Pubdate: Sun, 19 Apr 2009
Source: Evening Sun (Hanover, PA)
Copyright: 2009 Evening Sun
Contact:  http://www.eveningsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3512
Author: Tom Joyce
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MAN CRUSADES FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

A couple of years ago, Charles Homan was driving by some apartments 
that he and his wife owned. He spotted a tenant they were trying to 
evict walking down the stairs outside.

Homan pulled over and started screaming at her. She retreated into 
the apartment.

He stood out on the lawn for a long time, screaming, cursing and 
waving his arms as his outpouring of anger became ever more 
hysterical. Then he returned to his home in Manheim Township, where 
he continued the tantrum in front of his wife.

As he paced back and forth in their living room, he threatened 
violence. He would drive back out to the apartment and smash the 
tenant's car repeatedly with his truck.

His wife knew better than to try reasoning with him. As always, the 
episode passed, his anger replaced with a despondent depression that 
left him feeling sick and unable to get out of bed for days. In the 
clarity that came afterward, he thought back on it all with regret.

"I beat myself up," Homan said. "Why did I react like that? What is 
wrong with me?"

In fact, he knows what's wrong with him. It's bipolar disorder, a 
diagnosis he received 12 years ago.

And at the age of 58, after a lifetime of suffering with its effects, 
Homan said he knows what he needs by way of treatment - marijuana.

Homan has begun a personal campaign for the legalization of 
marijuana. The driveway to his home is lined with signs proclaiming 
his need for his "medicine." He's printed out flyers.

On Monday, he will hold a rally on the steps of the Capitol in 
Harrisburg. He said many people have e-mailed him to express their 
support. But he doesn't know if anyone will join him, because he said 
virtually everyone who has contacted him is afraid to come forward.

Homan doesn't care. As far as he's concerned, he has nothing to lose. 
He's already been arrested for growing marijuana on his property, yet 
he said he simply can't function without it.

He's undertaking his campaign at a time when the move toward 
legalizing medical marijuana is "gaining significant traction," 
according to Derek Rosenzweig, co-chairman for the Philadelphia 
chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Rosenzweig said 13 states already have approved the use of marijuana 
for medical treatment. His organization has been trying for years to 
get similar legislation passed in Pennsylvania.

In other states, much of the opposition to legalizing marijuana has 
come from law enforcement groups arguing that the policy would make 
it easier for people to obtain marijuana for recreational use.

While he applauds Homan's efforts in principle, Rosenzweig recommends 
that he coordinate them with similar efforts taking place throughout 
Pennsylvania.

Before the bipolar diagnosis, Homan said, a lack of appetite and 
chronic insomnia plagued him throughout his life. He runs his own 
business restoring slate roofs and said he's seriously injured 
himself on more than one occasion after many days without sleep.

Over the decades, doctors prescribed to him just about every 
prescription sleeping pill on the market. He doesn't respond well to 
pharmaceuticals, he said, and he struggled with side effects 
including a perpetual haze of exhaustion, addiction and outright mania.

After the diagnosis, he went through much the same ordeal with 
prescription antidepressants, he said.

Some prescriptions made him scratch compulsively until he tore his 
skin. Others only intensified the all-too-familiar cycle of 
uncontrollable rage followed by crashing depression. He can point to 
patched-over holes in his living room walls that he made during those episodes.

He had tried marijuana while visiting a friend's college in the early 
1970s, he said, and experienced what he described as the only natural 
sleep of his life. With that in mind, he tried it again a few years 
ago. For the first time in decades, he said, his symptoms went away 
without debilitating side effects to replace them.

The problem was getting hold of it. He began growing marijuana on his 
property. In July, he said, state troopers entered his property and 
his home while he was away and confiscated 21 plants.

He maintains that they entered without proper search warrants. A 
spokeswoman for state police declined to comment. At a hearing this 
week, he will attempt to get the charges dismissed on the grounds 
that the evidence was obtained illegally.

In the meantime, Homan has been carrying on his campaign. He said 
he's met with state Rep. Ron Miller, R-Jacobus, and state Sen. Mike 
Waugh, R-Shrewsbury Township, and neither was particularly supportive.

So Monday, he will be at the state Capitol - alone, if necessary.

"I'm not a 17-year-old at the mall wanting marijuana on a Friday 
night," he said. "I'm wanting to not hurt myself and take care of my 
family. There's a difference."

POSSIBLE LEGISLATION

State Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, said before the end of the 
month, he intends to introduce a bill that would legalize the use of 
medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.

Cohen said he can get bipartisan support for the measure if his 
fellow lawmakers are properly educated about the surrounding issues. 
He wants to do everything possible to ensure that it doesn't allow 
marijuana to be redirected for recreational use.

"I think there's more caution than opposition," Cohen said. "I think 
many members of the legislature understand that marijuana has 
legitimate medical purposes, but members don't want a system that's 
just a series of loopholes."

The bill he's crafting could theoretically be used to treat mental 
illness as long as a legitimate medical doctor has prescribed it, Cohen said.

According to Leon Czikowsky, a House of Representatives research 
specialist who has been working on the bill, marijuana is most 
commonly prescribed to ease pain and nausea for people with 
conditions like cancer, promote appetite for patients of wasting 
diseases like AIDS and relieve the symptoms of glaucoma.

While other medications exist to treat those conditions, Czikowsky 
said, many patients and physicians find marijuana preferable because 
of the lack of side effects.

State Rep. Ron Miller, R-Jacobus, said he would be opposed to any 
such measure. He said the information he's received from medical 
consultants indicates that anything medically beneficial in marijuana 
could be extracted in pill form.

Miller also said he believes that legalizing something the federal 
government classifies as illegal creates a kind of legal gray area 
with which he's uncomfortable.

"Now we're saying we have laws on the books that we won't enforce," 
Miller said.

LEGALIZED

States that have legalized medical marijuana:

- -- Michigan

- -- New Mexico

- -- Rhode Island

- -- Montana

- -- Vermont

- -- Hawaii

- -- Colorado

- -- Nevada

- -- Maine

- -- Oregon

- -- Alaska

- -- Washington

- -- California

A bill that would legalize medical marijuana has also been introduced 
in the New Jersey legislature.

Source: Pennsylvania House of Representatives

THE RALLY

Charles Homan will be on the steps of the State Capitol in Harrisburg 
from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday.

For more information about the rally, visit www.MedicalMovement.com.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom