Pubdate: Tue, 7 Jun 2005
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A08
Copyright: 2005 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author:  Evelyn Nieves, Washington Post Staff Writer
See: http://www.angeljustice.org and http://www.raichaction.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

USER OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA SAYS SHE'LL CONTINUE TO FIGHT

OAKLAND, Calif. -Of course she would never stop using marijuana, Angel 
Raich told reporters over and over again. "If I stopped," she said, "I 
would die."

Raich's belief that medical cannabis keeps her alive is what spurred her to 
fight the federal government's ban on marijuana. So on Monday, she was 
disappointed -- "a little in shock" -- that the Supreme Court had ruled 
that the government can still ban possession of marijuana even in states 
that have legalized its medical use. But she will press on, she said, to 
change federal law.

"We have a lot of fight left," she said as she was whisked away from a news 
conference on the steps of Oakland City Hall to her house, where a camera 
crew was waiting for her. She had back-to-back interviews all day, taking 
breaks to ingest marijuana through a pipe or vaporizer every two hours or so.

She told reporters during a morning telephone conference that she had taken 
medical marijuana before and during the meeting. "I don't like using it," 
she said, adding: "It doesn't make me high."

Instead, for Raich, 39, a mother of two teenagers who says she has been 
suffering from a litany of disabling ailments since she was a teenager 
herself, medical cannabis has worked where scores of other prescribed drugs 
have failed. Marijuana makes her hungry, she said, which fights a wasting 
syndrome that would otherwise steal her appetite. It relieves pain, she 
said, from progressive scoliosis, endometriosis and tumors in her uterus. 
Raich even believes it has something to do with arresting the growth of an 
inoperable brain tumor.

She is convinced that her use of medical marijuana, which began in 1997 
after she had been using a wheelchair for two years, made her strong enough 
to stand up and learn to walk again. She said doctors could find no other 
explanation.

The drug that she says soothes her has also made her an activist. In 2002, 
with the help of her husband, Robert Raich, a lawyer she met when he was 
defending medical cannabis clubs in Oakland, Raich and Diane Monson of 
Oroville, Calif., another medical marijuana user, sued then-Attorney 
General John D. Ashcroft to stop federal raids on patients who use medical 
marijuana and their growers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit 
ruled in their favor, and the government appealed to the Supreme Court.

Monson, 47, an accountant who has a degenerative spine disorder, had her 
home raided by federal drug agents in 2002 because she was growing six 
marijuana plants on her patio. She could not be reached on Monday to comment.

Raich, who has been anxiously awaiting the high court's decision, made sure 
she was available. Two months ago, she said, she was told that her cervix 
was covered with precancerous cells. She waited until the Supreme Court 
decision to schedule an operation to remove the cells, she said. After 
that, she said, she is to undergo a hysterectomy.

She said she is trying to look on the bright side of the Supreme Court 
decision. The timing, she said, was perfect, just before the House is to 
vote on an amendment next week that would end government raids of medical 
marijuana patients.

She said she plans to go to Washington in two weeks to lobby. But she also 
said that all this activity does nothing to help her health. On busy days, 
she said, "I don't get enough medicine. I'm constantly playing catch-up. 
It's really hard on my body, on my mental state. When the day is over and 
all the media is gone, I'm probably going to end up crying." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake