Pubdate: Fri, 14 Mar 2014
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2014 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact:  http://www.ajc.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Eli Hogan
Note: Eli Hogan, 17, lives in Cartersville

LET'S THINK OF THE SUFFERING

I am 17 years old, and I suffer from severe Crohn's Disease, a 
chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract.

I have struggled with this disease for two years now, and spent my 
Christmas vacation at Scottish Rite in Atlanta full of IVs, being fed 
through a catheter run under my bicep into my chest cavity, in 
agonizing pain, losing blood, and on the verge of needing a total 
removal of my colon. I dropped from 170 pounds to 135, all on a 
6-foot 2-inch frame.

Medical cannabis has great potential to help people like me. 
According to studies in respected publications such as the Journal of 
Endocrinological Investigation and the Journal of Molecular Medicine, 
cannabis assists in wound healing in the intestines as well as 
regulating peristalsis in the gut and suppressing acid reflux, and it 
pre-emptively protects against further damaging inflammation.

In addition, it shows promise as a painkiller. Crohn's and related 
disorders are excruciatingly painful when the disease is active, to 
the point of being completely disabling.

However, as well as being highly addictive, heavy-duty painkillers 
like morphine have negative effects on the contractions of intestinal 
muscle and can therefore worsen Crohn's Disease flares.

I personally refused morphine during my hospital stay not only 
because of these frightening effects, but due to fear of addiction.

Obviously, cannabis was not available in any form, so I simply took a 
weaker painkiller and toughed it out.

I don't use marijuana in any form. I fear my life will be ruined if I 
am caught, as the justice system doesn't often differentiate (or even 
think there's a valid distinction) between a "lazy stoner" and people 
simply desperate for relief from an incurable illness that has 
plagued them for years and will plague them until they die. This is 
shameful and immoral.

The debate on this subject is going to heat up in coming years as 
more and more states legalize medical marijuana. My plea is that 
opponents of medical marijuana in this state will consider the words 
of Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, after recently visiting a girl whose 
family is fleeing to Colorado to receive cannabis-derived medication 
for their daughter's seizures: "If it was my child, I'd be crawling 
over broken glass to get legislation passed, as would any legislator 
who's here. Why can't we as a state be compassionate enough to look 
at what makes sense?"

Where is the compassion for people like us? Nobody reading this would 
hesitate to take hydrocodone or morphine if they were in severe pain 
for months on end. Yet if someone wants to avoid the potential for 
addiction or the acute negative effects these drugs can have on the 
course of their disease, their concern is often belittled and mocked 
as a druggie's front.

I face a lifetime of harsh intravenous immunosuppressants - with side 
effects ranging from lupus to rheumatoid arthritis to extremely rare, 
incurable lymphomas - just to keep my disease under control.

I am fearful for my financial future, as without insurance, 
treatments to keep me alive total well over $100,000 a year. I ask 
anyone reading this to think of their own children facing the kind of 
pain and suffering and uncertainty about the future that those of us 
who are candidates for medical cannabis go through every day. Crohn's 
patients, cancer and arthritis sufferers, those whose bodies have 
been ravaged by multiple sclerosis - we are all desperate for some 
kind of relief that doesn't just cause us more problems.

I am not someone looking for a quick high. I am a 4.0 GPA student 
bound for the Kennesaw State University Honors College in the fall. 
I'm my school system's Star Student representative to the PAGE 
Foundation. I'm a churchgoer, and I volunteer my time to 
organizations outside of school.

I am not someone making excuses to get high, and most of my fellow 
advocates aren't either.

We're normal people asking for a little compassion from those who 
have a little better luck in the health department than we do.

I come before those who oppose my right to protect my vitality, not 
as some Great Satan or boogeyman who wants to destroy the morality of 
the nation ... I come before all simply wanting to be healthy again.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom