|
|
| Woman Continues To Fast for Right to Marijuana |
|
Posted by CN Staff on May 24, 2002 at 10:05:00 PT By Ginny Merriam of the Missoulian Source: Missoulian 
Robin Prosser has not eaten for 34 days. She has lost 36 pounds, and she's weak and dizzy. But she won't stop her hunger strike until she's allowed to grow the marijuana plants that yield the only medicine that helps her, she said Thursday. She has told her friends and supporters she'll push it to the limit. She has told her daughter that if her heart stops, get it started up again so she can go on."I've told her, 'If I go, you'd better remember and do the same thing,' " she said. "People don't believe that one person can make a difference. But I have to believe I can." Prosser is 45 and has lived with an immunosuppressive disorder that's one of 150 related to lupus since she was 28. She has tried every possible mainstream pharmaceutical, she said, and is allergic to most. She has lived on disability benefits for 12 years. Before that, she was a systems analyst with a national insurance firm in Chicago. She and her daughter, now 17, came to Missoula nine years ago so Prosser could study musical composition in the University of Montana's music department. Her prized possession is a shiny black Kawai grand piano. Her reason to live is her daughter. The only thing that relieves her bone pain, muscle spasticity, irritable bowel, spinal pain, constant migraine and other symptoms is medical marijuana, which she smokes. It's illegal, which she and many others say is wrong. "This is a medicine," she said. "This is an issue between me and my doctor. This is just not right." Long before marijuana became the "evil weed," it had another life as a useful pharmaceutical. It was used for various ailments as long as 4,000 years ago. Between 1840 and 1940, mainstream medicine used it against migraine headaches, menstrual cramps, the spasmodic symptoms of rabies, insomnia, tetanus and other complaints. In 1937, things went awry for cannabis in the United States, and it became illegal. Political misfortune caused that, and our view of marijuana as a moral issue rather than a medical or herbal one keeps it illegal, said Missoula neurologist Ethan Russo, a proponent of medicinal use of marijuana. "Currently, the cannabis ban has reached retirement age, 65," he said Thursday in an interview. "And it should be retired." The United States is falling behind the rest of the world as opinion and science evolve to include the medicinal use of marijuana in western Europe, England and Canada, he said. Prosser does not have medical supervision for her strike. She has run through several general practice doctors who were not comfortable being associated with her medical marijuana use. She went to the emergency room at St. Patrick Hospital on Wednesday. A physician there checked her potassium level, which was OK because she has been drinking Emer'gen-C powdered vitamin C drink with potassium. She showed some irregular heartbeat, she said, which she has had before, but not enough for the physician to deem it serious. He sent her home, she said, with the prescription that she should eat. "He said if I wasn't going to eat, what was I doing there? I'm only going to get worse," she said. "I just found it odd that they didn't think there was anything they could do to support me medically." Joyce Dombrouski, vice president of nursing at St. Patrick's, said the emergency room staff always sends a patient home with the name of a suggested doctor. If Prosser had needed to be admitted, she would have been, she said. "From a global standpoint, the physicians in the ER know what to check," she said. "And they would admit you if they needed to." Prosser, pale and tired-looking in on the sofa in her Upper Miller Creek home Thursday, said she does not want to move to legally use marijuana for medicinal purposes. She wants her daughter to finish her last year of high school at home in Missoula. She doesn't want to get arrested for buying or growing marijuana. So she'll continue her hunger strike and hope for a breakthrough. "I don't know anything else to do," she said. "I'm desperate." Complete Title: Woman Continues To Fast for Right to Grow Marijuana Newshawk: Ethan Russo MD Related Articles & Web Sites: Starving For Medical Marijuana Cannabinoids in Pain Management Chronic Cannabis Use in PDF Format Dying for a Smoke Growing Desperate Missoula Woman Launches a Hunger Strike Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
 |
| Post Comment |  |
 |  |