Pubdate: October 7, 1997
SOURCE: Chatelaine Magazine
CONTACT: http://canoe2.canoe.ca/ChatelaineInfo/feedback.html

Rx: marijuana

People with MS, glaucoma, AIDS and cancer say smoking pot eases their symptoms.
But is marijuana good medicine?

By Katrina Onstad

A year ago, Lynn Harichy, now 36, was a different person.  Diagnosed at 18 with
multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic disease of the central nervous system,
Harichy was rapidly succumbing to the disorder.  Periods of blindness would come
upon her; limbs would tingle and fall numb.  The mother of four was confined to
a wheelchair.  "It felt like someone was breaking my bones," she recalls from
her home in London, Ont.  There is no cure for MS, only treatment in the form of
drug therapy.

At one of her lowest points, Harichy read a story in the local newspaper about a
man facing charges for selling marijuana seeds.  His defense revolved around
marijuana as a pain reliever for the chronically ill. Harichy as intrigued.  It
had been years since she'd smoked pot, but when a friend gave her a joint as a
gift and she lit up, the effects were immediate.  Averaging a joint a day,
Harichy found that the muscle spasms that racked her body ceased; the bouts of
paralysis grew less frequent, finally vanishing.  Most important for Harichy,
her mental state shifted. "I could focus," she says, and in her life, that
matters: Harichy has been on a disability pension and is training to become a
lab assistant. "Suddenly, my thoughts were clear, more organized.  I could
concentrate in school because I wasn't in pain." But she didn't want to grow her
own marijuana or use drug dealers.  "I have kids.  I don't want to put them in
danger."

So Harichy joined a Toronto group called CALM, Cannabis as Legitimate Medicine,
an organization that provided marijuana for those who needed it for medicinal
purposes.  With a $15 registration fee and a letter of diagnosis, people with a
range of health concerns suited to marijuana treatment – from AIDS wasting
syndrome to cancer to glaucoma – could receive cheap clean marijuana in a safe
officelike environment.  

There's only one catch: it's illegal.  Like the Vancouverbased Compassion Club,
CALM was based on the California model of "cannabis buying clubs." The
difference is that in California, Proposition 215, passed last November, made
marijuana use legal for certain illnesses.  In Canada, it's illegal.  Period.

"Under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, marijuana can only be used in
research situations," says Bruce Rowsell, director of the drug surveillance
bureau at Health Canada.  "But if you're caught cultivating or possessing
marijuana in Canada, it doesn't matter if it's for medicinal use; you could
still be charged."

For people like Harichy, inaccessibility creates a logistical nightmare. She
couldn't drive the hundreds of kilometres to Toronto to buy her marijuana
through CALM, and delivery was often difficult.  Canada Post sometimes
intercepts suspected "drug shipments," and few marijuana proponents are willing
to risk prosecution for trafficking.  Harichy isn't alone in her frustration;
though no one knows how many Canadians are relying on marijuana for pain relief,
it is the mostused illegal psychoactive drug in North America.  The question
is: does marijuana really help?

This is how marijuana works: we have receptors for delta9tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC) – the chief marijuana component responsible for the "high" – in the parts
of the brain responsible for memory, mood, motor activity and concentration. 
Smoking marijuana affects those functions, but because we don't have receptors
in the parts of the brain that control basic life functions (consciousness and
respiration), it can't kill us.  For those with MS and epilepsy, marijuana is
reported to reduce muscle spasms and to relieve accompanying bladder and bowel
incontinence.  Many people who suffer from glaucoma – a condition usually
resulting from excess pressure in the eye that, if left untreated, can lead to
blindness – also stand by marijuana for its effectiveness in reducing the
pressure behind the eye.  And the moodimproving qualities of marijuana are said
to be useful treatment for a range of chronically ill patients.

But marijuana is regarded as most medically viable in light of its most famous
side effect: the munchies.  Marijuana is an appetite stimulant, which can be key
in the control of AIDS wasting syndrome, the result of HIV infection, which
causes patients to lose 10 percent or more of their body weight.  The nausea and
inability to eat can contribute to early death, but marijuana has proven an
effective antidote by making patients hungry and hence, better nourished.

For cancer patients too, loss of appetite and an inability to keep food down can
pose major problems.  Dr. Eduardo Bruera of the Cross Cancer Institute in
Edmonton has seen these effects firsthand with his chemotherapy patients: "I've
had patients who are vomiting 30 times from the radiation.  It can rip an
esophagus apart or cause dehydration." In one U.S. survey, 78 percent of cancer
patients felt that smoking marijuana reduced their nausea.  But Dr. Bruera, like
many doctors, isn't convinced marijuana is the best solution.

"The problem with it is that it gets you high," he says.  "A lot of our
patients, especially the elderly, don't want that feeling." Also, little is
known about the longterm effects of marijuana use, though the carcinogens
produced by smoking any substance can be fatal.  "Legalizing marijuana
oversimplifies the care of the terminally ill," says Dr. Bruera. "Since the
mid90s, plenty of effective medications for vomiting have been introduced,
drugs that don't have the side effects of marijuana derivatives.  Why would I
tell an ill patient to smoke something when he can get better results
elsewhere?"

In the past few years, pharmaceutical versions of THC have appeared on the
market.  Dronabinol (brand name Marinol), a synthetic version of THC, is
prescribed to AIDS patients and cancer patients with sever nausea.  

Advocates for legalizing marijuana aren't impressed.  "Marinol is only one
component of cannabis," says Umberto Iorfida, president of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Canada (NORML).  "Pot doesn't
consist of THC exclusively; it has more than 400 ingredients." Hence, THC pills
can cause patients to feel even more stoned than regular marijuana.  "I've
talked to people with AIDS who just don't want to take any more pills," says
Iorfida.  "They can't keep them down."

Of late, the movement to legalize marijuana in Canada seems to be gaining
momentum.  In Vancouver, the Compassion Club has expanded its facilities. There,
more than 100 clients regularly come by to purchase pot, discuss alternative
treatments and talk to fellow smokers.  According to founder Hilary Black, the
club receives more than 15 calls a day from people across Canada who want to use
the service (they send people information and will ship marijuana by mail to
people in extreme need); at least a third of their clients are women.  "A lot of
women don't feel safe using the black market," says Black.  "And if they have
families, they might not be able to afford it."

Yet according to Health Canada, we don't know enough about marijuana's effects
to make it legal.  "Most of the information out there is anecdotal," says
Rowsell.  "Only when good scientific studies come forward that say ‘Yes, this
drug may be useful for this disease,’ should we even consider legalizing it."

In the meantime, however, Harichy is back to using the black market.  After a
couple of months in operation, CALM closed its doors in July.  According to
organizers, the HIV community they were targeting already had its own sources,
and they couldn't attract enough clients.  So where does that leave women like
Harichy, who aren't connected to a marijuana subculture? For now, Harichy is
relying on friends to get it for her.  "They say we need more studies before it
can be legalized, but what does that mean?" asks Harichy.  "It makes me feel
better, and I know that right now."