Pubdate: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 Source: Seattle Times (WA) Copyright: 2011 The Seattle Times Company Contact: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409 Author: Gerald N. Yorioka MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE COMPLICATES LIVER TRANSPLANTS Marijuana Use By Hepatitis C Patients Could Be Harmful It is interesting to see two articles the same day about marijuana. Columnist Neal Peirce wonders why President Obama has backed away from the advocacy of pro-marijuana candidate Obama ["Obama's puzzling silence on pot," Opinion, Dec. 18] and LA Times reporter Anna Gorman highlights the plight of a hepatitis C patient who was rejected for a liver transplant as his condition advanced into liver cancer. ["Medical marijuana adds crimp to liver transplant eligibility," seattletimes.com, Dec. 17.] The rejection was based on his use of approved medical marijuana. It might help everyone to know that evidence seems to show that hepatitis C patients progress three to four times as rapidly to cirrhosis, and then to liver cancer, when smoking marijuana. This is a deadly trap set by the use of medical or nonmedical marijuana for chronic pain of hepatitis C. - - Gerald N. Yorioka, M.D., Mill Creek - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart