Pubdate: Sat, 07 Jun 2001
Source: Pasadena Weekly
Copyright: 2001 Times Community Newspapers
Website: www.pasadenaweekly.com
Address: 50 S. DeLacey Ave., Suite 200, Pasadena, CA 91105
Contact:  (626) 795-0149
Phone: (626) 584-1500
Author: Jaymee R. Cuti, Michael Simmons
Note: Article by Cuti, Sidebar by Simmons

REEFER MADNESS

The U.S. Supreme Court's Recent Ruling Against The Use Of Medical Marijuana 
Ignores The Reality That It Works At Restoring Health And Relieving Pain - 
The High Court's Decision Also Overlooks The Fact Most Californians Believe 
It Should Be Legalized For Those Purposes

Brian smokes pot every day. Sometimes just once, but on his worst days, 
when he feels particularly depressed, anxious and in pain, he may toke up 
three times throughout the day. Today, 36-year-old Brian is in so much pain 
that he rarely leaves his South Pasadena home. In healthier times, Brian 
occasionally smoked pot for pleasure, but not anymore. Brian remembers 
experimenting with marijuana for fun in his 20s, and then discovering that 
it relieved the pain he suffered in his back as the result of an injury.

By 1994, Brian was deemed permanently disabled and could not continue his 
career as a fashion designer.

But it wasn't until 1995, when he was diagnosed with HIV, that he began 
referring to reefer as medicine. Brian, who declined to use his last name 
because he believes openly admitting marijuana use would embarrass his 
family, lost 30 pounds in two weeks and couldn't keep down food or pills.

His T cell level, the white cell measurement used to determine the severity 
of the illness, plummeted to 230, nearing the 200 mark or the level of 
full-blown AIDS. "I felt like death was coming," said Brian. "It was two 
years after I became HIV positive, when I was always in my bed, losing 
weight, throwing up that my doctor recommended medical marijuana." At this 
point, pot took on an entirely different meaning for Brian. "When I became 
sick with HIV, partying was not on my mind. I've been in chronic pain for 
16 years.

I've tried physical therapy and pain pills, and they didn't work. I was 
thinking survival," he said. Since he began smoking marijuana under the 
direction of his doctor, Brian's life has changed significantly. So has his 
health.

For one thing, his appetite has improved vastly.

For another, Brian's T cell count has steadily registered at 1,000. "It has 
gotten me out of my bed. It has gotten me out of my room. I am able get 
dressed, to laugh, to talk to people and I've been able to maintain my 
weight." In 1997, he became a member of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource 
Center. "Before that, I was buying on the streets not knowing who I was 
buying from. I was worried about fungus and bacteria," he said. Brian now 
volunteers as a baker at LACRC twice a week. There he crafts marijuana into 
cookies, brownies and other goodies for the cannabis center's clients.

The Pot Shop

When approaching the center, herbal aromas perfume the air, but once you 
step through the door of the shabby loft you realize that you are not in a 
paradise retreat for burnouts.

This is a medical center, complete with a waiting room, a kitchen for 
making medical baked goods, an office with files and other commonplace 
administrative supplies and a lounge for smoking medicine -- not a swatch 
of tie-dye in sight. And the people sitting in the lounge, they don't look 
like the characters from a love-in. No pot bellies, no hemp insignia 
clothes or jewelry.

The members of the LACRC are sick with different ailments, from HIV to 
glaucoma to cancer, and they are all at different stages of their 
particular afflictions. Most are very thin and sickly looking.

Their faces are aged beyond their years. The LACRC in West Hollywood, like 
cannabis buyer's clubs throughout California, grows and distributes 
marijuana to members at little or no cost. Upon a first visit, it may seem 
as simple as selecting a medicinal brownie off of their menu for $5, or a 
baggy of LACRC-cultivated Tiger Bomb green buds ranging from the suggested 
prices of $3 to $20 per gram, but the LACRC is a legitimate and legal 
organization with strict verification practices. For starters, marijuana is 
only distributed to members.

For people to apply for membership, they need a doctor's recommendation. 
The center calls the physician to verify the recommendation and then 
researches and confirms the physician's medical license.

Finally, the potential member is interviewed and must agree to the terms of 
the LACRC, which include not smoking medicine in a public place, not 
exposing others to second-hand smoke and being completely honest with 
authorities. Under these conditions, the person becomes a member, and is 
issued a cannabis club card with photo identification. With this membership 
comes the security of legal protection. If a member gets busted for 
possessing marijuana, and is following the club rules, the LACRC supplies 
the member with a lawyer. Scott Imler, director of the LACRC, is 
responsible for legal distribution of marijuana to members in California. 
He co-authored Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative, which 
passed by 56 percent of the vote in November 1996. "Before major grassroots 
medical marijuana efforts started in 1991-92, people just got it from 
anywhere they could.

When we organized politically, patients started meeting together and 
realized that it's easier and safer to pool your pennies and divide it up." 
Imler uses marijuana to control epileptic seizures that he said were 
brought by injuries suffered in a skiing accident. "I was growing my own 
and minding my own business in 1991, when the helicopters came and took it 
away." Today, Imler keeps an oversized zip lock bag of seizure suppressing 
medications prescribed to him; pills that he doesn't take and 
affectionately refers to as "poison." "With epilepsy medication, the side 
effects are devastating. You sit in a chair, drool and watch television. I 
smoke marijuana a couple times a day, have a better quality of life, 
control seizures -- and I'm a criminal." While former President Bill 
Clinton and his family were moving into the White House in 1992, Imler was 
collecting 14,000 signatures in Santa Cruz County to get Measure A on the 
ballot.

Measure A, which eventually evolved into 1996's Proposition 215, passed by 
a 77 percent margin and advised the county board of supervisors to send 
letters to state and elected officials to make marijuana available for 
prescriptive medical use. But when advocates took the measure to the state 
Legislature for adoption statewide, the measure was vetoed by then-Gov. 
Pete Wilson. Four years later, in spite of Wilson's veto, marijuana's use 
as medicine only grew. Says Imler, "One of us needed to come down to 
Southern California, and I got the job." Six weeks before Election Day in 
1996, the LACRC office in Los Angeles got busted, but that didn't stop 
distribution. The group operated out of a Methodist church until Nov. 6. 
The day of the election, with the help of a city grant and a bank loan, 
LACRC moved into its present home on Santa Monica Boulevard in West 
Hollywood and has been operating undisturbed by the authorities ever since.

Mary Jane Goes To DC

While medical marijuana is still legal in California under Proposition 215, 
it is still illegal in the eyes of federal authorities. The U.S. Supreme 
Court last month ruled 8-0 in favor of the federal government in U.S. v. 
Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative. The Court ruled that "medical 
necessity" is not a defense in federal court for distributing marijuana. 
The legal status of the LACRC is murky today, although the Supreme Court's 
ruling does not overturn state laws, and the Constitution prohibits state 
officers from upholding federal law over state law. Under the controlled 
substance act, the Supreme Court had very little choice, considering 
marijuana is categorized as a Schedule One drug -- in the same category 
with heroin and ecstasy. However, as Imler points out, "People's medical 
necessity doesn't change just because the Supreme Court says there is no 
medical use for marijuana." Since 1978, only eight people beat the 
government under the legal doctrine of necessity, which follows the 'I 
stole the car to drive my mother to the hospital because she was having a 
heart attack' logic.

The first of those eight people to successfully use this argument for 
medical marijuana was Bob Randall, who was suffering from glaucoma and 
living in Florida in 1978. He argued that only an insane person would obey 
the law, which in essence ordered him to obey the law and go blind.

Since then, the argument has worked for seven others, and the United States 
government grows marijuana for them on a plot of land in Mississippi. 
Pasadena police Commander Mary Schander said the medical marijuana issue 
has not come up for the department. "We would follow the law as well as the 
Supreme Court decision and take the appropriate enforcement actions," she 
said. The Glendale Police Department has a similar policy.

Sergeant Rick Young said, "Basically, anytime we find marijuana, we treat 
it as illegal possession. If the defendant can produce a doctor's 
(recommendation), we submit it as evidence, and present that to the 
district attorney to determine if it is in fact prescribed by a doctor." He 
added, "Most people who use it for medical purposes, are not usually using 
it in the streets committing crimes." Neither Glendale nor Pasadena police 
honor a cannabis card. Imler brings attention to the irony of the Supreme 
Court ruling when he says, "We didn't create this problem with marijuana.

They did. They let people with glaucoma go blind and let crippled people 
die in pain for 30 years, knowing all along that marijuana could help them, 
all the while pushing and marketing their poisonous pharmaceuticals. The 
hypocrisy is overwhelming. Arresting sick people isn't good for their 
health." Although it is unlikely that a cannabis club member will be 
convicted for possession of marijuana, the criminal treatment is an undue 
hassle for the terminally ill. "I am completely ashamed of our government 
that picks on the sick and the weak," said Brian, with disgust. "We're just 
trying to survive as best we can for as long as we can." But why isn't 
prescribed marijuana being treated like medicine among law enforcement, and 
what does the medical community have to say about the legitimacy of 
marijuana as medicine? Pharmacist Jim Avedikian, said, "I'm in favor of it, 
quite frankly." Avedikian owns Phoenix Pharmacy and Wellness Center, a 
pharmacy in Pasadena specializing in the needs of people with HIV and AIDS. 
Although his pharmacy cannot dispense marijuana because of the drug's 
Schedule One criminal status, he said, "Buyer's clubs have done a good 
job." However, he speculated, "I don't think that Pasadena's senior 
citizens with glaucoma would go down to West Hollywood to get their 
medication. Maybe baby boomers who are graying, my generation, would be 
more open to it." Avedikian added, "I certainly would if I had glaucoma." 
Avedikian said that he would distribute marijuana through his pharmacy if 
it were re-categorized to a Schedule 2 drug, or one requiring a triplicate 
narcotics receipt (one for the doctor, patient and government), which makes 
the drug traceable by the government. "I don't think it will be rescheduled 
with the current administration," he said. "They won't even agree to a 
needle exchange program, which we know stops the spread of AIDS." Janis 
Martin is a health education team leader with the Aids Service Center in 
Pasadena. The ASC is not a medical facility and employees do not prescribe 
medical marijuana or any treatment, but they do council, educate and make 
referrals.

During her 10 years in the AIDS education field, Martin says she has heard 
patients say medical marijuana works for them. "People I've spoken with who 
have wasting syndrome because of HIV told me that marijuana takes the pain 
away and allows them to eat again," said Martin. Wasting syndrome, which is 
responsible for the weight loss experienced by people with AIDS, occurs 
when people cannot benefit from the nutrients of their food, explained 
Jorge Sandoval, an ASC treatment advocate for four years. "Once their 
immune system has been shattered and HIV is eating away at their muscle 
mass, they start losing weight.

It is important that HIV patients gain muscle mass," he said. With regard 
to the Supreme Court's ruling that found no medical benefits to marijuana, 
Sandoval said, "I don't know if there are any medical benefits, but I can 
certainly tell you that I have seen people use it under the supervision of 
a doctor, and they have gained weight, dealt with the side effects of their 
medication and stayed healthier."

The Alternative Alternative

"I'm all for cannabis centers like this -- they bridge an important gap -- 
but they are not the answer," said Imler. "People should be able to go to 
Walmart or their hospital pharmacy and get what they need. If they came out 
with patches or sprays or inhalers or suppositories that delivered this 
medication, that would be fine. But until they have that, they should leave 
us alone." The medical community seemed to have heard the pleas of Imler 
and others for a less controversial -- and less noticeable -- marijuana 
alternative, and created Marinol. Marinol is synthetic THC, a legal form of 
the herbal original, in pill form. Marinol isolates one out of 61 
cannabinoids in marijuana, but that one psychoactive ingredient just 
happens to be the one responsible for getting pot smokers stoned.

While a handful of patients say it quells the nausea brought on by 
treatment of HIV and cancer, with Marinol, you can't control the dosage 
within one pill. For the most part, people who try Marinol say they hate it 
because it gets them too high. "Marinol is to marijuana what NutraSweet is 
to an apple," said Imler. He explained that Marinol was invented to kill 
lab animals to set a scale for toxicity. "They couldn't get lab animals to 
smoke or eat enough to take a lethal dose to cause death," he said. And 
because Marinol contains only one cannabinoid, it doesn't help people who 
need one of the other 60 ingredients in marijuana to alleviate their 
symptoms. "Marinol is the only version of marijuana that is toxic," said 
Imler, "And it costs $33,000 a year to be on. Who is the government trying 
to fool?" Avedikian has heard similar complaints about Marinol, including 
"It doesn't work for everyone." and "Patients say it gets them too high."

And The Band Plays On

While Marinol points out the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, and a 
pipe on the cover of this paper will attract readers, the important story 
is that for people like Brian, Imler, and the others I met at the cannabis 
club, marijuana is the only medicine that gives them the strength to fight 
for their lives. Said Imler, "We're going to be dependent on drugs for the 
rest of our lives. People with AIDS are dependent on protease inhibitors. 
People with cancer are dependent on chemotherapy. Epileptics are dependent 
on anticonvulsants. We found something that works for us. We're not going 
back to the ages of shame and darkness," Imler said passionately, adding, 
"It's not very good for us how it's going.

Consensus is we're dead, but in some cases, we're dead either way so we 
have no reason to stop fighting." If the Supreme Court's recent decision to 
ban medical marijuana at the federal level begins affecting state 
legislation, Brian of South Pasadena says his days are numbered. "It 
wouldn't be long before I would die either through my disease or through 
chronic pain. Try having a migraine in your entire body for 16 years. If 
the disease wouldn't kill me, the pain would overcome me and I would blow 
my head off."

SIDEBAR

THE SUPREME SMOKE OUT

In Spite Of Supreme Court's Ruling, Legislative And Popular Support For 
Marijuana As Medicine Continues To Grow

The Supreme Court, those titans of justice who most recently handed George 
W. Bush his job on a gilded platter, say that the sick and dying of Oakland 
can't obtain an efficacious theraputant because the medical experts who 
comprise the Congress of the United States say they can't. But by no means 
have the justices thwarted the growing political legitimacy of medical 
marijuana.

Gripped in the painfully redundant throes of reefer madness, the Supreme 
Court handed down its decision in the case of the United States v. the 
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative on Monday, May 14. The be-robed ones 
denied a medical necessity defense to the OCBC for manufacturing and 
distributing marijuana and consequently denied the cannabis club the right 
to re-open. The ruling was hinged on the federal Controlled Substances Act 
that prohibits marijuana use for any reason other than government approved 
research projects, of which one can count using the fingers on one hand -- 
including the middle one.

To be fair, the High Court was not presented with the best possible test 
case for medical marijuana.

The Oakland club was one of six clubs slapped with a civil suit by the 
Clinton administration in 1998 for distributing marijuana.

Oakland and the others slipped up and, through careless intake procedures, 
allowed a DEA agent with a fake identity and doctor's recommendation to 
join their centers.

The narc procured cannabis and the jig was up. The non-patient status of 
co-op director Jeff Jones further devalued Oakland's credibility. 
Traditionally, a necessity defense is available to an individual when, as 
Justice Stevens noted, "physical forces beyond the actor's control rendered 
illegal conduct the lesser of two evils."  In this case, the primary 
"actor" named in the suit -- Mr. Jones -- was neither sick nor facing 
imminent harm, diminishing the legal "necessity."

Nonetheless, there are Oakland patients with clear medical need and the 
excuse of bad federal law to invalidate access to medicine, which is deeply 
troublesome, as was the 8-0 decision (Justice Stephen Breyer recused 
himself because his brother is the judge in the original suit against the 
OCBC). The so-called liberal Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg filed a 
concurring opinion, which means that while they agreed with their 
conservative colleagues, they also noted that this is a narrow opinion 
leaving unaddressed issues such as medical necessity for individual 
seriously ill patients, as well as questions of states rights versus 
federal supremacy.

In fact, in spite of some media confusion, the Supremes neither overturned 
Proposition 215 nor declared it unconstitutional. Nor did they invalidate a 
medical necessity defense for qualified patients.

Both Colorado and Nevada continued plans this week to implement medical 
marijuana laws based on voter initiatives. The governor and attorney 
general of Colorado, bound by their allegiance to the state's constitution, 
but adamantly against medical marijuana, asked the feds to come in and stop 
their own program. Interestingly, they were informed by the local U.S. 
Attorney that Colorado law was their problem, not the Bush 
administration's.  This reaction by the feds indicates that Bush may adhere 
to states rights and practice a hands-off attitude.

Ultimately, therapeutic pot will continue to be legally controversial until 
Congress removes it from its current Schedule I status (high abuse 
potential, no medical use) to Schedule II (some medical use). While the 
rationale for marijuana being categorized with other Schedule II drugs such 
as morphine and cocaine is questionable, many patients would be relieved 
just to get their medicine from a pharmacy and stop debating the issue.  To 
this end, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, has introduced HR1344, which would 
reclassify cannabis from I to II and would allow for prescriptive access. 
While the Bush administration may be inclined to allow sovereign states 
their eccentricities, it's a stretch imagining a president in political 
debt to drug war dinosaurs caving in federally.

In California, adherence to Proposition 215 by law enforcement has been 
erratic.  Patients in rural counties have been particularly susceptible to 
cowboy cops who don't give a damn what Californians have voted into law. 
State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, has sponsored SB187 that would 
establish a voluntary statewide registration and identification program 
overseen by county health departments.  The bill also authorizes the State 
Department of Health Services to issue guidelines for possession and 
cultivation and would permit qualified patients to associate "in order 
collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes." 
In other words, the bill would protect legitimate cannabis co-ops.

SB187 is currently sailing through the state Senate. It will likely pass 
the Assembly, but may hit an impasse when it reaches Gov. Gray Davis' 
office.  Like too many centrist Democrats, he's been as rigidly 
unsupportive of medical marijuana as right-wing Republicans. But marijuana 
as medicine is now an accepted concept.

Eight states and the District of Columbia have passed initiatives 
supporting it, and Hawaii has legalized it legislatively. What remains to 
be seen is how long it will take before the federal government concurs with 
the public and revises an absurd and antiquated law.
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