Pubdate: Wed, 11 Feb 2009
Source: Telegraph, The (Nashua, NH)
Copyright: 2009 Telegraph Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.nashuatelegraph.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/885
Author: Kathleen Palmer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

FOR SOME CHRONICALLY ILL PATIENTS, POT SUCCEEDS WHERE PAINKILLERS FAIL

By KATHLEEN PALMER Staff Writer

Marijuana is keeping Clayton Holton alive. Holton, 23, has a rapidly 
worsening form of muscular dystrophy that has kept him 
wheelchair-bound for 16 years.

There is no treatment for his condition and he lives in "a great deal 
of pain," he said.

Doctors have tried all manner of legal painkillers to help him get 
through the day: OxyContin, Norco, Vicodin, Percocet. All had the 
side effects of vomiting, passing out, falling over and basically 
"making it more difficult to live my life independently."

With marijuana use, Holton said, after taking a dose, "I get hungry 
and eat a couple pounds of food." He also feels better than when 
using prescription pain relief.

"I'm in complete control, of my thoughts and actions," he said. "With 
prescriptions, it's a constant state of being drugged, out of control 
and feeling like you just want to lean against a wall all day."

He was first introduced to marijuana as a teen in high school. When 
Holton lived in a nursing home, "they had a big problem keeping my 
weight up" from his inability to keep food down while on OxyContin. 
After living in California and growing his own cannabis, he had 
gained 8 pounds in two months - a lifesaving amount for a man who, at 
6 feet tall, had wasted away to 79 pounds from the disease.

Patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy are not usually expected to 
live past age 16. Turning 24 in March, Holton says "my doctors are 
extremely confused" as to what is keeping him alive.

Holton is not. He is currently up 15 pounds.

"I think it's ridiculous that I'm labeled a criminal by my government 
for using something that's keeping me alive," Holton stated.

Ellen McClung, age 53, of Gilford, used the exact same phrase. "If I 
hadn't discovered medical marijuana when I was 18, 19 years old," she 
said, "I would be dead. It saved my life."

McClung has multiple sclerosis, a painful muscular disease that 
wasn't even diagnosed until she was in her 30s. She uses medical 
marijuana to control spasticity in her legs and for pain. She tried 
Sativex, a pharmaceutical-alternative drug she obtained in Canada, 
but it did not control her pain.

Before her diagnosis was confirmed, McClung "thought (she) was going 
crazy" and wondered what, if anything, was wrong with her. Being 
introduced to marijuana in her late teens allowed her to relax and 
calm down, greatly improving her mental state.

Marijuana as medicine

New Hampshire is bordered by two states - Vermont and Maine - that 
have allowances for medical-marijuana usage. Some are working hard to 
make sure New Hampshire is next.

Matt Simon, of the NH Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy, is 
heavily involved in getting a bill before the state legislature this 
year to have New Hampshire join the ranks of states that allow 
medical marijuana use.

The proposed bill, HB 648, "simply acknowledges the obvious fact that 
some seriously ill New Hampshire patients benefit from their 
medicinal use of marijuana," Simon observed. "There is no moral 
justification for continuing a policy that criminalizes patients for 
trying to relieve their suffering. (The law) would allow for the 
individual or an assigned caregiver to grow a specific amount of 
marijuana for personal medical use," he states. Speaking in January 
at a screening of the medical-marijuana documentary "Waiting to 
Inhale," Simon is to quick to mention that this would be "a 
tightly-crafted law," and would not allow for large-amount growing fields.

A similar bill, HB 774, was narrowly rejected (186-177) by the House 
in 2007, but Simon said he believes support will be much stronger this year.

"In the past two years, the consensus for allowing medical marijuana 
has grown. Michigan and New Mexico enacted medical marijuana laws, 
and now 25 percent of Americans live in medical marijuana states," 
Simon said in a press release about the bill. "In addition, the 
prestigious American College of Physicians issued a paper supporting 
marijuana's medical value. And, the new U.S. president has pledged to 
end the federal raids on medical marijuana providers, which had been 
a concern for many legislators." enlarge Taking a break from a 
computer game, 23-year-old Clayton Holton takes a hit from his 
marijuana pipe at his home in New Hampshire. Holton suffers from 
Duchenne muscular dystrophy and chooses to smoke marijuana rather 
than take painkillers. He is confined to a wheelchair, and said the 
marijuana makes him hungry but doesn't make him sick like painkillers 
did - at one point, he was down to 79 pounds. The medications, right, 
are for his other ailments.

Taking a break from a computer game, 23-year-old Clayton Holton takes 
a hit from his marijuana pipe at his home in New Hampshire. Holton 
suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy and chooses to smoke 
marijuana rather than take painkillers. He is confined to a 
wheelchair, and said the marijuana makes him hungry but doesn't make 
him sick like painkillers did - at one point, he was down to 79 
pounds. The medications, right, are for his other ailments.

The bill's prime sponsor is Rep. Evalyn Merrick, D-Lancaster. An 
initial hearing for the bill has not yet been scheduled.

Many are hoping 2009 is New Hampshire's year.

"I am cautiously optimistic about getting a bill through this year," 
said Rep. Joel Winters, D-Manchester, of District 17.

"New Hampshire has a history of doing the right thing and not caving 
in to fear of the feds - we stood our ground with Real ID cards," he 
pointed out.

Simon said a focus of the bill will protecting patients from arrest 
and incarceration, and giving law enforcement clear aids in 
discerning casual users from, for example, cancer patients. 
Registered ID cards would be one good tool, he said, both for the 
patient and the grower.

The bill Simon's organization will help to promote will be carefully 
worded so as to "prevent recreational users from trying to use 
medical marijuana laws as some sort of loophole. We simply want to 
get patients off the battlefield."

Most law enforcement officials aren't buying the medical marijuana argument.

Bill Quigley, the state coordinator for law enforcement's drug 
evaluation and classification program, has trained countless police 
officers to detect and define drug effects in users.

Marijuana does not need to be legalized because there is a perfectly 
acceptable legal version called Marinol. The synthetic lab-created 
drug mimics the effects of Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

However, any medical marijuana users who have tried Marinol will tell 
you the pills are much harder to tolerate, and that smoking real 
cannabis allows the patient to better control the dosage. The user 
can take one hit, wait for results, and repeat if necessary. Marinol 
doses aren't as easily adjusted by the individual and are often more 
debilitating.

 From remedy to contraband

The medical benefits of marijuana have been long and vehemently 
debated in medical journals and halls of justice, ever since cannabis 
became an illegal substance in the 1930s. Before that, it - along 
with cocaine, morphine and other now-taboo drugs - could be found in 
tinctures, syrups and all manner of compounds aimed to cure what ailed you.

Cannabis has been used since ancient times as an herbal remedy. But 
as suddenly as it was taken off the legal market, its legitimacy as a 
medicine was quickly refuted, and those who asserted otherwise were 
met with derision and sometimes outright hostility.

Doctors who dared to prescribe, or even suggest, marijuana to their 
patients as an alternative source of relief for their symptoms were 
often threatened with criminal charges. Dr. Marcus Conant of San 
Francisco was the lead plaintiff in a successful lawsuit against the 
federal government in 2002, claiming doctors' rights of free speech 
were being trampled upon. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth 
Circuit held that the government couldn't punish physicians for 
voicing their professional opinions, including recommendation of 
medical marijuana.

Robert Randall, dubbed "patient zero," was the first person to win 
the legal right to use marijuana medically in this country. A 
glaucoma patient, he successfully argued in federal court in 1975 
that "any sane person would break the law to save their eyesight." 
His legal victory led to the creation of the Investigational New Drug 
Program, in which several patients were supplied with marijuana 
legally on a regular basis.

Still, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug.

"Schedule I drugs have a high tendency for abuse and have no accepted 
medical use," according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. 
This schedule includes drugs such as marijuana, heroin, ecstasy and 
LSD. Interestingly, "Schedule II drugs have a high tendency for 
abuse, (but) may have an accepted medical use and . . . includes 
examples such as cocaine, opium, morphine and methamphetamines."

If the effort to pass HB 648 succeeds, New Hampshire would become the 
14th state since 1996 to pass legislation protecting medical 
marijuana patients, joining Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, 
Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, 
Vermont and Washington.

Simon hopes New Hampshire turns the corner sooner rather than later, 
adding "There are people now, patients now, that don't have years to wait."

[Sidebar]

The Pot Debate((

The Telegraph examines the debate about marijuana in a three-day 
series in print and online, including the opinions of those who 
enforce the law, make the law and those who run afoul of it.

Visit The Telegraph's Pot Debate page for an archive of all articles 
in this series.

ON THE NET((

For more information from the New Hampshire Coalition for Common 
Sense Marijuana Policy:

NHCompassion.org.

NHCommonSense.org.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom