Pubdate: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 Source: Casper Star-Tribune (WY) Copyright: 2013 Lee Enterprises Contact: http://www.trib.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/765 Author: Kelly Byer WYOMING WEED LAWS LEAVE PATIENTS WITH DIFFICULT CHOICE: SUFFER OR RISK IMPRISONMENT A jazz track opens with a mellow piano and bass duet. Then a swelling cymbal roll. You hear people coughing, the air conditioner running. The sound of Bill Evans' live recording of "My Foolish Heart" is even richer where a man with graying hair sits. He keeps pillows propped on the back of his living room couch to help with acoustics. The former music professor designed the stereo system to convert high-resolution music from digital to analog. Then it's amplified and pumped through two tower speakers. "They'll stone you when you are young and able" Five years ago, the 60-year-old Casper resident, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of prosecution, experienced spontaneous retinal detachment in both eyes. He had 25 corrective surgeries, and as a secondary result, developed glaucoma. Then he lost all vision in his right eye. A specialist prescribed Diamox, a diuretic that is typically used for short-term treatment, to control his eye pressure and preserve the little sight remaining in his left eye. But the monthly prescription cost is expensive about $1,000 without insurance and $100 with assistance. It's also unpleasant. Aside from some nausea, the worst side effect is "extreme" ringing in the ears, he said. It makes it almost impossible to listen to anything. "That in and of itself is enough to make my one past time unenjoyable," he said. "That's why I decided to try the marijuana." When he mentioned the desire to use cannabis during casual conversation, a longtime friend mentioned connections to a supplier. The 60-year-old would never have considered it during employment his former job had strict policies regarding drug use but his disability made him jobless. He did not want to support drug cartels or smoke pot with pesticides or other potentially unsafe chemicals, so it reassured him to know his friend bought the marijuana legally in another state. He accepted the offer that day. "The relief is almost immediate," he said. The high lasts a few hours but the pain goes away for several days, and his remaining eyesight becomes clearer. There are no unpleasant side effects, he says. No downside except the fact it's illegal in Wyoming. "They'll stone you when you're trying to be so good" The Cowboy State still prosecutes marijuana offenses, despite the growing number of states that have decriminalized or legalized the drug. Natrona County District Attorney Mike Blonigen said using cannabis for medical treatment is no defense for possession. Neither is a legal purchase in Colorado or Montana. "Just because they might acquire that legally in another state and bring it back here, doesn't make it legal here," he said. "And they can still be arrested; they can still be prosecuted." Yet, Blonigen said defendants who claim to use marijuana for medical treatment are few. The cases that have been legitimate, he said, are dealt with leniently. In Wyoming, police made 2,254 arrests and spent about $9.15 million enforcing marijuana laws in 2010. Ninety-three percent of the arrests were for possession, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming. Blonigen, though, said most arrests for marijuana possession are made during unrelated stops, and few extra resources are expended. "They're mainly just by happenstance," he said. "They're not because the police go out and work a possession of marijuana case." An ACLU report released in June shows marijuana-related arrests nationwide increased between 2001 and 2010. In that decade, law enforcement made more than 8 million marijuana arrests, 88 percent of which were for possession. Linda Burt, executive director of the ACLU in Wyoming, said if the state won't legalize it, leaders should at least consider decriminalization. "We have drugs that are much more dangerous like Vicodin and Oxycodone and Percocet and morphine," she said. "All of those drugs would be legal if you had a prescription for them, but marijuana is not." Cannabis is still a Schedule I drug under federal law, which is reserved for drugs with a high tendency for abuse and no recognized medical use. A person caught using marijuana could face fines or jail time. First offenders may have charges dismissed after completing probation. For a law-abiding Casper resident with impaired vision and glaucoma, it proved a tough decision: Take expensive legal medicine, with the side effects, or use marijuana and risk imprisonment. "It's a real frustrating thing do you want to risk your freedom or do you want to lose your vision?" He said. "It's not a choice you should have to make." "They'll stone you when you are set down in your grave" He's not the only one to make that choice. After a motorcycle accident in 1997 shattered his pelvis and crushed his left leg from the knee down, Charlie Lake underwent 13 surgeries that left him in chronic pain. He started taking morphine and became addicted. Lake said it caused "mental anguish" and other health problems until he began using marijuana. "I was able to manage my pain more effectively," he said. He began smoking a year after his accident and stopped in September 2012, when he was arrested for possession. Now he's taking nothing for the pain -- neither weed nor morphine. "I would much rather suffer than go through the side effects and misery of an opiate addiction," he said. Health care practitioners, legislators and the public have debated the medicinal use of marijuana for years. The plant has been touted as an alternative to pharmaceutical drugs and treatments, which may be ineffective or have unwanted side effects, but the jury is still out on whether it does more good or harm. In 2010, researchers at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada, released a study that showed cannabis may relieve chronic neuropathic pain. Patients who smoked low, 25-milligram doses of pot with at least 10 percent THC - the drug's active ingredient - reported reduced pain, improved moods and better sleep. The following year, the American Medical Association revised its policies on medical marijuana and requested its removal from the list of Schedule I drugs. Their report concluded that cannabis relieves pain, improves appetite and relieves muscle stiffness in patients with multiple sclerosis, but it also says state regulations may not adequately regulate the psychoactive drug. Both studies suggested further research needed to be done to understand the potential uses of marijuana or its derivatives in medicine. "They'll stone you just a-like they said they would" The Casper resident living with glaucoma said he already understands marijuana's medical benefit. When both his retinas detached and inner eye pressure developed, his ophthalmologist refused to prescribe Diamox because the doctor thought it was unhealthy. "The pressure continued to the point where the optic nerve died," the Casper resident said. "So I have no vision in that right eye at all." Nate Edwards, an ophthalmologist at the Family Vision Clinic in Casper, said diuretics like Diamox are used in emergency situations when eye pressure spikes, but not in long-term treatment because they have more side effects. If a patient's eye pressure remains high, Edwards said the next step is surgery. "Usually with surgery, we can decrease pressures tremendously," he said. "That's kind of the end stage of treatment." But it wasn't for the 60-year-old Casper resident. Eye drops were not an option after numerous surgeries caused him to develop an allergic reaction, so specialists prescribed the diuretic. Then side effects drove him to marijuana. But Edwards said there are enough eye drops or pharmaceutical drugs that effectively reduce pressure, and marijuana has no medical benefits in glaucoma treatment. "In order to keep the pressures down to treatment levels, they'd have to smoke pretty much every 15 to 20 minutes, which would increase the risk of lung cancer and all the side effects of smoking," he said. But the Casper resident said he only needs a little to feel relief. He limits his marijuana use because of the risk in obtaining it and the cost, although it's still cheaper than his legal prescription. It costs him $40 to $80 for bud that will last him months. "I don't care what anybody thinks - what a politician thinks, or what the [Drug Enforcement Administration] thinks - or anything else about its efficacy as a medical product," he said. "I know what it does." "They'll stone you when you're tryin' to keep your seat" Wyoming may have strong libertarian leanings, but state leaders have shown little interest in making marijuana available for medical treatments. Despite Colorado's recent decision to legalize marijuana and Montana's nearly 10-year-old medical marijuana program, state Rep. Tim Stubson, R-Casper, said it's unlikely Wyoming legislators will pursue any changes unless the issue becomes a priority among voters. "In my experience, Wyoming has been pretty confident plowing its own row," he said. "I think this issue is the same. I don't think the activities of the states around us are going to significantly impact the decisions that we make." Stubson's not personally in favor of legalizing medical marijuana until it is recognized at the federal level because he said it would be a "slippery slope" to general legalization. State Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, said it's a topic whose time is coming, just not yet. The issue has few champions in the Wyoming Legislature, but Case doesn't want to be its poster child, for fear of losing his credibility on other topics. He agrees with the ACLU, that penalties are too harsh, and said it's unlikely the federal government will change anything soon. Case sees it as a state issue because states are paying for enforcement rather than collecting a marijuana tax. "I don't have the guts to propose it, but I think it's a realistic discussion that needs to be on the table," he said. Keith Goodenough, a former state senator and representative, was the last legislator to propose legalizing marijuana for medical use in the early 2000s. He failed five times. Goodenough is a Casper City Council member. His proposal made it out of committee in the Senate, but the majority floor leader never let the full assembly vote. A different approach, which would have removed marijuana from the Schedule I drug list in Wyoming, gained approval by the House but failed in the Senate. Although he calls it "irrational" to arrest and jail people for minor marijuana offenses, Goodenough never proposed decriminalizing marijuana. He said his proposals were sometimes misconstrued. "Any time you deal with the subject, you get nailed with all the rumor-able offenses," he said. "They'll stone you and then they'll say, 'Good luck'" The newest legislative effort to legalize marijuana comes from the Wyoming chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). The group, which formed in April, is attempting to place an initiative on the 2016 statewide ballot to legalize hemp and cannabis. Executive Director Chris Christian said she is in the process of drafting a petition, with the help of lawyers, to submit to the state. They want to avoid the legal confusion Colorado's faced by writing a clear and consistent law. "We're going to try to do a better job," Christian said. "We have some precedent to go by now." The group must collect signatures from 15 percent of the registered voters who voted in the last statewide election. That would have required 37,606 signatures for the 2014 election. Although online signatures can't be submitted in the legislative process, the group's moveon.org petition for the same cause had garnered 1,184 signatures by Tuesday. Christian, a Jackson native, said it helps show state representatives the level of the support for marijuana legalization. Weed Wyoming, which is separate from NORML, seeks the same goal. Lake started the group in August 2012, with chapters in Casper, Riverton, Lander, Rock Springs and Green River. In Casper, Weed Wyoming hosts monthly rallies in Conwell Park. The demonstrations started with Lake in the back of his pick-up truck and have grown to gatherings of more than 20 people. "We're trying to do what we can to bring awareness and education," he said. The Casper resident, who says medication made his love of music moot, does what he can. He can't see well enough to drive, but he can still read with glasses. From his living room couch, he reads online about legalization efforts and posts related material on Twitter. He e-mails politicians to promote legislative action but said most requests go unanswered. "I'm just one little blind guy here in Casper, but I vote just like everybody else," the Casper resident said. "At the very least, I deserve some kind of response." While he personally thinks cannabis should be regulated, taxed and legal for everyone, he said simply decriminalizing marijuana or permitting it for medical use would satisfy him. His advocacy is not a "smoke screen" for general legalization. "It's purely selfish," he said. "I don't want to go blind." To avoid becoming a target for law enforcement, he generally avoids association with other advocates. He can't afford to move to a state where medical marijuana is legal his family house was paid off before disability payments became his only income. So attempting to change the laws in Wyoming, a state he values for its natural beauty and independence, is his only course of action. "You would think," he said, "that this would be the first state in the union to embrace personal liberty about something like this." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt