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| A Plea To Legalize Medicinal Marijuana |
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Posted by FoM on March 11, 2002 at 08:55:12 PT By Fernando Mosquera Source: Baltimore Sun 
For most, the question of whether to legalize medical marijuana use in Maryland is an abstraction. Not for me. The Maryland House of Delegates literally will be voting on my right to live a normal, healthy life when it considers the Darrell Putman Compassionate Use Act. The bill would legalize the medical use of marijuana for seriously ill Marylanders. There is strong scientific evidence for medical marijuana's safety and efficacy. The Institute of Medicine reported in 1999, "Nausea, appetite loss, pain, and anxiety ... all can be mitigated by marijuana." Lester Grinspoon and James B. Bakalar have written in The Journal of the American Medical Association, "One of marijuana's greatest advantages as a medicine is its remarkable safety." But scientific journals don't tell the whole story. I have been fighting Crohn's disease, an illness characterized by inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, for more than 10 years. The symptoms of the disease completely derailed my life, beginning when I was 10. I was afflicted with intense, piercing stomach pain and never-ending diarrhea. I lost 40 pounds and became extremely weak. Instead of attending school with my friends, I was stuck in the bathroom all day, anguishing in pain and despair. My doctors first tried to treat my illness with Prednisone, a steroid drug that, along with reducing inflammation, can cause psychosis, stunted growth, high blood pressure, weak bones and glaucoma. Instead of improving my condition, Prednisone made my life worse, creating mood swings and stunting my growth during adolescence. Desperate for any alternative, I even attempted an "elemental diet": breakfast, lunch and dinner fed through a tube that ran up my nose and down to my stomach. None of the treatments worked, and the constant pain and diarrhea kept me in and out of classes from elementary school through high school. After high school graduation, I went to California to write for a video game magazine. California had passed Proposition 215, the nation's first medical marijuana law. There I discovered - legally - that smoking marijuana before and after meals controlled my symptoms. Finally I had found something that worked. The first half of last year proved difficult for the video game industry, publishing and the economy in general. I found myself feeling physically great, but emotionally drained. The magazine for which I had been writing ran out of money, and I suddenly was unemployed 3,000 miles from my family and support structure. Overwhelmed by homesickness and a desire to further my education, I returned home to Maryland where I could attend college near the family and friends I missed so much. But in Maryland I can't use my medicine without fear of arrest and jail. My doctors are delighted that medical marijuana works so well for me, but they are afraid to officially recommend marijuana to me, fearful of official reprisals for prescribing an illegal drug. The alternative is Marinol, a legal prescription medicine that contains a synthetic version of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active ingredient in natural marijuana. Marinol would be ideal, if it worked properly. Instead, its effects are too intense. One dose incapacitates me for more than four hours. Smoking marijuana controls my illness while allowing me to function normally. For Marylanders like me, for whom doctors would be willing to recommend marijuana if it were legal, it is crucial that the use of medical marijuana become legalized in Maryland. To arrest those who need marijuana as medicine is cruel and pointless. Let those of us who require it fight our illnesses in peace, without fear of jail. Fernando Mosquera, 20, is a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a volunteer intern at the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington. Related Articles & Web Sites: Marijuana Policy Project Marijuana The Forbidden Medicine Coalition for Compassionate Access Medical Marijuana Information Links Marijuana is a Medicine That People Need Delegates Lobby for Medical Marijuana Bill Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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Comment #4 posted by el_toonces on March 12, 2002 at 07:56:21 PT:
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| This kid has a lot of guts to "out" himself like this, and if he did not get a tremendous benefit from this medicine, it is unlikely he would take this risk. I mean, thanks to nice guys like Rep. Mark Souder, this kid or his family better have a lot of money, or this kid is just a couple of "well intentioned" people away from not attending the University of Maryland if he needs financial aid. Yeah, let's not send the WRONG message! [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #3 posted by el_toonces on March 12, 2002 at 05:37:52 PT:
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| Using your clear prose, you make the same point I wanted to make in comment to this article, in similar language even! I could not have put the point as well as you though. I have pancreatitis myself and what this author wrote was so "close to home" I couldn't help get a little water in my eyes reading this piece. Then, I read your comments and my feelings get even stronger as you remind me of the harm and distress this prohibition is causing to my family and friends who must me "waste away" pound by pound. Thanks for making me feel less alone today:) El [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by goneposthole on March 11, 2002 at 17:55:13 PT |
| for their own safety. History repeats. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on March 11, 2002 at 13:04:01 PT:
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| And from daily max doses of Prednisone...which she took for years. Because the doctors didn't have anything else.
Now they do. But we can't expect someone who's mortgaged their lives for years to get that sheepskin saying "Doctor" to risk it all in the face of mad-dog, Inquisitorial DrugWarriors. Nope, it's got to be done...by us. I cannot begin to go into the details of what she suffered in her last days; it hurts too much. To hear your own mother screaming in agony, tears flowing down her face, and being helpless to stop her pain short of a bullet, is torture in and of itself. In the end, she cried to be allowed to die. The Prednisone-treatment-caused stroke which killed her was the only thing which relieved her of her pain. And to learn that cannabis might have helped her is galling. To know that there are proudly ignorant, self-righteous 'concerned citizens' who would have denied my Mother any peace she could have had from that medicine because of their twisted, anal, control freak personalities is infuriating. To realize that tens of millions are suffering right now because of such people is literally, in the old sense of the word, outrageous. One of the reasons why the antis are so adamant in their resistance has nothing to do with 'public safety'...only their own. For, when the full history of cannabis prohibition is dragged, slimy, dripping and foul, from it's lair and is shown in the light of reason...when the role of those 'concerned citizens' organizations played in maintaining that suffering is fully exposed...there won't be any place to run to. [ Post Comment ] |
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