Pubdate: Wed, 01 Oct 2003
Source: Hill, The (US DC)
Copyright: 2003 The Hill
Contact:  http://www.hillnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1509
Author: Lizzie Andrews
Note: The Hill, which has a subtitle of 'The Newspaper for and about the 
U.S. Congress' is widely read by both elected officials and their staff.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/George+McMahon

A STORY OF GOVERNMENT-ISSUED POT

Only seven people in the United States can legally use marijuana as
medicine. George McMahon is one of them, and he tells us about his
experience in Prescription Pot: A Leading Advocate's Heroic Battle to
Legalize Marijuana.

McMahon supports medical marijuana and its distribution through a program
he participates in -- Investigational New Drug (IND). Administered by the
Food and Drug Administration, IND has supplied medical marijuana to fifteen
patients since 1976. IND stopped accepting applications for medical
marijuana use in 1992.

McMahon cites medical studies, included in the appendix, that demonstrate
marijuana's medicinal benefits. But Prescription Pot does not dazzle the
reader with scientific facts. Instead, it tells the story of how marijuana
saved McMahon's life.

McMahon suffers from Nail Patella Syndrome (NPS), a rare disease that
deforms bones, disrupts organs and causes constant muscle spasms. Because
of McMahon's severe condition, which he describes in Prescription Pot,
Christopher Largen, a journalist and friend, wrote the entire book on
McMahon's behalf. The text was based on numerous conversations between
McMahon and Largen over one year.

In Prescription Pot, McMahon, his wife Margaret, Largen and a documentary
film crew take a four-day trip from McMahon's home in Fort Worth, Texas, to
three locations significant for supporters of the medical marijuana
movement. In Little Rock, Ark., McMahon urges lawmakers in the Arkansas
Capitol to endorse legislation permitting medical marijuana. In Memphis,
Tenn., the group visits Graceland, where they recall that Elvis campaigned
against drugs for Nixon while he himself was a drug addict -- one of the
many inconsistencies surrounding the government's policy towards drugs that
is addressed in Prescription Pot. At the final stop in Oxford, Miss.,
McMahon and his group attempt to visit a facility at the University of
Mississippi where the government-issued marijuana is grown.

During the journey, McMahon routinely becomes fatigued and smokes a joint
- - one of the 300 that are given to him monthly by IND. As they drive, he
recalls months of hospitalization due to infirmities such as hepatitis A
and B, tuberculosis, rheumatoid fever and injuries to his spine, leg and wrist.

Once he started smoking marijuana, McMahon says, he was able to resume a
functioning life because the cornucopia of drugs prescribed by doctors had
only made him feel worse.

McMahon talks of marijuana's miraculous curative qualities. While
recovering from a kidney operation in Iowa City Hospital, he smoked an
illegally obtained marijuana cigarette following a doctor's suggestion. He
immediately felt better and was able to leave the hospital for the first
time in three months, he says.

McMahon says illegally obtained marijuana is not ideal because of its
expense, questionable quality and the possibility of arrest.

But he did not have to turn to illegal marijuana for long because a new
doctor suggested that McMahon apply for IND, which was founded after
glaucoma patient Robert Randall filed a successful lawsuit against the
federal government claiming that his right to smoke marijuana was unjustly
prohibited. McMahon says he received advice from Randall on how to complete
the complicated application, which removed one obstacle that many patients
found difficult to surmount in applying for medical marijuana. After two
years of completing documents, McMahon became the fifth person in the U.S.
to legally smoke marijuana.

Admittance to IND has put an extraordinary pressure on McMahon to assist
the suffering people who could benefit from medical marijuana. He tells of
frequent e-mails from terminally ill patients, asking McMahon how they can
obtain marijuana. McMahon does not risk violating IND rules by giving any
illegal advice.

McMahon's fight to legalize marijuana is never ending, and Prescription Pot
concludes with McMahon expressing concern for people who are denied access
to medical marijuana.

"But I'll be returning to the fray soon to fight for those suffering who
cannot speak for themselves and whose pain may be alleviated like mine -
by medical cannabis," the book says.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman