The state has added chronic kidney failure to the list of conditions for which medical marijuana is permitted under state law but has rejected petitions to add Alzheimer's and neuropathic pain. In approving chronic kidney failure, the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission said it was convinced that nausea caused by dialysis could be helped by marijuana. But it noted that using marijuana could also jeopardize a renal-failure patient's eligibility for transplant or have other adverse effects and that patients need to be informed of that when a provider authorizes them to use marijuana legally. [continues 108 words]
The TV program is titled "Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation," but it's unlikely many viewers of network stations will be talking about it. Of the three local network stations, only one agreed to run the show, produced by the American Civil Liberties Union and hosted by travel writer Rick Steves. KOMO-TV turned down the ACLU this week; KIRO-TV never got back to the group at all. KING-TV ran the program in March -- but only at 1 in the morning. [continues 518 words]
A proposal by state health officials to limit medical-marijuana patients to a pound and a half of pot plus a scattering of plants drew heat from both advocates and law enforcement -- but for different reasons. Advocates had argued for more than 70 ounces of harvested marijuana and a 100-square-foot growing area; law-enforcement officials pushed for a limit of three ounces of harvested pot, three mature plants and six immature plants. The official draft rule was released Tuesday by the state Department of Health. The department was directed by the Legislature last year to use medical and scientific information to define how much marijuana patients with certain chronic, fatal or debilitating diseases can possess under Washington's medical-marijuana law. [continues 690 words]
A state Health Department proposal that medical-marijuana patients be allowed more than 2 pounds of pot every two months took law enforcement by surprise and prompted the governor to tell health officials to start over. Faced with a legislative mandate to spell out what constitutes a "60-day supply" by July 1, the department in February briefed Gov. Christine Gregoire's office on its recommendation: Patients or caregivers could possess up to 35 ounces of cultivated marijuana and be allowed a plant-growing area of 100 square feet. [continues 1276 words]
The death this week of a musician who said he was denied a liver transplant because of his medical-marijuana use has highlighted a new ethical consideration: Should pot use with a doctor's blessing be held against a dying patient who needs an organ transplant? Timothy Garon, 56, used marijuana to ease the symptoms of advanced hepatitis C. Dr. Brad Roter, the physician who authorized Garon to smoke pot to alleviate nausea and abdominal pain and to stimulate his appetite -- a use authorized under a Washington state law approved by voters in 1998 -- said he had not known it would be such a hurdle if Garon were to need a transplant. [continues 845 words]
Monica Ginn, a 53-year-old Olympia woman, believed she had her doctor's blessing to legally use marijuana to relieve chronic back pain. But last week, a Thurston County judge barred her from presenting a jury with evidence that she qualified under the medical-marijuana law passed by voters in 1998. She went to trial essentially without a defense and was convicted of possession and distribution of marijuana. Now, she faces up to five years in prison. The case is the latest in a string of arrests, pending prosecutions and convictions of patients who claim to be legally qualified to use marijuana as medicine under Washington's law. [continues 1032 words]
DeMaris Strohm heard from a friend yesterday that a federal appeals court ruled that state laws protect medical marijuana users from federal prosecution. The West Seattle grandmother promptly burst into tears. "I said, 'Praise God!' and I started crying - out of happiness that I can have my grandson come and stay with me and not worry about the federal government busting down my door," said Strohm, 50. She has used marijuana with a doctor's permission since 1997 for pain and extreme weight loss after a brutal car accident. [continues 873 words]
Most doctors, no matter where they stand on assisted suicide, aren't enthusiastic about the federal government second-guessing their prescribing practices. As a result, many are looking warily at Oregon, where U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has threatened to slap federal penalties on doctors who prescribe any government-controlled medication that patients use to end their lives. The issue has taken on broader, national implications because medications in this category also can be used by gravely ill patients to control their pain. [continues 1126 words]
Green Cross Patient Co-op will no longer distribute marijuana to patients at its current West Seattle location, but it may reorganize and reopen at a different location, said an attorney assisting the organization. Green Cross has been shut down since it received a "cease and desist" letter from the Seattle Police Department on July 27. Police said the organization had come to their attention after neighbors complained. Doug Hiatt, a lawyer who volunteers to help Green Cross, and Harry Bailey, director of police-community partnerships at the Police Department, said they were meeting to resolve the issue. [continues 362 words]
Last week, 77-year-old Ruby Seals felt good enough to come to the Green Cross Patient Co-op in person to pick up her marijuana. Before that, she was in a hospice, battling pancreatic cancer. But marijuana, she says, helped her turn around the pain and vomiting that caused her to lose more than 60 pounds. This week, Seals won't be able to get the marijuana her doctor recommended. On Joanna McKee's West Seattle garage door is a big sign: "CLOSED." Beside it, she posted the "cease and desist" letter she received Friday from the Seattle Police Department. [continues 992 words]
Some people might wonder what Dr. Rob Killian was smoking when he applied to President Bush to be drug czar. But the champion of medical marijuana says he was clear-eyed and serious about his effort to change national drug policy. Killian, a Seattle family-practice doctor who was the prime mover behind the 1998 state initiative that legalized marijuana for medical use, e-mailed Bush Thursday, formally applying to be director of the Office of Drug Control Policy. "The failed drug war and the source of drug addition can scarcely survive another four years of false starts and misuse of public policy and budgets that ignore the true problem," Killian wrote Bush. [continues 446 words]
The state's medical commission has added diseases that cause severe gastrointestinal symptoms, seizures or muscle spasms to the list of "terminal or debilitating medical conditions" for which marijuana may legally be used under a state law passed by voters in 1998. The action by the Medical Quality Assurance Commission added to the list diseases whose symptoms include nausea, vomiting, severe weight loss, cramping or appetite loss, when they are unrelieved by standard treatments or medications. The commission declined to add insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorder, which were requested in a petition filed in January by Dr. Rob Killian, a medical-marijuana advocate and sponsor of the initiative that created the law. But Killian said he was pleased by the commission's action. [continues 98 words]
A panel of the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission will consider whether to make anyone suffering certain debilitating symptoms eligible to legally use marijuana for medical purposes. The commission has already added two diseases to the original list of those for which physicians can authorize patients to possess marijuana under a law passed by voters in 1998. Now, Dr. Rob Killian is petitioning the board to add a list of symptoms rather than specific diseases. Otherwise, he says, the board will be inundated with requests to add one disease after another. [continues 174 words]
A Capitol Hill organization that distributes medical marijuana plans to begin issuing photo-ID cards to its patients. The strategy seeks to protect legitimate patients from being harassed by police, said Dr. Francis Podrebarac, volunteer medical director for Capitol Hill Compassion in Action. The card will include a photo of the patient and a copy of a doctor's or caregiver's authorization, as required under state law. State voters in 1998 approved marijuana use for some patients. But the law did not specify how patients were to get marijuana, which remains a controlled substance under federal law. [continues 465 words]
Local police often hint that federal law still makes possessing marijuana a crime, despite a state law allowing some patients to smoke and grow it. But Western Washington's top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Kate Pflaumer, has told Seattle police that her office is not interested in busting patients possessing a 60-day supply or less of marijuana. In a letter written to Seattle police vice and narcotics Cmdr. Tom Grabicki, Pflaumer said she understood the conflict between state and federal law had put Seattle police in an "uncomfortable position." [continues 873 words]
Crohn's disease, which can cause abdominal pain, nausea and weight loss, has been added to the list of illnesses qualifying patients under state law to use medical marijuana. A panel of the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission voted Friday to include the disease, along with cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other seizure disorders, spasticity disorders, glaucoma and other terminal or debilitating medical conditions characterized by "intractable pain" unrelieved by standard medical treatment. The Washington State Medical Marijuana Act, created by the passage of Initiative 692 in the fall of 1998, allows patients with those conditions and a doctor's recommendation to possess and use marijuana for medical purposes. Federal laws banning marijuana, however, remain in effect. [continues 254 words]
David Means won't be going to jail. The West Seattle seizure patient who was arrested for marijuana possession last May will even get his pot-growing equipment back. And his bust is spurring an effort to create new guidelines for police who encounter people growing marijuana for medical purposes. The Seattle Police Department has drafted proposed guidelines to help officers identify qualified patients or caregivers and protect them from arrest by recognizing "the spirit" of the state medical marijuana law passed by voters last year, said Lt. Mike Sanford of the department's vice and narcotics section. [continues 872 words]
If Congress approves a measure prohibiting doctors from prescribing lethal doses of controlled substances, dying patients will need to make room for another chair at the bedside for the drug-enforcement agent, Northwest doctors warn. "It basically gives the Department of Justice the ability to decide what is good medical care and what is not," said Dr. Richard Kincade, president of the Oregon Medical Association (OMA). "That, to us, is unacceptable." The Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999 received substantial support in Congress before lawmakers broke for their August recess. The American Medical Association and the National Hospice Organization both support the bill. [continues 715 words]
SEATTLE -- Seizure patient David Means was so sure he had the legal right to grow a forest of marijuana in his apartment that, after he was burglarized last month, he filed a claim with his insurance company. State Farm quickly reimbursed him nearly $3,500 for the "medicine" he lost. Means even invited police in to make a report after the May 6 burglary, making sure they saw the letter from his doctor authorizing him to smoke pot for medical reasons. [continues 1913 words]
Seizure patient David Means was so sure he had the legal right to grow a forest of marijuana in his apartment that after he was burglarized last month, he filed a claim with his insurance company. State Farm quickly reimbursed him nearly $3,500 for the "medicine" he lost. Means even invited police in to make a report after the May 6 burglary, making sure they saw the letter from his doctor authorizing him to smoke pot for medical reasons. Two weeks later, police returned. This time, they arrested him, ripping up his more than 40 plants, confiscating his growing equipment, handcuffing him and carting him off to jail. Means said they joked about the letter. [continues 1931 words]
