Pubdate: Sat, 01 Feb 2014
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2014 The Boston Herald, Inc
Contact:  http://news.bostonherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53
Note: Prints only very short LTEs.
Author: Jessica Heslam

FOR INJURED NURSE, POT'S BEEN A SAVIOR

Rutland nurse Allison Jones was crushed beneath a car four years ago 
after she stopped to help a woman in an accident.

The accident left Jones with more than a dozen broken bones - 
including her neck, back, pelvis and all her ribs - as well as a head 
injury and chronic pain.

A monthlong hospital stay and surgeries followed.

She was put on a host of medications to try to ease the relentless 
aches, throbs and spasms, from morphine to Oxycontin to fentanyl 
patches, but they left her nauseous, depressed and in a "zombie 
state." She couldn't carry on a conversation.

And, she said, "Nothing really dealt with the pain."

Two years ago, after doctors took part of her hip bone and screwed it 
into her neck, the 60-year-old great-grandmother couldn't bear more 
painkillers. A relative told her to give medical marijuana a try.

Allison did - "And it just changed my life," she said.

The weed stopped the nausea. She "got a grip" on her pain. Her muscle 
spasms stopped.

And yesterday, she was ecstatic to learn that state health officials 
had approved 20 medical pot dispensaries in the Bay State.

"I almost died from prescription medications. I just can't tolerate 
them," said Allison, who also built up a tolerance to the 
painkillers. "Medical marijuana has saved my life."

Allison's husband, George Jones, will no longer have to bring cash to 
meet drug dealers in back alleys or side streets to buy the only drug 
that relieves his wife's misery.

"It's a scary situation. You don't know what you're getting," George 
said. "You don't know what's at the end of the alley."

"Finally," he added, "it'll be on Main Street rather than the back street."

George Jones, 64, said it was debilitating to watch his wife of five 
years suffer. He said she was a "zombie" on all those painkillers. 
But with the marijuana, she's "normal," he said.

Allison is now off all narcotics. She's able to cook and do laundry, 
and has even taken up drawing. "To be able to have a safe place to go 
to get the medicine, not to have to worry about the black market," 
she said, "that's the big thing for patients."

The Joneses are a far cry from the canned image of stoners. On the 
contrary, George said he raised his children to say no to drugs.

"I was probably the most opposed person in the face of the earth," he 
said. "When I saw the major difference, I became a believer."
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