Pubdate: Sat, 09 Apr 2005
Source: Naples Daily News (FL)
Copyright: Copyright: 2005 Providence Journal
Contact:  http://www.naplesnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/284
Note: Note: Publisher prints several newspapers - please indicate which 
newspaper in LTEs.
Author: Montel Williams
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

DON'T TREAT PATIENTS USING MARIJUANA AS CRIMINALS

You may know me as a television talk-show host, but here in 40 states, I am 
also a criminal. My crime? Using the medicine that has allowed me to lead a 
normal life, despite having multiple sclerosis: medical marijuana.

Being diagnosed with MS, in 1999, felt like a death sentence. I doubted my 
ability to function as a father, son, brother, friend, talk-show host and 
producer. I honestly couldn't see a future. I had always taken excellent 
care of my body; I'd worked out, followed a healthy diet and looked the 
picture of health. What no one could see was the mind-numbing pain that 
seared through my legs, as if I were being stabbed with hot pokers.

My doctors wrote me prescriptions for some of the strongest painkillers 
available. I took Percocet, Vicodin and Oxycontin on a regular basis, two 
at a time, every three or four hours. I was knowingly risking overdose just 
trying to make the pain bearable. In my desperation, I even tried morphine. 
Yet these powerful, expensive drugs brought no relief.

I couldn't sleep. I was agitated; my legs kicked involuntarily in bed, and 
the pain was so bad I found myself crying in the middle of the night. And 
all these heavy-duty narcotics made me nearly incoherent; I couldn't take 
them when I had to work because they turned me into a zombie.

Worse, these drugs are all highly addictive. I did not want to become a 
junkie, wasted and out of control. I spiraled deeper into a black hole of 
depression.

In "Climbing Higher," my book on living with MS, I write in detail about 
the severe mental and physical pain that I experienced. It was so bad that 
I twice attempted suicide.

Finally, someone suggested that I try smoking a little marijuana before 
going to bed, saying that it might help me fall asleep. Skeptical but 
desperate, I tried it.

Three puffs and within minutes the excruciating pain in my legs subsided. I 
had my first restful sleep in months. The effect was miraculous.

But the federal government classifies marijuana in the same category as 
LSD, PCP and heroin -- considered unsafe to use even under medical 
supervision. Physicians are allowed to prescribe cocaine, morphine and 
methamphetamine, but not marijuana.

Ninety-nine percent of marijuana arrests are made by local police, under 
state law -- but the states can decide not to arrest medical-marijuana 
patients. Ten states now protect medical-marijuana patients from arrest, 
the latest being Montana, whose medical-marijuana law passed in November 
with 62 percent of the vote. Yet I'm still a criminal.

Medical and public-health organizations agree that medical marijuana can be 
beneficial. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National 
Academy of Sciences, released a study commissioned by the White House that 
had found marijuana effective in combating pain, nausea and other symptoms 
afflicting patients with MS, cancer and other illnesses. The American 
Public Health Association's policy statement summarizes the extensive 
research showing marijuana's effectiveness, and adds: "Marijuana has an 
extremely wide acute margin of safety for use under medical supervision. 
.. Greater harm is caused by the consequences of its prohibition than 
possible risks of medicinal use."

Patients struggling for their lives against such illnesses as MS, cancer 
and AIDS should not be treated as criminals. We need to get beyond 
politics. We need more research into marijuana's medicinal effects, and we 
should heed the research already available. The federal government should 
change marijuana's classification so that physicians can prescribe it.

But while we wait for the federal government to act -- which, sadly, may 
take some time -- the states should take action to protect patients.

Because of medical marijuana, I am still alive -- and leading a far more 
fruitful life than before. I am not alone. There are thousands of patients 
like me, and we should not be treated as criminals.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom