Pubdate: Tue, 02 Oct 2007
Source: East Oregonian (Pendleton, OR)
Copyright: 2007 The East Oregonian
Contact:  http://www.eastoregonian.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3903
Cited: Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse http://www.mamas.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Kevin+Mannix

GROUP DEFENDS MEDICAL MARIJUANA

MAMA Members Speak at BMCC

Alice Ivany still has nightmares about the day she lost her arm.

The horrific accident happened as Ivany operated machinery at a 
plywood mill in 1977. The men's gloves she wore were too big for her 
hands and they were wet.

As she fed lumber into the machine, her right glove got sucked into 
the machine taking her arm with it. The emergency shut-off bar, three 
feet above her head, hung just out of reach.

"I was in the machine for 45 minutes," Ivany remembers. "They had to 
use a cutting torch to get me out."

She used prescription pain killers to calm the fire in her body for 
years, but couldn't take the side effects such as stomach cramping and nausea.

"It felt like someone was cutting inside my stomach with a pair of 
tweezers," Ivany said.

Then, several years ago, she got wind of Oregon's medical marijuana 
program. To her amazement, marijuana - or cannabis - eased her pain 
with few side effects.

"It has improved my quality of life - I am more lucid," she said. "It 
has analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties."

Ivany soon joined a group called Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse 
that champions the medical marijuana program and scrutinizes the 
nation's drug priorities. Five members of the group - Ivany, Sandee 
Burbank, Jack Thomas, David Booth and Jennifer Burbank - are setting 
out on a 20-day tour around Oregon to talk about why 17,000 
Oregonians have turned to medical marijuana for relief.

Four of them use medical marijuana, while the fifth, Jennifer 
Burbank, Sandee's daughter, volunteers because she likes the message 
and philosophy of the group.

Monday evening, they drove their motor home to Blue Mountain 
Community College and spoke about Oregon's medical marijuana program.

The group operates a clinic in Portland, staffed with four doctors, 
that helps patients with diagnosed medical conditions to register 
with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. Only people with specific 
medical conditions qualify for the program. They include cancer, 
glaucoma, AIDS and HIV and treatment for cachexia (wasting syndrome), 
severe pain, severe nausea, agitation from Alzheimer's disease, 
seizures and persistent muscle spasms such as those experienced with 
multiple sclerosis.

Oregon's law allows each patient to grow six mature plants and 18 
starts and seedlings.

The five MAMA members are frustrated by the millions of federal 
dollars aimed at curbing marijuana use, while alcohol, smoking and 
prescription drugs, they say, are more destructive and less regulated.

"One of the worst drugs of all is alcohol," Burbank said, "yet when I 
turn on FOX News in the morning, they're at a microbrewery - they're 
normalizing it."

Each year, 101,000 people die of alcohol-related causes, while 
tobacco causes 435,000 deaths and prescription drugs lead to 106,000 
deaths. In contrast, illicit drugs are responsible for 17,000 deaths.

Marijuana leads to few, if any, deaths, Burbank said.

She cited the research of Administrative Law Judge Francis Young who 
spent two years studying marijuana.

In 1988, he wrote, "Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially 
lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no 
record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, 
documented cannabis-induced fatality."

"In 5,000 years of experience of recorded history, there's never been 
a recorded death for cannabis," Burbank said.

Ivany often uses a tincture, an amber, syrup-like liquid made from 
marijuana. Other times, depending on her symptoms, she smokes the 
drug. The tincture leaves one's head clear, she said.

To make the tincture, Ivany uses a rock tumbler and spins it five 
minutes a day for two months.

Jack Thomas said he suffered from severe pain after a motorcycle accident.

"I flew 75 feet through the air and landed on the street," he said. 
"I split my sternum, jammed my spine and broke my left wrist."

He stayed on a regimen of ibuprofen for two months - 600 milligrams 
twice a day.

"It destroyed the inside of my stomach," he said.

Cannabis has the pain-killing qualities of ibuprofen without the 
harsh side affects, Thomas said.

"I function well on cannabis," he said.

Thomas, an on-call heavy machinery operator for a paving company, 
said his cannabis use doesn't interfere with his work.

"It calms me down and makes me focus," he said.

Burbank, 63, said marijuana has a muffler effect on her pain.

"It turns down the volume enough so I can stand it," she said.

Burbank, who suffers chronic pain from car and water skiing 
accidents, grows about 42 marijuana plants in her backyard. The 
harvest is for her and other medical marijuana users.

Booth, Ivany and Thomas grow only enough for their own use.

Among them, they've grown over 100 different varieties of marijuana, 
with names like purple silver, bubble gum, Star Trek, trainwreck and big bud.

The group is worried that a ballot initiative proposed by Kevin 
Mannix, attorney and former chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, 
may take away their medical marijuana. The initiative, called the 
Oregon Crimefighting Act of 2008, would replace the Medical Marijuana 
Act with marijuana derivatives. The synthetic versions of cannabis 
would replace herbal marijuana and patients would no longer be able 
to grow their own plants.

"Kevin Mannix is trying to repeal the Medical Marijuana Act," Ivany 
said. "He bases it on abuse, but any program has abuse."

The synthetic drugs are expensive, Ivany said.

"It will be $1,000 per month on the taxpayer's backs," she said. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake