cannabisnews.com: Organ Failure





Organ Failure
Posted by CN Staff on May 21, 2008 at 04:47:33 PT
By James Pitkin 
Source: Willamette Week
Oregon -- When Tim Garon died May 1 in a nursing center in Seattle, his body skeleton-thin, the news didn’t register a blip in Oregon. But Garon’s death illustrates a growing problem for the 16,635 Oregonians who legally use marijuana to treat their medical symptoms.Garon, a 56-year-old professional musician who had hepatitis C, died after a University of Washington Medical Center committee denied him a spot on a liver-transplant list. Part of their reason: Garon used medical marijuana—which is legal under Washington law.
Garon wouldn’t have fared any better in Oregon, where medical marijuana has been legal since 1999. Hospitals here refuse to perform transplants on patients who treat their severe pain, nausea and other symptoms under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program.The state’s largest transplant program, run jointly by Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland VA Medical Center, turns away patients who use marijuana. Legacy Health System also performs kidney transplants and refuses marijuana users.Those are the only two transplant programs in the state, leaving Oregon’s medical marijuana patients completely out in the cold.UW Medical Center spokeswoman Clare Hagerty says medical marijuana is never the sole reason her hospital denies a transplant. She declined to speak further about Garon because of confidentiality rules.It’s impossible to say anyone died just because they didn’t get a transplant. But at least 30 Oregonians who use medical weed have died in the past 10 years after hospitals denied them new organs, says Paul Stanford, head of the THC Foundation, a chain of medical-marijuana clinics based in Portland.“It’s a death sentence,” says Madeline Martinez, head of the Oregon branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “Most of the people have already expired because they didn’t have the transplant.”The problem goes beyond Oregon because 12 states now have medical marijuana laws, but the federal government considers any use of marijuana illegal.Each hospital writes its own rules on who’s allowed on the national waiting list for an organ transplant. With a constant shortage of organs, the rules have always been strict. Patients who use illegal drugs are refused because doctors say there’s a higher risk the transplant won’t work.Yet now that pot is legal medicine, patients “are in effect thrown out...because they are following their doctor’s orders,” says Allen St. Pierre, head of NORML’s national office in Washington, D.C.St. Pierre hasn’t heard of a single hospital in the United States that has a policy of allowing transplants for medical marijuana patients.Those affected include Jim Klahr, a 56-year-old professional musician from Brookings. He suffers from cirrhosis and hepatitis C, and quit taking medical marijuana in 2004 to qualify for a new liver.Meanwhile, he lives with crippling nausea that used to vanish with a single puff of smoke. “I’ve capitulated because basically I don’t have much of a choice,” says Klahr, who sits on the 11-member state Advisory Committee on Medical Marijuana.Mike Seely, head of the transplant program at OHSU, wouldn’t say how many marijuana users have been denied access to transplants. The vast majority of medical marijuana patients who need new organs need a liver, and livers are provided only by the OHSU/VA program.VA Hospital spokesman Mike McAleer says the VA won’t allow transplants for medical marijuana patients because under federal law, marijuana is illegal.OHSU doctors also bar marijuana users because of medical concerns, including a higher risk of infection and pulmonary problems. Users of other illegal drugs, drinkers and even tobacco smokers are also barred from getting transplants, Seely says, but anyone can join once they pass a drug test and meet other requirements.Dr. William Bennett, head of kidney transplants at Legacy, says those are the same reasons his program bars marijuana users. He and Seely also say patients on mind-altering drugs are less likely to stick with their treatment in the long run, leading to a higher rate of transplant failure.Critics say those reasons are nonsense. They say pot can be manufactured to avoid infections, and can be vaporized or eaten instead of smoked to ease lung problems. They also note that other transplant patients are given mind-altering drugs like Oxycontin.NORML may seek legislative fixes, and thinks Oregon is a natural choice. State Rep. Peter Buckley (D-Ashland), a backer of Oregon’s Medical Marijuana Program, says he’s concerned but needs more information to act.The ACLU may file a lawsuit in Oregon or another state with medical-marijuana laws. “It really does point to how absurd and cruel the federal government’s marijuana policy has become,” says Allen Hopper, head of the ACLU’s drug-law project in San Francisco.Fact: OHSU and the VA have performed 917 liver transplants in Portland since the program started in 1988. Legacy transplants about 90 kidneys each year. Note: Medical marijuana patients are snubbed for transplants at OHSU and Legacy.Source: Willamette Week (OR)Author: James Pitkin Published: May 21, 2008 Copyright: 2008 Willamette WeekContact: mzusman wweek.comWebsite: http://www.wweek.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Hemp & Cannabis Foundationhttp://www.thc-foundation.org/Medical Marijuana User Denied Organ Transplanthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23940.shtmlMMJ User Dies for Lack of Liver Transplanthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23894.shtml 
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Comment #6 posted by Sinsemilla Jones on May 21, 2008 at 21:37:03 PT
From UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) to me
UNOS's response to my e-mail, in which I said I wasn't going to be a donor, because cannabis users are being denied transplants -Thank you for visiting www.transplantliving.org. UNOS maintains the national organ procurement and transplantation network (OPTN) under contract with the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this capacity we promote organ donation and serve transplant candidates (patients) who are on the national waiting list for solid organs, such as heart, liver, kidney, heart-lung, lung and pancreas. UNOS members include every transplant program, organ procurement organization and tissue typing laboratory in the United States.Individual transplant centers ultimately determine whether or not a patient is listed as a transplant candidate, not UNOS. UNOS, as the OPTN, bases policies on medical criteria, not social judgments or economic means. To be placed on a transplant center’s waiting list, the potential transplant candidate would have to be referred to a transplant program by his doctor, evaluated by that center and accepted as a transplant candidate. Again, the medical personnel at the center determine whether or not he meets their criteria to be listed and whether or not he has the ability to be compliant once listed and transplanted.Marijuana use, in and of itself, is not an absolute rule-out. Addiction, whether it is to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, food, is a disease and patients are not generally excluded because of their disease. For example, before accepting a patient as a transplant candidate, transplant centers may require their potential transplant candidates, with a history of alcoholism or drug abuse, be evaluated by healthcare professionals with extensive experience in the care and treatment of patients with a history of substance abuse, and may require these patient to undergo a treatment program before they are evaluated as a candidate.Beverley C. Trinkle,
UNOS Patient Services 
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Comment #5 posted by charmed quark on May 21, 2008 at 17:52:53 PT
actually, yes, alchohol and tobacco 
The article said that "Users of other illegal drugs, drinkers and even tobacco smokers are also barred from getting transplants, Seely says"
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Comment #4 posted by ripit on May 21, 2008 at 17:36:43 PT:
and what about
tobbacco and alcohol? does smoking cigs or drinking disqualify ppl from the list?
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Comment #3 posted by charmed quark on May 21, 2008 at 15:37:43 PT
marinol?
does Marinol use disqualify one from receiving a transplant? If not, why not? If yes, please put that in the drug literature.So, one of the reasons they give is that marijuana is so addicting that the recipient might not give it up after the transplant and his weakened immune system might, in extremely rare cases, let in some mold spores?So, why not get the recipient to switch to oral ingestion or Marinol?
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Comment #2 posted by Sam adams on May 21, 2008 at 12:20:06 PT
toxicity
It's sad that none of the articles on this issue have mentioned the fact that cannabis is one of the most non-toxic medications to the liver & kidneys in the medical world.That's why this is so important, many people with liver and/or kidney failure won't be able to tolerate Big Pharma's pain killers and other meds.
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Comment #1 posted by Storm Crow on May 21, 2008 at 06:27:32 PT
Hmmmmm....
" He and Seely also say patients on mind-altering drugs are less likely to stick with their treatment in the long run, leading to a higher rate of transplant failure."Funny....I seem to remember another outcome for pot tokers under serious medical treatment....
 	
(from 14 September '06- it ain't like this is breaking news!)Cannabis Use Can Improve Effectiveness of Hepatitis C Therapyhttp://pub.ucsf.edu/today/cache/feature/200609136.html
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