Pubdate: Thu, 19 Aug 2004
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2004 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Patrick Hoge, Chronicle Staff Writer
Cited: Raich v. Ashcroft http://angeljustice.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Angel+Raich
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Diane+Monson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

2 MOMS WHO NEED MARIJUANA AWAIT SUPREME COURT RULING

Forced to Challenge Feds to Keep Their Healing Remedy

Angel Raich and Diane Monson never imagined themselves as the 
standard-bearers for the medical marijuana movement. They just wanted to 
ease their pain.

But the two middle-aged Northern California mothers say they were forced to 
challenge federal authority over the drug's use in a case the U.S. Supreme 
Court will hear in the coming months.

They insist marijuana is the only thing that keeps their otherwise 
debilitating illnesses at bay despite government claims that it is an 
illegal and addictive drug that doctors have no business prescribing or 
even recommending.

Raich, 38, of Oakland, is a mother of two teenagers who began using pot for 
her ill health nearly a decade ago. She became an activist and met her 
attorney -- and husband-to-be -- at a medical marijuana event.

"I really feel like I have been blessed by cannabis," said Raich, who has a 
15-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son. "Cannabis is my family's miracle. 
Without cannabis, I would have wasted away."

Monson, 47, who lives quietly in a home she and her husband built on 160 
acres in rural Butte County near Oroville, joined the cause two years ago 
after federal agents raided the property and confiscated six pot plants she 
used to cope with back pain.

Shortly after the raid, the two women met each other in their lawyers' 
office and decided to sue the federal government, seeking protection for 
medical use of marijuana under California's Proposition 215; approved by 
the state's voters in 1996, it allows doctors to recommend marijuana to 
their patients.

Pot Helped Paralysis

Raich's health problems began as a teenager in Stockton when she got 
curvature of the spine. In 1995, the right side of her body became 
partially paralyzed after an allergic reaction to birth control pills.

For nearly four years, Raich could not get out of a wheelchair unassisted. 
She lost her accounting job in Sacramento County as a result of her illness 
and moved back to Stockton to be closer to family.

Raich has since been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, uterine 
fibroid tumors and other disorders, said her doctor, Berkeley physician 
Frank Lucido.

As Raich's condition deteriorated, a nurse at a local hospital suggested 
she try marijuana. Raich was initially offended, but in desperation she 
asked a relative to find her some pot "off the street."

It helped, stimulating her appetite and restoring feeling to the right side 
of her body. About 18 months later, she got out of her wheelchair and 
walked again.

She threw herself into the medical marijuana movement, attending rallies, 
lobbying legislators, working with local police and speaking frequently to 
reporters.

She gave up her birth name -- which she asked be kept confidential -- 
adopting "Angel" after fellow patients started calling her that.

Raich met her "third and last" husband -- Robert Raich, who is her attorney 
and a well-known advocate for medical marijuana -- four years ago as a 
result of her activism. After two years of communicating with each other 
via telephone and e-mail, Angel said she had walked up to Raich at a 
medical marijuana-related event and placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Once we touched, that was it. It was really quite magical," she said. They 
were married in 2002.

They live in Oakland's Redwood Heights neighborhood, in a home with 
sweeping bay views. Depictions of angels are scattered around the living room.

Raich says she found a community where she felt comfortable at the Oakland 
Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative and by talking with other patients online.

She consumes more than eight pounds of marijuana a year -- smoking it, 
vaporizing it, eating it and mixing it with massage oils. Two caregivers 
grow it for her free of charge.

"The average person doesn't really understand what it's like to be really, 
really ill," she said. "The medical cannabis movement is more of a family 
than my own family."

Raich's activism took her to a rally this summer outside the California 
Highway Patrol office in Oakland to protest the confiscation of thousands 
of cannabis plants from a warehouse that she claims was storing medical 
marijuana.

"This is my medicine, and they want to take it away," Raich yelled angrily, 
waving a plastic bag holding two ounces of pot.

Restored Her Appetite

Monson suffers from what her doctor calls "degenerative disease of the 
spine," and she has been plagued by frequent and severe back spasms since 
1989. Prescription medications made her groggy or nauseated if they worked 
at all, she said.

Monson started using marijuana daily after a doctor recommended it in 1999, 
although she readily admits that she and her late husband, Michael Pierce, 
"were always light recreational" pot smokers.

Beyond easing her chronic pain, the drug restored the appetite she lost to 
depression when she learned in March that her husband was terminally ill. 
He died in June.

Monson, an accountant who previously owned a landscaping company with her 
husband, typically smokes her first bowl of pot about midday -- sometimes 
earlier if she's not feeling well.

"You know, wake and bake," she said with a laugh.

The laughter fades as she recalls how she was standing in her bathrobe in 
the kitchen making granola when she saw trucks and a helicopter racing down 
her driveway one morning in August 2002.

Sheriff's deputies and Drug Enforcement Administration agents jumped from 
their vehicles, some with guns drawn. They had come to investigate the six 
marijuana plants they'd spotted in her backyard while flying over her house 
earlier.

Deputies concluded that Monson's plants were allowed under state law and 
were preparing to leave when DEA agents said Monson's plants had to be 
destroyed.

"That's when the phone calls started," Monson said.

For three hours, the deputies conferred with Butte County District Attorney 
Mike Ramsey, who told them to protect Monson's plants -- at gunpoint if 
necessary. Ramsey, who felt bound by the voters' will, phoned the U.S. 
attorney's office in Sacramento, which called Washington. The verdict: 
Overrule the district attorney.

The deputies backed off, and one of the federal agents chopped down the 
plants as a tearful Monson read aloud the text of Prop. 215. Monson was not 
arrested or charged with a crime.

About two months later, she received a call from San Francisco attorney 
David Michael, who told her he had a lawsuit ready for the perfect 
plaintiff - - her. She came to the Bay Area to meet the attorneys and Angel 
Raich, and they decided to pursue litigation.

Monson has been content to leave the case in the hands of lawyers, and she 
rarely attends demonstrations or public events or socializes with Raich. 
Her extra time goes to teaching literacy at the local library and 
volunteering at a nursing home.

"I have more notoriety than I'd care to have," said Monson.

High Court to Hear Case

In December, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco 
issued a preliminary injunction finding that the women's case appeared 
convincing and ordered federal authorities not to arrest or prosecute them 
for using locally grown pot obtained free of charge for medical purposes.

The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed late 
last month to hear the case.

Monson and Raich are not sure what they will do if they lose the case.

"I'm either going to have to find another way to get that medication, or 
I'm going to have to do without it," Monson said. "That is a very scary 
concept, because I've had no luck with other therapies."

Raich says she won't be a lawbreaker and would most likely leave the United 
States.

"They'll run me out of my own country," Raich said. "I really don't feel 
that's fair, because I feel like I've been a good citizen." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake