Pubdate: Mon, 06 Jan 2014
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2014 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Anemona Hartocollis

WITH MARIJUANA ACCESS ON THE HORIZON, PATIENTS FEAR POTENTIAL RESTRICTIONS

Nancy Rivera, a cancer survivor, has a bag of pills in her night 
stand - white, gold and rust, big and little, antidepressants, 
antiemetics and tranquilizers - given to her by doctors. So it always 
seemed hypocritical to her that while she could possess such powerful 
mind-altering pharmaceuticals in fairly generous quantities, she was 
not allowed to legally smoke marijuana to relieve the nausea and pain 
of her cancer and chemotherapy.

Now her wish may be a step closer to reality as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo 
of New York plans to announce in the State of the State address on 
Wednesday that he will use his executive powers to allow 20 hospitals 
across the state to dispense medical marijuana, state officials said.

The plan bypasses the State Legislature, which has failed to pass a 
medical marijuana bill, but it leaves much to be determined, such as 
which patients would qualify and which hospitals would be chosen as 
dispensaries.

Ms. Rivera, 60, who is in remission from breast, colon and throat 
cancers, and other patients and their families said on Sunday that 
they worried the program would be too restrictive. "I think it's, 
kind of, more than anything for terminally ill patients, and that's 
wonderful," Ms. Rivera said. "But then there's people like me. Are we 
dying right now? No. But we could certainly use the healing properties."

The plan would invoke a 1980 law allowing research into marijuana 
therapy for "patients who are involved in a life-threatening or 
sense-threatening situation," and it specifically mentions cancer and glaucoma.

The governor's aides have said that he does not want marijuana to be 
available for run-of-the-mill complaints, like backache, as it is in 
some other states. But an administration official said on Sunday that 
the 1980 law did not limit treatment to terminal cases and that 
conditions like multiple sclerosis, severe pediatric illness and 
cancer in remission would probably qualify. The final regulations are 
up to the Health Department, after public hearings.

The official, who spoke anonymously because the program has yet to be 
announced, said the law was being interpreted as a research program 
not into the efficacy of the drug itself, but into the best way of 
creating a system to dispense it. Hospitals would have to apply to 
the State Health Department to become dispensaries. It was not clear 
Sunday whether academic medical centers, for instance, would have an 
advantage over community hospitals. The administration official said 
that apart from geographical diversity, the criteria for being 
selected had not yet been developed.

Officials at several major New York hospitals and the Greater New 
York Hospital Association, a trade group, said they had not been consulted.

Gabriel Sayegh, state director of Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy 
group, said the governor's plan was "an excellent development," but 
he was anxious to see the regulations. "It's not clear it's going to 
be viable for many of the patients we have in the state," Mr. Sayegh said.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat, said he was 
pleased that Governor Cuomo had recognized the "legitimacy" of 
medical marijuana. But he said that he considered the governor's plan 
an interim measure, and that he would continue to push his own bill 
in the Legislature because it was more comprehensive.

Scott Reif, a spokesman for Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the Senate 
Republicans, who share power with a group of breakaway Democrats, 
said he would not comment on the governor's plan until it was 
officially announced on Wednesday.

One potential candidate for medical marijuana would be Susan Rusinko, 
52, who lives outside of Syracuse.

Ms. Rusinko, the mother of three grown sons, has had multiple 
sclerosis for 13 years, and she has been smoking marijuana for about 
10 of them.

Without marijuana, she said, she has uncontrollable spasms. 
Medication affects her bladder. "So do you take a pill and wet your 
pants all the time, or do you not take a pill and suffer?" she said. 
The marijuana has enabled her to get off the couch and do chores, 
though of course, she said, she would prefer to have access to it 
from legal sources.

Missy Miller would like to try marijuana for her son, Oliver, 14, who 
has frequent seizures as a result of a brain injury. Ms. Miller, who 
lives in Atlantic Beach, in Nassau County, said that, out of 
desperation, she had agreed to put her son on medication that has 
potentially life-threatening side effects.

She wants to try a strain of marijuana grown in Colorado that is said 
to be particularly effective against pediatric seizures. Her son, who 
has a feeding tube, could not smoke it, but would take it in some other form.

She said she was eager to find out whether the program would apply to 
children and whether it would provide the specific type of marijuana 
that Oliver needs.

"As a parent I have poured poison into my son that's F.D.A. 
approved," Ms. Miller said. "That's what I've been doing for 14 years 
and nothing has helped. Here's the promise of a medication that's 
stopping these seizures. It's working and there are no side effects."
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