Pubdate: 16 Oct 1997
Source: Eye Magazine 
Contact: Medical pot back in court

BY NATE HENDLEY

Lynn Harichy tells me she smoked two joints before I called her, but she
doesn't sound stoned. "I've smoked so long I don't get high from it any
more," she says, laughing. "When I smoke, I can do interviews."

She's been doing a lot of interviews lately, mainly because of a protest
she conducted Sept. 15 at a London, Ont., police station that's made her a
hero in the cannabis community and a pariah in other quarters. After
alerting the media, Harichy, 36 and a mother of four, marched to the front
of the London cop shop and got herself arrested for possession of marijuana.

Her arrest wasn't all that traumatic. "A female officer arrested me," she
recalls. "The police at the station were nice. They didn't fingerprint me."

Health reasons were behind her protest: Harichy says she smokes pot because
she has multiple sclerosis, the degenerative nerve disease that can cause
muscle spasticity, paralysis, extreme fatigue, mental disorientation, and
intense pain.

She's tried various treatments, including steroids which made her "feel
crazy" during the six years she was on them. Pot, which she smokes daily,
relaxes her muscles enough to allow her to walk and helps ward off feelings
of pain so intense she likens the sensations to spiders in her hands,
"eating up the bones."

Lawbreaking didn't come easy for Harichy, who says she has no criminal
record, supports the police and is a lawabiding citizen. She put herself
in the spotlight because she's pissed at not having the legal right to
consume her medicine of choice.

Harichy decided to launch her protest after attending the trial of Chris
Clay, a London hempstore owner who turned his summer court appearance on
drug charges into a forum for legalizing marijuana. Clay lost his case but
attracted intensive media coverage and sympathetic words from the presiding
judge, Justice John McCart, who noted that marijuana had "proven
therapeutic benefits" and that decriminalizing it might not be a bad idea.

Harichy's retained Clay's lawyer, Alan Young, a longtime drug reform
activist, and wants to use her trial to force a ruling that would exempt
medical pot users from criminal punishment.

An intense woman, Harichy admits she "scares a lot of people"  including
representatives of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, who've tried
to distance themselves from her as much as possible.

"We don't endorse medical marijuana," says Deanna Groetzinger, the
society's vicepresident of communications, "but then, we don't endorse any
kind of treatment."

The MS Society hasn't offered support to Harichy, but she hasn't exactly
lobbied them for help, either. "I never asked them to support me," she
states. "I'm not asking anyone to support me."

Dr. Harold Kallant of the Addiction Research Foundation and the University
of Toronto Department of Pharmacology is as unimpressed with Harichy's
selfmedication regime as the MS Society.

Kallant has spent decades researching marijuana and other drugs and says
it's "well supported" that THC, the chemical in marijuana that gives the
drug its psychoactive kick, can provide relief from nausea caused by
chemotherapy and stimulate the appetites of AIDS victims. For these
conditions, Kallant supports the use of Marinol, a synthetic pill form of
THC, that was tested on "over 2,000 people" before being approved for AIDS
patients in Canada.

While Marinol is only legally available for people with AIDS or cancer at
present, "it is possible to get approval for Marinol for nonapproved use"
in clinical research studies, states Kallant. Anyone who wants to promote
pot as an effective treatment for MS should submit the drug to a proper
scientific research study that includes doubleblind testing and large
numbers of patients, he says.

So far, though, the MS Society hasn't initiated any research projects of
its own and Kallant says he's "not aware of any trials in Canada using
marijuana to treat multiple sclerosis." Holland is currently conducting
research into marijuana and MS.

Kallant concedes that marijuana might give MS patients a psychological
boost, if only because "when you're pleasantly high, you might not notice
many things"  such as the fact that you've got a chronic nerve ailment
for which no cure exists.

Harichy, who isn't exactly Marcus Welby when it comes to analyzing the
medical benefits of cannabis, admits, "I don't know what (marijuana) does
to me," but adds that she's "100 per cent better" when she smokes it.

Hardly a scientific viewpoint, but an opinion Harichy holds so strongly
she's willing to put up with skepticism from researchers, rejection from
mainstream MS groups, and the very real possibility of jail and a criminal
record for the sake of legal access to an outlawed drug she considers
medicine.