Pubdate: Tue, 18 May 2010
Source: Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, The  (IA)
Copyright: 2010 The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
Contact:  http://www.wcfcourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3510
Author: Amie Steffen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

RIGHT TO LIGHT

Patients, Doctors Groups Push for Medical Marijuana Research, Treatment

CEDAR FALLS - As a local blues musician's CD plays in  the 
background, a man opens a baggie of marijuana and  rolls a thin joint.

As he puffs, smoke wafts through the detatched garage  behind his 
Cedar Falls home, and he visibly relaxes.

But the man - who wouldn't give his name for fear of  prosecution for 
marijuana possession - wasn't looking  to get high. Instead, he 
claims the marijuana relaxes  his leg muscles, which have been stiff 
ever since a  spinal cord injury left him in a wheelchair 
nearly  three decades ago.

After about four hits, he lifted up his legs and  pressed them 
against the floor, straightening them and  moving them around.

"I can feel it now, actually," he said. "It doesn't  take that long."

Since his injury, he's been on various prescription  medications and 
treatments to relax his muscles, which  were always tense, but they 
were expensive, had  unpleasant side effects or were ineffective.

He never smoked marijuana in his youth and only smoked  a few times 
in his early 20s. Last April, he was at a  friend's house and smoked. 
His muscles shook and then  relaxed. The next day, he told his doctor 
that he  hadn't felt so relaxed since the injury.

"He just looked at me dumbfounded and he said, 'I can't  recommend 
it,'" the Cedar Falls man said.

But since then, it's been the only "medicine" he takes  - and he 
takes it like medicine. His dosage schedule is  scrawled on a cabinet 
in the garage, he keeps it stored  in a prescription bottle and a tin 
and he smokes it at  the appointed times by himself.

Nevertheless, marijuana isn't like other prescriptions.  It's an herb 
that the man has to buy on the black  market. Possession of it is 
illegal. He smokes it in  secret. He wishes it didn't have to be that way.

"I would like to take that aspect away from it," he said.

So would some doctors' groups in Iowa. A new resolution  from the 
Iowa Medical Society recommending marijuana be  opened up for 
treatment of medical conditions follows  just months after the Iowa 
Board of Pharmacy's similar  recommendation.

Both advocate for more research and for doctors to be  able to 
prescribe the herb, which is currently  classified as a schedule I 
substance. That push also  has translated into the Medical Marijuana 
Act being  brought up in the state legislature earlier this  session, 
though it failed to be brought to the floor.

Even so, that's good news to groups like the Iowa  Patients for 
Medical Marijuana, which has worked to  promote marijuana as a 
legitimate treatment for medical  ailments and get legislators 
interested in the topic.

"I definitely think it helps," Jimmy Morrison, founder  of IPMM, 
wrote in an e-mail. "They are finally  acknowledging that it has 
'medical value.'"

But it's unclear if marijuana does have value as a  treatment. Except 
anecdotally among patient groups, the  drug hasn't been extensively studied.

That, said Dr. Paul Franke, is the point. As vice  president of 
medical affairs with Wheaton Franciscan  Healthcare and an Iowa 
Medical Society member, Franke  said the resolution was "long 
overdue." He said doctors  can't know if marijuana is a legitimate 
treatment until  it is studied in peer-review journals, and it can't 
be  studied while it's still illegal.

"We have to remind ourselves, physicians are able to  prescribe 
highly dangerous substances with known side  effects," Franke said. 
"We do this day in and day out  and have been given that privilege 
for the good of  society, and there is no reason we should not be 
able  to prescribe marijuana if the research supports it."

Though there are legal consequences, users of marijuana  for medical 
reasons believe in the treatment enough to  stick with it.

"I've told members of my family. They sort of go,  'Well, if it 
works,'" the Cedar Falls marijuana user  said. "It just should not be an issue."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom