Pubdate: Sat, 02 Feb 2013 Source: Intelligencer, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2013, Osprey Media Group Inc. Contact: http://www.intelligencer.ca/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx Website: http://www.intelligencer.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2332 Author: Michael J. Brethour HE'S NOT IN IT FOR THE HIGH Scott Readman insists marijuana saved his life. The 45-year-old Trenton resident will tell you the curative properties of medicinal marijuana pulled him from a downward spiral of his health that may have ended in death. Readman suffers from advanced Crohn's disease, an ailment he was diagnosed with when he was 20. In that quarter of a century, Readman has had four sections of his intestines removed. "I've had three operations with four resections that saw diseased pieces of bowel removed and it has never really gone away, it has just been there," said Readman. Crohn's disease is a form of inflammatory bowel disease that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus, causing a wide variety of symptoms. "I've tried to control it with diet, I've tried to control it with medication and it has never really worked," he stated. Readman said after his mother died from liver cancer in 2010, he vowed to not take prescription medications if he did not have to. "I began to introduce medical marijuana, actually it wasn't so much medical marijuana as I did it recreationally, but I found I liked what it did to my insides when I was having a rough day or when my Crohn's was acting up," he said. After a massive flare up of his Crohn's disease in 2011, Readman thought he was winning his battle of not taking prescription medications and steroids, but faced with being already 40 pounds lighter from his already lighter than average body weight, he was faced with no other alternative. After going to the hospital emergency and taking the steroid Prednisone for a week-and-a-half, Readman was confronted with the frightening fact that he was still losing weight. "Usually Prednisone is the only thing that has worked in the past 25 years to bring down a flare up, usually kicks in after a day or so," he explained. He was then admitted to hospital in what his family doctor described as a 'skeletal' state. He stayed there for nine days, losing an average of a pound a day. "When I got home I still couldn't eat, I was in too much pain. That is when the medical marijuana essentially saved my life," said an emotional Readman, recalling the time. Bed-ridden and wracked with pain, Readman resorted to vaporizing marijuana. "That took away the pain long enough for me to actually be able to eat. A lot of people count calories, I was counting in the other direction, just to survive," he said. The gambit worked, Readman started gaining some weight back, but unfortunately he was breaking the law by saving his own life. Eventually, Readman was approved and licensed for medicinal marijuana use. He found the uneven approach of vaporizing the drug did not provide enough relief, so he soon started looking for alternative methods. Though he was forced to quit his full-time job, a return of slightly better health allowed Readman to attend Loyalist College in the culinary program which coincidentally taught him the methods he would use to create his own brand of medication. "On the recommendation of my significant other, Andrea, I started making marijuana tea," noted Readman. He noted that by bringing cream and butter to a boiling point and adding his medicinal marijuana, the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) could be extracted to create his tea. Being the father and caregiver of a three-year-old autistic child, Readman noted that the mental effects of marijuana were extremely off-putting to him. "I can't be hooked up to the couch all day like that, this way the effects go right to the area that it is needed without the cerebral effect," he said. He added that drinking the medicine is also a way to dismiss the social stigma surrounding the use of the drug. "It's not that I'm ashamed of it, but my son has never seen me smoking anything, all he has ever seen me do is drinking from a cup =C2=85 that i s perfectly natural," he said. Under the current licensing of marijuana, Readman is allowed to grow his own medicine, which includes growing three plants outdoors for the season or 11 plants indoors. "It certainly helps reduce the financial strain," he said. Marijuana purchased from the government is sold at $5 a gram plus tax, Readman said. Using that price, one of his marijuana hot chocolate mixture was worth approximately $20 before he was allowed to grow his own. "This is probably the most expensive hot chocolate you would ever have," he laughed. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt