Pubdate: Thu, 17 May 2012
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Gustin L. Reichbach
Note: Gustin L. Reichbach is a justice of the State Supreme Court in 
Brooklyn.

A JUDGE'S PLEA FOR POT

THREE and a half years ago, on my 62nd birthday, doctors discovered a
mass on my pancreas.

It turned out to be Stage 3 pancreatic cancer.

I was told I would be dead in four to six months.

Today I am in that rare coterie of people who have survived this long
with the disease. But I did not foresee that after having dedicated
myself for 40 years to a life of the law, including more than two
decades as a New York State judge, my quest for ameliorative and
palliative care would lead me to marijuana.

My survival has demanded an enormous price, including months of
chemotherapy, radiation hell and brutal surgery.

For about a year, my cancer disappeared, only to return.

About a month ago, I started a new and even more debilitating course
of treatment.

Every other week, after receiving an IV booster of chemotherapy drugs
that takes three hours, I wear a pump that slowly injects more of the
drugs over the next 48 hours.

Nausea and pain are constant companions. One struggles to eat enough
to stave off the dramatic weight loss that is part of this disease.
Eating, one of the great pleasures of life, has now become a daily
battle, with each forkful a small victory.

Every drug prescribed to treat one problem leads to one or two more
drugs to offset its side effects. Pain medication leads to loss of
appetite and constipation. Anti-nausea medication raises glucose
levels, a serious problem for me with my pancreas so compromised.
Sleep, which might bring respite from the miseries of the day, becomes
increasingly elusive.

Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from
nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep.
The oral synthetic substitute, Marinol, prescribed by my doctors, was
useless. Rather than watch the agony of my suffering, friends have
chosen, at some personal risk, to provide the substance.

I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in
the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately
needed sleep.

This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights
issue. Being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I am
receiving the absolute gold standard of medical care. But doctors
cannot be expected to do what the law prohibits, even when they know
it is in the best interests of their patients.

When palliative care is understood as a fundamental human and medical
right, marijuana for medical use should be beyond controversy.

Sixteen states already permit the legitimate clinical use of
marijuana, including our neighbor New Jersey, and Connecticut is on
the cusp of becoming No. 17. The New York State Legislature is now
debating a bill to recognize marijuana as an effective and legitimate
medicinal substance and establish a lawful framework for its use. The
Assembly has passed such bills before, but they went nowhere in the
State Senate. This year I hope that the outcome will be different.
Cancer is a nonpartisan disease, so ubiquitous that it's impossible to
imagine that there are legislators whose families have not also been
touched by this scourge.

It is to help all who have been affected by cancer, and those who will
come after, that I now speak.

Given my position as a sitting judge still hearing cases, well-meaning
friends question the wisdom of my coming out on this issue. But I
recognize that fellow cancer sufferers may be unable, for a host of
reasons, to give voice to our plight.

It is another heartbreaking aporia in the world of cancer that the one
drug that gives relief without deleterious side effects remains
classified as a narcotic with no medicinal value.

Because criminalizing an effective medical technique affects the fair
administration of justice, I feel obliged to speak out as both a judge
and a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease.

I implore the governor and the Legislature of New York, always
considered a leader among states, to join the forward and humane
thinking of 16 other states and pass the medical marijuana bill this
year. Medical science has not yet found a cure, but it is barbaric to
deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our 
suffering.
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