Pubdate: Thu, 27 Jun 2013
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Shawn Conner

Empowered Health

MAN GETS OFF PAINKILLERS WITH MARIJUANA

Dealing with aftermath of serious fall left former glazier facing 
serious medical questions

John Berfelo had always been what he calls "a recreational smoker." 
But after falling 8.5 metres onto concrete, he credits marijuana with 
not just getting him high, but saving his life.

In 2005, the then-33-year-old glazier was working on a scissor-lift 
when he tripped on a box of construction materials and went over the 
railing. He woke up in the hospital.

"My life was changed forever," Berfelo said.

His broke his neck in four places; he shattered his left elbow. He 
fractured his skull. He broke teeth and he shattered an ankle. He 
herniated three discs. He broke his hip.

Berfelo was in the hospital for three weeks. A live-in nurse and 
Meals on Wheels helped him when he returned home and started 
recovery. He was on 32 pills a day, including muscle relaxants, 
antidepressants and sleeping pills.

"I was on so many pills I carried around a little box of prescription 
drugs," he said.

He was "chasing pain," Berfelo said. "I was a mess, up and down, 
crying my eyes out. I did pain charts and logs for over four years."

The pain fluctuated with the amount of drugs he was taking. At the 
time, he was also eating pot brownies from the B.C. Compassion Club Society.

The brownies were made with pot tested by Paul Hornby, a B.C.-based 
medical cannabis researcher and biochemist with a doctorate in human 
pathology. Berfelo found that those particular brownies worked better 
at fighting the pain than the prescribed painkillers, and their 
effects lasted longer.

He started slowing down on the pills in 2007 and has been 
pharmaceutical-free since 2008. That year, he even went through major 
back surgery without prescription pills, using only amino acids, 
cana-caps (standardized doses of THC and can-nabinoids in a capsule) 
and Hornby-tested tinctures.

The use of marijuana as an analgesic is gaining traction in North America.

In 2009, the American Medical Association adopted a report drafted by 
its Council on Science and Public Health, which affirmed the 
potential therapeutic benefits of marijuana, and called for further research.

Dr. Lester Grinspoon, associate emeritus professor of psychiatry at 
Harvard Medical School, is a long-time advocate of medical marijuana. 
The 84-year-old published his first book on the medical benefits of 
pot, Marihuana Reconsidered, in 1971.

He said the pain-reducing benefits of pot are beyond dispute.

"Cannabis is great therapy," Grinspoon said. "If you have chronic 
severe pain, like osteoarthritis or Ankylosing spondylitis, you can 
often get away with just using cannabis. If you have more severe 
pain, and your doctor tells you to use something like OxyContin, 
that's fine. But cannabis helps you reduce the dose. Many people 
start out using opiates, then they get into trouble. Then they 
concentrate on just using cannabis. Many of them can do it very 
successfully. There's no question about its usefulness."

Berfelo is still in constant pain. "The pain doesn't go away," he 
said. But the pot helps him deal with that and with muscle spasms, 
and has helped get him kick expensive pharmaceuticals.

When he was on painkillers, it cost $1,488 a month for Berfelo to 
lead a somewhat normal life.

Today, he sees his doctor only once a year, to renew his Marihuana 
Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) licence. This allows him to carry 
and use cannabis legally for his condition, at a cost of $500 a month.

Now on a permanent pension, Ber-felo also works at a hydroponics 
store as a legal medical cannabis educator and has started support 
groups for injured workers.

"It saved my life, that's how I look at it," Berfelo said.

"I'm not chasing pain any more, and I'm not all over the place. I'm 
not forgetting as much. I can have a life. I'm not a zombie."

[sidebar]

EMPOWERED HEALTH

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go to vancouversun. com/empoweredhealth

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