Pubdate: Sat, 28 Feb 2009
Source: Daily Journal, The (Vineland, NJ)
Copyright: 2009 Daily Journal
Contact:  http://www.thedailyjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2250
Author: Kim Mulford
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

PATIENTS IN PAIN EAGER FOR LEGALIZED POT

COMMERCIAL -- Jack O'Brien lives in constant pain. The 54-year-old 
Laurel Lake man is tormented by shooting pains that travel along the 
nerves from his hands and feet all the way up to his head. It ruins 
his sleep. It has forced him to go on disability.

Sometimes, the pain is so intense that it feels like someone is 
hammering nails into his fingers. When an episodes strikes, the 
former Delaware Bay crabber breaks down into tears and shivers in a 
corner. When his wife, a massage therapist, is home, she rubs his 
hands and talks to him as they wait for the pain to ebb.

"I squeeze, I push, I cry and I pray," said O'Brien, a father of two.

O'Brien has lived this way for more than two decades, the long-term 
result of a birth defect caused by thalidomide, a medication his 
mother took during her pregnancy. Today, he said, prescription 
narcotics do little to ease the pain.

He has found only one drug that works, offering four to five hours of 
sweet relief, flooding his nerves with a coolness that quenches the flames.

For now, it's also illegal.

But that could change soon, as the New Jersey Legislature weighs a 
bill to legalize the medical use of marijuana. Though marijuana is 
outlawed by the federal government, 13 states have decriminalized its 
use by patients suffering from a range of serious illnesses such as 
cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't support the use of 
smoked marijuana for medical purposes. It contends there are no sound 
scientific studies supporting the medical use of marijuana. The 
federal agency also states there are approved medications available 
for many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana.

The state Senate this week approved the New Jersey Compassionate Use 
Medical Marijuana Act, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine has voiced his support 
for the legislation. The bill still awaits a vote in the Assembly.

If passed, the law would allow chronically ill patients to petition 
the Department of Human Services to allow them to use marijuana. 
Physician certification of their condition would be required. 
Patients would be allowed to grow six marijuana plants or buy the 
drug at an alternative medicine center.

That would make marijuana easier to access for everyone, according to 
Daniel Meara, spokesman for the National Council on Alcoholism and 
Drug Dependence New Jersey. The group opposes the bill.

A typical plant can produce one to five pounds of marijuana, Meara 
said, "far more than an individual would need." That's a concern for 
the council, which works to help individuals and their families 
affected by alcohol and drug addiction.

Eight of the 10 states with the highest percentage of young people 
who have used marijuana in the past month were states that allow for 
the possession and use of medical marijuana, according to the council.

"We have compassion for people with cancer," Meara said. "Clearly, we 
all know people in our lives who have had cancer, but we have to 
think about ... what's going to happen to that marijuana?"

But some patients and their caregivers say only marijuana helped.

Don and Gerry McGrath of Robbinsville, Mercer County, were among 
those who testified before a state Senate committee in support of the 
bill. When their son, Sean, was wasting away from the effects of 
powerful chemotherapy drugs, his team of doctors recommended he try marijuana.

By that point, his 6-foot frame had withered away from 148 to 97 
pounds. He was going downhill fast.

"Once he tried the marijuana, it worked," Don McGrath said. "It was 
really the only thing that kept him afloat. By using the marijuana, 
he was able to take the other drugs and they became more effective."

He regained about 30 pounds before dying 18 months later at age 28. 
His parents believe marijuana extended his life.

During his final months, Sean came to live with his parents. His 
supplier brought his "medicine" to their home.

"He kept apologizing to us that he was putting us into this situation 
so that we could get arrested," said Gerry McGrath, a registered 
nurse. "It really made me angry, because this was not a party. This 
was not something he was doing for fun. He was struggling to stay alive."

Dr. Stephen Goldfine, chief medical officer for Marlton-based 
Samaritan Hospice, said his organization favors the legislation.

"It's another tool in our toolbox for patients who can't tolerate 
other (drugs)," Goldfine said.

Marijuana is especially helpful when managing neuropathic pain, he 
said. That's the same kind of pain afflicting O'Brien.

But because it's illegal, many patients won't take marijuana or even 
bring up the subject with their doctor.

"There's really a lot of guilt associated with it," Goldfine said. 
"You don't need to put guilt on top of the dying process."

If O'Brien could use marijuana legally, he said, he would smoke three 
joints a day. Immediately after taking the drug, his wife Leah said, 
he is able to sleep well, work around the house and think clearly 
because the fog of pain has lifted.

But because marijuana is illegal and because he is a born-again 
Christian, O'Brien struggles to battle the pain without it, allowing 
himself only sometimes to risk possible jail time by buying it.

"Every once in a while, the pain gets so intense," said O'Brien, "it 
just breaks me."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom