Pubdate: Fri, 01 Aug 2003
Source: High Times (US)
Copyright: 2003 Trans-High Corporation
Contact:  http://www.hightimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/191
Author: Silja J.A. Talvi
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marcy+Duda (Marcy Duda)

FREEDOM FIGHTER: MARCY DUDA

Marcy Duda doesn't attempt to glamorize or romanticize the life that
she lives.

Yes, there are the regular mentions in Massachusetts press for her
testimony in front of state congressional members or her high-profile
demonstrations outside the Springfield, Massachusetts DEA office.
There are the national conferences, networks, and accolades from
fellow activists.

But much of the time, Duda's life is more mundanely consumed with the
demands that go along with being the single mother of four children
ages 8-22, as well as a five-year-old granddaughter.

The rest of the time, Duda's life is consumed with trying to manage
her pain. Excruciating, debilitating pain, to be exact.

But that, perhaps, is the price to be paid for still being alive.
Because today, Duda, 42, is still kicking and agitating, a half a
decade after five brain aneurysms should have killed her.

The aneurysms run along paternal genetic lines; the bizarre condition
has already claimed the life of a sister and an aunt.

And Duda remembers getting horrible migraines as early as when she was
12.

She figured out, early on, that smoking pot helped to alleviate the
symptoms.

Begrudgingly and privately, Duda's doctors have admitted that smoking
pot seems to have somehow helped Duda make it against the odds.

Post-surgery, however, the migraines (compounded by severe nerve
damage) were downright unmanageable. Duda lost her ability to taste
and to smell and consequently didn't want to eat a thing. Marijuana,
she says, not only helped her start eating again, but brought quick
relief to the searing pain of her migraines.

"The really bad point of my migraines can go on for six days,"
explains Duda. "It's like a hot ice pick being twisting and grinding
into the side of my head. After awhile, you want to let all the
pressure out. Honestly, I begin to think about having a gun in the
house and ending it right there."

But inhaling the equivalent of a joint, somehow, makes the pain more
manageable. Unlike how she feels on prescription pain pills ("they
control you"), Duda is able to stay level-headed and functional when
she smokes.

She remembers a friend and medical marijuana activist who had used
marijuana to alleviate MS symptoms. But doctors wanted him taking
klonopin instead, and so he did. Shortly thereafter, apparently
disoriented from the drug, he fell in his bathroom and died from his
injuries.

Before his death, the man had encouraged Duda to take up the fight for
medical marijuana. And after her surgery, she did.

Most recently, Duda testified before a Senate health committee in
support of a medical marijuana bill that would allow the Dept. of
Health to use medical marijuana to treat patients on an experimental
basis.

Bills to decriminalize the use of marijuana specifically - and to make
jail-free punishments available more generally for non-violent
offenders (including pot smokers) are also currently being considered
by the state House.

But Duda has seem bills in Massachusetts go by without action before.
"At this point, I've almost given up hope on legislation and the
people in there who are supposed to represent us," says Duda frankly.

That doesn't mean that she'll stop what she's doing.

"When you're told you have zero percent chance of surviving--and then
you go for it anyway - you realize, 'Hey, something happened here,'"
she says. "So you've got a different calling here on earth because it
wasn't supposed to happen like that." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake