Pubdate: Tue, 02 May 2006
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2006 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Lynda Gorov
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

BREAST CANCER HAS MADE ME A CRIMINAL

LOS ANGELES -- AT 9 O'CLOCK on the night of my first round of 
chemotherapy, exactly six hours after I left the oncologist's office 
wondering what all the fuss was about, my stomach tumbled into my 
knees, my knees refused to work altogether, and I crumpled to the 
floor in a clammy, shivering heap.

I lay there until dawn, at one point vomiting on myself, at another 
crying that I'd rather die of cancer than undergo chemo again. I was 
hot. I was cold. My shoulders wouldn't stop shaking. My legs wouldn't 
move at all. Huge hallucinations rolled over me.

In the morning I was stunned to realize I was still alive. But there 
was my 2 1/2-year-old daughter, poking me with her toe, wondering 
whether we could dance. I made my way to the stereo and made myself a 
vow: I'd do whatever necessary to avoid having her find me on the ground again.

First call was to the doctor, who promised to fine-tune my protocol 
and adjust my pre-chemo meds. The second was to a friend I thought 
might have a marijuana connection. I had read enough, and written 
some, about the medicinal uses of marijuana to believe it might keep 
me from suffering so in three weeks, when I was scheduled for my 
second poison drip. Not to mention that months of treatment loomed.

A day or two later, a manila envelope with nothing but my initials on 
it was delivered to me, free of charge. I stuck the gift deep in the 
freezer without even opening it. I didn't need to then. But I needed 
the option. For one of the few times since I had been diagnosed with 
Stage 1 breast cancer, I felt a sense of control.

Maybe someone who hasn't been there can't understand my willingness 
to break the law. Sure, a number of states, including mine, have 
legalized the medicinal use of marijuana. But the Drug Enforcement 
Administration refuses to go along. It sees me as a criminal. Then 
again, none of the Supreme Court justices who ruled that medical 
marijuana users could be arrested despite those state laws stopped by 
to see how skinny I'd gotten or to retrieve me from a bookstore when 
I wasn't able to walk another step without retching.

That was left to D., one of my more conservative friends. She was the 
one who had warned me: Do not get high, or you'll be sorry. She was 
not, however, telling me to forgo marijuana. The forbidden leaf had, 
after all, seen her through her own chemotherapy. Now my own 
unfortunate turn was at hand, and she was encouraging me to smoke 
until the nausea passed but to stop smoking before any paranoia set in.

"Trust me," she said dryly, "cancer and thinking too much are not a good mix."

And now the Food and Drug Administration has said cancer and cannabis 
don't mix at all. The federal agency recently announced that "no 
sound scientific studies" support the medicinal use of marijuana, a 
finding contrary to a 1999 review by scientists from the Institute of 
Medicine. That highly regarded panel confirmed what many sick people 
already knew: Marijuana makes the nausea bearable during chemotherapy 
and can keep AIDS patients without appetites from wasting away. 
Proponents of its use called the FDA ruling political, as opposed to 
scientific or, say, humane.

Within weeks of starting chemo, I was down a dozen pounds, not so 
much queasy as unable to eat. Of course, since I live in Los Angeles 
this was considered by some a perk. "You're so teeny," women would 
tell me. "Yeah, well, I have cancer," I'd reply, running a hand 
through my shockingly good synthetic wig. "Oh, sorry, but . . . 
you're so teeny."

My oncologist, however, wasn't as thrilled about my size, especially 
with my cell counts so dangerously low that any cut and every sneeze 
put me at risk. Alone with her in the examination room, the scar from 
my lumpectomy still raised and raw to her touch, I asked about 
marijuana use in cases like mine. The doctor didn't scoff. She did 
say I needed to stop losing weight despite having eliminated dairy, 
sugar, and alcohol from my diet in a cancer-fighting frenzy.

So I dug into the freezer for the manila envelope. I undid the clasp 
and removed a fat bud of seriously stinky marijuana. I remember 
standing in the kitchen thinking, I have to save the life of my 
daughter's mother, and whose business is that but mine?

Lynda Gorov is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman