than...the legal drugs," Brown explains, in gravelly phrases that 
come in three-second bursts dictated by the mechanical ventilator. "It 
amplifies the morphine.... I hardly ever spasm.... It's pure bliss."

Brown, 51, is a registered cardholder in the state medical-marijuana 
program, which gives him the right to eat cannabis-laced brownies. Two 
months ago, however, the Oregon Department of Human Services told Brown's 
attorney that his attendant could no longer feed him his marijuana--a 
seemingly obscure decision that has had far-reaching consequences, limiting 
patients' access to marijuana and plunging the 3-year-old program into 
confusion. In response, Brown and other advocates have launched an 
initiative to overhaul the program and shake loose some of its most odious 
restrictions--relax them so much, opponents say, that marijuana would 
become legal in everything but name. (For more on the initiative, see 
"License to Chill," page 27.)

The battle over the initiative, which hits the streets this week, provides 
a tantalizing glimpse into the evolution of medical marijuana in Oregon. 
Despite its original intent--to let patients with severe or terminal 
illness smoke pot without fear of prosecution--the program has created a 
hazy netherworld at the ragged frontier between state and federal law, 
where legitimate patients rub elbows with seasoned stoners seeking refuge 
from the War on Drugs.

Ever since Oregon became the first state to decriminalize possession of 
small amounts of cannabis in 1973, hempheads have mounted at least half a 
dozen attempts to legalize it. They all failed--until the medical-marijuana 
movement gained momentum in the late 1990s.

Oregonians may not have been ready to end the prohibition on pot, but they 
were receptive to the idea that severe or terminal illnesses--particularly 
cancer, AIDS and glaucoma--could be treated with a home-rolled joint 
instead of an avalanche of expensive pills, each carrying a small-print 
portfolio of side effects.

Like an old-time country doctor, Clifford Spencer makes house calls on sick 
patients with his "green medicine."

In 1998, with the backing of three deep-pockets libertarians--currency 
speculator George Soros, University of Phoenix founder John Sperling and 
Ohio insurance executive Peter Lewis, who together contributed 
$140,000--advocates launched Measure 67, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.

OMMA was billed as a practical and compassionate measure. Only patients 
with specific conditions would qualify--and only with their doctor's 
permission. Patients would grow their own weed and smoke it in the privacy 
of their own homes, hidden from public view. Those too sick to grow pot 
could ask their caregivers to do it for them. No money would change hands. 
The campaign, led by a grandmother with multiple sclerosis under the 
rallying cry, "Protect dying and suffering patients," proved persuasive: 
Oregon voters approved Measure 67 by 54.6 percent.

In reality, however, the majority of patients aren't terminal cancer 
victims, but aging baby-boomers with much vaguer complaints.

A WW analysis of data provided by the state Department of Human Services 
shows that relatively few of the 1,700 current cardholders suffer from 
marquee diseases: 3 percent have cancer; 3 percent are HIV-positive; 2 
percent have glaucoma; and 1 percent have cachexia, or wasting syndrome. In 
fact, the overwhelming reason patients sign up for the program is pain: 
fully 53 percent of cardholders report "severe pain" as their primary 
medical condition, citing causes as varied as arthritis, migraine, 
carpal-tunnel syndrome, menstrual cramps and fibromyalgia (see chart, page 23).

The prospect of a bunch of middle-aged patients demanding marijuana to cope 
with their arthritis is likely to prompt skeptical spluttering. 
Nonetheless, the case of Ken Brown would still the harshest critic.

Brown suffers from severe pain that requires up to 300 milligrams of 
morphine a day. Not only does the morphine make him woozy, but the high 
doses cause constipation so intense that his feces must be extracted by 
hand. With marijuana, however, Brown can reduce his dose to as little as 35 
milligrams.

Pot also relieves the spasms that convulse his entire body for minutes at a 
time. "It's like a bear hug...I can't take air in," he explains. "It's 
frightening.... You don't know when it'll end...."

Brown was one of the first patients to sign up for the medical-marijuana 
program, and he quickly discovered the law's drawbacks. The state of Oregon 
may be willing to let him consume cannabis, but under federal law, 
marijuana is still a Schedule I substance. The managers of his previous 
group home in Eugene worried that if federal authorities got a whiff of 
Brown's marijuana use, they'd dispatch hordes of inspectors to shut the 
place down. Brown moved to a more accommodating home in Tigard, but the 
paranoia continues--the administrator of his new home asked WW not to 
mention its name for fear of official reprimands.

Physically unable to grow his own marijuana, Brown hooked up with a 
registered caregiver from Portland, who drove to Tigard once a week with a 
Tupperware container full of marijuana-laced brownies. But this, too, ran 
afoul of the law--the box contained more than one ounce of pot, the maximum 
allowed--so his caregiver had to make frequent trips with smaller amounts.

Then there was the issue of who would actually administer the brownies. 
Brown can't feed himself, so volunteers had been. In getting on the ballot. 
So far, it has failed to line up major financial backers. Conventional 
wisdom holds that shoestring petitions should start circulating by January 
if they are to have a chance of making the June 5 deadline for the November 
election.

"It's going to require an awful lot of money to get this on the ballot in 
such a short time," says Dr. Richard Bayer, who campaigned for the original 
law. "Without six figures in the bank, it's going to be a challenge."

If the initiative succeeds in becoming a fully grown ballot measure, the 
campaign is likely to resemble a family squabble over curfew, with 
advocates arguing that the current law is unreasonably restrictive, while 
opponents predict that loosening the screws will only trigger more 
outrageous demands.

Critics of medical marijuana frequently charge that "dopers" are sneaking 
in under the guise of the sick. But this complaint ignores reality. Pot 
smokers are already breaking the rules. Is it really any worse if they bend 
the rules instead?

"Yeah, it's hypocritical," shrugs Floyd Ferris Landrath, a marijuana 
activist who has encouraged pot smokers to apply for cards even if they 
have no legitimate medical reason. "But the laws on prohibition are 
hypocritical."

License To Chill

This week, medical-marijuana advocates fired the latest salvo in Oregon's 
ongoing cultural war over cannabis. Known as OMMA II, the initiative would 
make radical changes to the state's medical-pot law.

Under current rules outlined by the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, patients 
may qualify for the medical-marijuana program only if they suffer from 
Alzheimer's, cancer, glaucoma, HIV, seizures, spasms, nausea, severe pain 
or cachexia (a withering of the body.) They must obtain a physician's 
approval. They may not possess more than one ounce of marijuana at any 
time, nor cultivate more than three mature plants and four immature plants. 
They may designate a caregiver to grow the pot for them, but they cannot 
pay the caregiver any money. And they can't give or sell their pot to 
another cardholder.

If OMMA II becomes law, patients would not be restricted to any particular 
diagnosis so long as a doctor, nurse practitioner or naturopath says they 
could benefit from marijuana. Patients would be allowed to possess up to 
one pound of marijuana--or, under certain conditions, up to six pounds 
(that's 96 ounces, or 2,722 grams, kids). They could grow up to 10 plants 
at a time. They could also obtain marijuana from licensed dispensaries. 
Caregivers could be paid for their pot.

Finally, if patients successfully register after they have been busted, any 
punishment is automatically reduced to a $500 fine.

Advocates say the changes are necessary to guarantee cardholders access to 
a lifesaving drug. "We approach this not as a political issue but as a 
medical issue," says John Sajo, the executive director of Voter Power, a 
group of medical-marijuana patients and advocates. "Marijuana is 
medicine--safe, effective medicine--and patients should get however much 
they need. It might be politically risky, but it's the right thing to do."

Law-and-order types, however, pooh-pooh the proposal. "Six pounds?!" 
splutters Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis. "Jesus Christ! 
That's a lot. These guys aren't really trying to expand medical marijuana. 
They're looking to legalize recreational use."

Activists say the current law suffers three major flaws: supply, access and 
stigma. OMMA originally assumed most patients would simply grow their own 
marijuana, but the reality is that few patients have the space, the 
equipment or the expertise. The caregiver system, in which registered 
caregivers grow pot for patients, has proven tricky to maintain, in part 
because of the niggardly restrictions of the law. An ounce of weed is not 
enough for many patients. "Most of the patients who qualify don't have 
medicine most of the time," Sajo says. "That's intolerable."

In addition, many patients can't find a doctor willing to sign the form. 
Those who do discover that, although the law requires the state Department 
of Human Services to process applications within 30 days, cards often are 
not issued for a year or more. The paperwork hassles and the cost ($150 a 
year) conspire to keep many deserving patients out of the program. "For a 
lot of people, getting the card just isn't worth the bother," Sajo says.

Finally, the program has been bedeviled by perceptions that patients are 
just looking for an excuse to get high. It remains unclear whether OMMA 
II--or any other law--can do much about that "Cheech and Chong" image.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager