cannabisnews.com: DrugSense Weekly February 18, 2000 #137





DrugSense Weekly February 18, 2000 #137
Posted by FoM on February 18, 2000 at 11:47:51 PT
Where is my Doctor? By Jay R. Cavanaugh, Ph.D.
Source: DrugSense
In 1997 a gallstone passed into my pancreas setting off a chain reaction leading to an acute episode of Pancreatitis. Taken by ambulance to a trauma center I flat lined briefly from hypovolemic shock. The next year was a haze of hospitals, CAT Scans, probes, tubes, surgery, and most of all pain. I went from 185 lbs to 120 lbs and was pronounced terminal with Chronic Necrotizing Pancreatitis. 
Somehow I began to recover and once off the narcotics was able to return to my work in medicine. I am a Scientific Researcher and Health Administrator. The trouble is the pain never stops and I can't just be snowed under with morphine if I wish to make my contribution to society. My physicians, the best in Los Angeles, recommended that I try cannabis. They told me privately they had patients who had received considerable pain relief from cannabis and that it would treat my malabsorbtion and help me gain weight. The doctors who saved my life and now want to help me live with the pain can only talk to me about cannabis. They have consulted their lawyers who have told them in no uncertain terms that despite Proposition 215 being the law of California with no Federal Challenge, the DEA has bluntly told physicians here that if they recommend cannabis their DEA number and possibly their very license will be taken. I was ready to go to a sanctioned Cannabis Buyers Club but can't because physicians in California and elsewhere are being intimidated by the Federal Government. My doctor's best advice was to go the black market where no standards are kept and I am subject to arrest, prosecution, and jail not to mention the loss of a 30-year career. Our laws are being subverted. Tactics of a government I once loved have become totalitarian. I saw fear in my physician's eyes and profound sadness that he could not help his patient sitting in front of him in extremis. My God what has happened to us.I will live with the pain and my frail frame but I will not accept that my vote means nothing, that my representatives are frightening the very people we count on to help us in need. I do not accept that our Government would rather have sick and dying patients go to the streets and the drug dealers and the scum risking everything rather than receiving proper professional medical care. It is wrong. It is immoral. It is unconscionable and indefensible. I will ask my friends, my fellow Scientists, and anyone else who will listen to write their Congressional Representative to stop this humiliating abuse. I was so skeptical to hear stories of how our DEA and local police had become jack booted troopers of oppression. Fantasies of some hippies that got stoned too much in the sixties I thought. But no. My God it is actually true and happening here. Our Government is here to protect our liberties not sow fear and propaganda. Where is the America I believed in?Where is my doctor?Notes from a PatientClick to read all of DrugSense's Weekly News Bulletin:DrugSense Weekly February 18, 2000 #137http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/2000/ds00.n137.htmlCannabisNews Search of MapInc. & DrugSense Articles Plus New MapInc. Archives:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/MAP.shtmlhttp://www.alltheweb.com/cgi-bin/asearch?type=all&query=cannabisnews+MapInc.http://www.alltheweb.com/cgi-bin/asearch?type=all&query=cannabisnews+DrugSense
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