Pubdate: Sun, 6 May 2007 Source: Birmingham News, The (AL) Copyright: 2007 The Birmingham News Contact: http://al.com/birminghamnews/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/45 Author: Michael Phillips REMOVE PATIENTS FROM WAR ON DRUGS I am a 36-year-old man with an inoperable brain tumor, which causes multiple seizures a day. I have been a patient at Children's Hospital and the Kirklin Clinic since the age of 8. I have had four unsuccessful brain surgeries. I have been on every seizure medication known to mankind, as well as some that never received Food and Drug Administration approval. A few years ago, I saw a program on marijuana being used as a seizure deterrent. I decided to try marijuana as a medicine, and I have had better results using marijuana in its natural form than from any other treatment in my life. My seizures have decreased from six to eight per day to one seizure every six to eight weeks. My neurologists have documented this in my medical records. I have also been arrested twice for possession of marijuana. It caused me great hardship both on a psychological level and a monetary level. I wondered then, as I do now, why people in 12 states are treated like patients and allowed access to medical marijuana, but here in Alabama I am treated like a criminal for trying to treat my illness. Are people in other states somehow more deserving of treatment options than Alabamians? There is a bill, HB 206, before the House Judiciary Committee called the Compassionate Care Act, which would protect physicians who recommend marijuana to their patients for certain illnesses like cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV and seizures. It also would protect the patients, like me, who use marijuana as medicine from being prosecuted under state law. Please call your elected officials and tell them to vote yes on the Compassionate Care Act. If we must have a war on drugs, can we at least remove the patients from the battlefield first? Michael Phillips Millbrook - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake