Pubdate: Mon, 13 May 2013
Source: Concord Monitor (NH)
Copyright: 2013 Monitor Publishing Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/WbpFSdHB
Website: http://www.concordmonitor.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/767
Author: Ray Duckler

FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE, MACIA PUSHES HASSAN FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Hardy Macia speaks in a whisper, gentle like the hills and lake 
outside the hospital window, yet cruel in the illness it represents.

He sits cross-legged in bed, his mouth and nose covered by an oxygen 
mask, signing paperwork handed to him by a friend, who's also an 
attorney. His family is everywhere: in Macia's room, where bags of 
liquid and twisting tubes hang beside his bed, and down the hall in 
the waiting area, near that window framing Vermont's serenity.

Macia grew up in Vermont and has lived in Canterbury the past six 
years. Doctors say he has a month to live, maybe two. The Hodgkin's 
lymphoma, detected early, refused to follow the script, the one about 
recovery from a form of cancer known to be quite treatable.

So, with the cancer now in his lungs and each breath a challenge, 
Macia wants Gov. Maggie Hassan to hear what he has to say, before 
it's too late. He wants cancer patients like himself to have the 
right to grow their own marijuana, which stimulates appetite and, in 
Macia's case, helps him sleep.

He made a video last week aimed at Hassan, who has said she won't 
sign a bill allowing citizens to grow pot plants for medical purposes.

Although some family members felt uncomfortable with an outsider 
standing near Macia, waiting for an interview, the man with 
libertarian politics and an affable manner had no problem inviting a 
columnist into his inner circle, where a monitor beeps and nurses 
move in and out of his room all day.

He wants to talk about this.

"We have all the chiefs of police saying you can't be doing this 
medical marijuana thing," Macia says through his mask. "And she 
(Hassan) is just bowing to their wishes. I mean, you're the governor, 
so stand up for what's right, and what's right is (to) give us the 
freedom to live our lives, where we make the decisions. As long as 
you're not hurting anyone, that's all that matters, and growing some 
plants is not going to hurt anyone else."

Macia, 42, owns his own computer software company. He's married to a 
woman named Heidi, who has two young children and who he says is in 
the same Burlington, Vt., hospital, suffering from anxiety over his condition.

He'll live in Burlington now, to be with aunts and uncles and 
cousins. He hopes alternative treatments like juicing will give him 
what two rounds of chemotherapy could not. He's taking care of 
personal and financial matters, signing documents, looking to the 
future his wife and stepchildren might soon face, one without him.

And he's making sure Hassan and other elected officials know that 
people like himself have to break the law to find relief.

'A doctor-patient thing'

"The cops try to get involved and Washington, D.C., is getting 
involved," Macia says. "They should just keep their (stuff) out of 
New Hampshire. Don't go to talk to the police about it. It's a 
doctor-patient thing, then after that, where do you get your 
medicine? You can buy it through a pharmaceutical company if you 
want, or you can grow it if you want. Do whatever helps with your pain."

The awful coincidence here is that Macia was a libertarian, a 
believer in personal choice when it came to drug use, years before 
his diagnosis last August. He's always maintained that the war on 
drugs has created war in the streets, while doing nothing to stop illegal use.

"It's a failure," Macia says. "The first prohibition was a failure. 
The war on drugs, with all this violence in Mexico, with all this 
violence in our cities, with cops getting shot in New Hampshire, why 
a war on drugs?"

He says his libertarian philosophy is, in a sense, part of his DNA, a 
natural outlook that simply makes sense. But the hostility that marks 
politics today, the name-calling and lying and cable-news loud 
mouths, is not who he is, nor is what he represents.

Ask Matt Simon of Goffstown, close friends with Macia, who works for 
the Marijuana Policy Project and has spearheaded efforts in New 
England to mainstream medical marijuana use. He and Macia pooled 
their efforts to move Gary Johnson into the White House last year, 
spending money on his campaign and spreading his libertarian message.

Emphasis on ideas

"Hardy was not one who personalizes politics," Simon said. "It's 
about the philosophy more than demonizing this or that person. His 
emphasis is always on the ideas. Gary Johnson had a saying, that he 
promised if elected governor he would put issues first, politics 
last. Hardy loved that saying."

Added Hardy, "These politicians are all about politics, not about 
living free. Washington, Concord, Montpelier  it's all over the 
place. It makes you mad because you spend trillions of dollars on 
wars, all over the world that do next to nothing to bring an end to 
violence. We are not any closer to peace."

Personal battle

His current fight, now more personal than ever, is to relieve cancer 
patients' pain, stimulate their appetite, help in any way possible by 
legalizing a method of convenience.

Former governor John Lynch opposed legalizing medicinal marijuana, 
and Hassan has backed off her former stance of allowing sick people to grow it.

Now, she wants the distribution more closely regulated, through 
dispensaries, which Macia says will take at least two years to establish.

"It seems like the police have her in their back pocket," Macia said.

Meanwhile, his condition has grown worse over the past few weeks, 
leaving him tired and frail, with problems breathing and sleeping.

He says he sleeps better after using pot, obtained illegally, of 
course. He eats pot cookies and also vaporizes the pot with high 
heat, unable to smoke it because the cancer has spread to his lungs.

He doesn't use it often, maybe once every three weeks. He realizes 
other sick people need it more than he does. He sees a simple answer.

He sucks in oxygen, then removes his mask to speak more clearly.

"It's a plant," Macia whispers. "You grow a plant cheaply, and it's 
not hard to do."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom