cannabisnews.com: The Right To Feel Better
The Right To Feel Better
Posted by CN Staff on October 17, 2002 at 10:53:22 PT
By Sam Pfeifle
Source: Portland Phoenix
The medical marijuana debate is one I’ve always had a difficult time wrapping my head around. It seems to be a non-issue. How is it possible that the government has no problem with doctors prescribing powerful drugs like percocet, vicodan, oxycontin, and morphine for folks to take home, but objects to doctors granting permission for very sick patients to grow and smoke a little dope — even after states vote to allow it?
So, when I heard Valerie Corral was coming to town, I couldn’t wait to speak with her. She is a hero to many people who feel that smoking marijuana can cure their symptoms in ways that pharmaceuticals cannot. As a sufferer of epilepsy — and someone who self-prescribed her homegrown marijuana when she found that it kept her seizures in check — Corral was the first person to be recognized under California’s Prop 215 Compassionate Use Act as an official medical marijuana patient.Yet that was just her first step. Corral, with husband Mike, went on to found the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a collective that — unlike buyers’ clubs that sell marijuana at market prices — supplies medical marijuana to patients who need it, in return for their help in producing it and participation in the alliance.Lately, however, things have gotten tough for the successful program. Though only about 100 sick people participate, and though all of them have debilitating conditions like cancer, AIDS, paralysis, and arthritis, the Justice Department, under orders from John Ashcroft, swept in and destroyed WAMM’s garden. Think about that. They ignored the intent of a California state law, approved by an overwhelming majority of voters, so that they could destroy a quantity of medicine that could have helped hundreds of people at virtually no cost.In exchange, Ashcroft offers expensive drugs supplied by the pharmaceutical industry, a profit-driven enterprise.Corral’s community, including the mayor, chief of police, sheriff, and district attorney for Santa Cruz, California, have rallied around her (even hosting what amounted to a city-sponsored medical marijuana event). But that won’t bring her crop back.Speaking with her on the eve of her appearance at the Maine Women’s Studies Consortium Conference, it was good to hear her in high spirits and passionate about making further progress. Phoenix: You’re coming to Maine to speak at the Women’s Studies Conference, but you’ve made your notoriety from running the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana. I want to explore the medical marijuana issues and the connection to women’s issues, but let’s start with medical marijuana. We have here in Maine, as you know well, a medical marijuana law, but we don’t yet have a distribution system set up, and that’s what we’ve been struggling with. How have you been successful in distributing medical marijuana and what do you think works in the system that you’ve set up that other states, like ours, might be able to emulate? Valerie Corral: What I did, essentially, is just bring patients together in a collective, and approached city and county officials, including law enforcement, and worked pretty steadily with them.This also included, for some six years, being a member of the alcohol and drug abuse commission, so that, in the early days, I’d be able to better understand what fears would be raised by those who had issues with the larger issue of abuse. I was able to answer some of those questions, and also to make peace between us, to denote the difference between medicine and drug abuse. But, in the development of this collective, I came to realize, of course, the bigger you are, the bigger the target to the federal government. But, also, the bigger you are the more cumulative power you have to address accountability, which I feel, for this issue, is extremely important. The accountability is based primarily on not seeking to profit from the work, or from people’s illnesses. That’s an unusual approach in a nation that spends a lot of money trying to be well when we’re sick.Q: The way I understand it is that’s it’s kind of a time-share arrangement, where people contribute a certain amount of time and energy and, in return, they receive medical marijuana. A: Well, it’s a little bit more broad than that because people have differing degrees of disability. Someone who might come into our office paralyzed from the neck down — quadriplegic — from a surfing accident, he’s not going to be able to do a lot of physical labor, perhaps.So what we do, what we ask — it’s a very basic principle — is to give what you can and take only what you need. So it isn’t exactly a time-share agreement, where they have to give a certain amount to get what they need, only that their intention is to be part of the alliance, in giving what they can, in reviewing what the possibilities are for what they have to offer, be it money, time, energy, or a caregiver. So, it’s a broad design to meet the needs of as many people in our area who find themselves facing imminent death or very serious, debilitating illness.Q: Is the size of your collective limited by how much marijuana you can produce? A: Yes. My suggestion to most communities is smaller collectives. The reason that I suggest that is because I think people working together is extremely important for people who are seriously ill because your community changes when you find yourself ill. You know, the surfing community changes when you’re no longer able to go surfing. You lose your friends. Not because they don’t love you, but because they’re busy carrying on their normal lives. So, I think what’s important to note that’s so valuable in our community is the interdependence. We notice if people are hungry, if people are losing their homes. Seven of our members have become homeless, simply because they didn’t have enough money to fight their illness, pay their rent, and stay in their home. So, we’ve hooked people up with other places. We do a lot of in-home care when people are facing death and they don’t want to be in a nursing home. We try to keep people in their homes, we try to keep one another fed, we have weekly support groups in our office in town. It’s quite important to recognize that one of the elemental pieces of our organization is a commitment to being a part of something bigger than ourselves.Q: Did you start out simply growing medicine for people and then realize that just growing marijuana doesn’t really solve the problem?A: Yes I did, actually. The experience has certainly been enlightening, or an awakening, I should say. There are situations that I might never have guessed would arise. But, before I ever really got into this work, and I just grew marijuana for myself, 18 of my friends and family members had died. Which is kind of unusual. I mean, I was 40 years old at that time. I found that the need was always there for people to be in camaraderie with each other. And to simply notice what’s going on in one another’s lives, and to have that social connection. You might feel very isolated being the only man in the room that’s bald from chemotherapy if you have prostate cancer, but you come in to WAMM and you look around and there are so many people in there that know exactly what you’ve been through. They recognize the pain and just the dreariness of a day, how hard it can be to get through it. That kind of experience aligns people, but it also gives folks an opportunity to step outside of their own experience and share somebody else’s. When I first started, I didn’t know how huge it could be.Q: Speaking of huge . . . you were talking about some of the problems that arose as you got bigger and bigger. A: Well, that did, and does, happen. The federal government found out about us, but they had known about us for a long time. So, I don’t think that it’s something that we didn’t expect. I just felt that, since we’re so clean and above reproach because we don’t sell marijuana, that they would stay away from us because we would be a nightmare. But for this federal government, nothing is a nightmare, except, perhaps, themselves. And they did come after us, but it hasn’t stopped us. We still meet on a weekly basis, and we still have our medicine, and we don’t have our garden — so things will be different next year — but we imagine that we’ll be able to somehow make it through it. We don’t see any reason why not. So, consequently, one of our most effective avenues will be to divest toward smaller gardens grown to serve the whole, but with fewer attendants. Q: You’ll decentralize? A: Mmm, hmm. You do what you can. If they make you back down from one approach, then you find another. That’s something we’ve always done. For instance, I’ve always changed the language. Distribution’s against the law, so we don’t distribute, we supply. Whatever they need, it’s all semantics.Q: But the local community and even the local government and law enforcement officials have been very supportive haven’t they? A: Yes, extremely.Q: They helped you pass out medical marijuana on the steps of City Hall, right?A: Well, they didn’t pass it out, we did. But they stood by as we carried out one of our weekly meetings. Q: How does that feel, to be getting such mixed messages from two different arms of the government?A: I’ve always felt that I was light years away from the federal government, that they were just some shadow government where I don’t really know who they are, and they don’t really know who we are, and that, in fact, we probably never would get direct support from them. You know how the federal government is, they’re the last to respond, and only when they feel totally and completely safe.Take Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, who are senators from California. Now, the medical marijuana issue got more votes than either of them did, by far. Now, do you think they have the wisdom to recognize that medical marijuana is sensible? No, they don’t, because they’re fearful, they’re afraid. I guess they’re afraid that someone will use that against them, but, what happens is that it pushes people toward voting Green. You know, it just really does. And we have to show them that, we’ve really got to shake up DC.Q: Obviously, it’s going to be hard to make any headway while there is a Bush/Ashcroft administration in power, but, if there were to be a Democratic switchover in 2004, do you think there’s any sentiment on the national level for medical marijuana, or, at least, to not pull doctors’ licenses for going along with state laws?A: Yes, I do. Which is not to say that the Democrats have been great friends. But, importantly, we have to recognize that this current administration has been the enemy of sick and dying people. I think that’s hugely important to recognize. Whereas the former administration didn’t choose to be so — how can I say this — vile. You know, it’s tyranny. It’s simple. When a government does not respect the will of the people, and the democratic process, in a supposedly democratic society, then that’s tyranny. They’ve certainly not been paying attention. And if they have been paying attention, it’s only to the locations of the gardens of sick and dying people.And they tell us they’re worried about our health, that they’re concerned about our health, but they don’t offer us health care. It’s just more rhetoric.They think we just want to feel better and, guess what, we do.Q: Heaven forbid, right?A: Yeah, I mean, it’s not a big shock. People who are sick just want to feel better. And, they sell us a myriad of pills just to achieve that end. But, I think because marijuana’s free, they insist that it’s not a good medicine.Q: Okay, but you’re coming to town to speak at a women’s studies conference. When does medical marijuana go from being a people’s issue to being more of a women’s issue?A: It’s interesting. When I began this outreach organization, I was working with mostly men, and women were more cloistered or hidden about their marijuana use, less willing to be noticed for it. But that’s really changed in the last 10 years. One of the things that makes it a women’s issue is that women are often the ones by the bedside of those that are dying. They’re preparing the food, doing a lot of the work. So, as a women’s issue, it probably relates first from a care-giver point of view. They don’t like to see the people they’re caring for suffer, and marijuana can make it stop.But in a lot of cases, especially here in Santa Cruz, where there’s an exceptionally high rate of breast cancer, there are more and more women who are willing either to begin using marijuana or who have actually come out about their use, where they had not done so before.And, often, women are the caretakers of their children, so they’re concerned about crossing that boundary where using marijuana might get them into hot water and they might lose their children.Q: Do you think they also have fears about sending a bad message about drug use to their young children?A: I think that happens in families a lot. I know that many of the women with whom I work have either kept it a secret or have begun this really extensive educational outreach in their own homes whereby they enforce the understanding that the marijuana that they smoke is really a medicine. It’s important that it be separated from the recreational aspect — that, as an adult, they’re really making this distinction. It’s in the medicine cabinet and, “no, you can’t take it.”I think it’s a human issue, and I’m not saying that it appeals more to women to be humanitarian, but often times that appears to be so. And, it turns out that I’m a woman, and I started this. I guess most dealers are men, and WAMM is really contrary to the concept of dealing and opening up buyers’ clubs. This is a vastly alternative approach. A lot of people must think that I’m crazy. I must be the only one in the world who can’t make money off marijuana. Note: As Maine continues to struggle with a medical marijuana distribution system, Valerie Corral — a woman who has established a successful medical marijuana cooperative, and seen it attacked by John Ashcroft — offers some advice.Valerie Corral speaks, at Luther Bonney Auditorium, on the USM/Portland campus, October 25. Call (207) 780-4289.Source: Portland Phoenix (ME)Author: Sam PfeiflePublished: October 17 - 24, 2002 Copyright: 2002 The Phoenix Media/Communications GroupContact: portland-feedback phx.com Website: http://www.portlandphoenix.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:WAMMhttp://www.wamm.org/News Articles - WAMM Raidhttp://freedomtoexhale.com/valc.htmPot or Politics? - Good Timeshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14420.shtmlThe Thrashing of a Dying Dinosaur's Tail http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14202.shtml Why I'm Fighting Drug Laws From City Hallhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14195.shtml
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on October 24, 2002 at 14:15:34 PT
Two Published Letters To The Editor
PRO MEDICINE 1Thank you for coverage of the medical cannabis issue, (“The right to feel better,” Oct. 18). It was discomforting witnessing my 17-year-old dying with cancer, allowed to self-induce morphine every six minutes for pain, denied cannabis use. As government stats indicate, one out of four citizens will confront cancer, which translates to every American family. This issue is crucial.The original prohibition on a national scale was worse than the booze prohibited, and the sequel, now, on an international scale, is worse. Needless to say, civilized society must stop voting for prohibitionist politicians. Do cannabis prohibitionists even comprehend that they’re admitting a desire to cage humans, even sick humans, for using a plant?Thank Christ God, Our Father for cannabis. Accept cannabis (known as kaneh bosm, before the King James Version) for what it is as described on literally the very first page of the Bible (Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30).Stan WhiteDillon, COPRO MEDICINE 2Sam Pfeifle’s interview with California medical marijuana patient and provider Valerie Corral (“The right to feel better,” Oct. 18) underscored the need for state-level regulatory systems free from federal intrusion. Marijuana prohibition itself should be subjected to a cost-benefit analysis. Unfortunately, a review of marijuana legislation would open up a Pandora’s box most politicians would just as soon avoid.America’s marijuana laws are based on culture and xenophobia, not science. The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. White Americans did not even begin to smoke marijuana until a soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda.Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best. An estimated 38 percent of Americans have now smoked pot. The reefer madness myths have long been discredited, forcing the drug war gravy train to spend millions of tax dollars on politicized research, trying to find harm in a relatively harmless plant.The direct experience of millions of Americans contradicts the sensationalistic myths used to justify marijuana prohibition. Illegal drug use is the only public health issue wherein key stakeholders are not only ignored, but actively persecuted and incarcerated. In terms of medical marijuana, those stakeholders happen to be cancer and AIDS patients.Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.Program Officer, Drug Policy AllianceWashington, DC http://www.portlandphoenix.com/archive/features/02/10/25/LETTERS.html
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Comment #9 posted by DdC on October 18, 2002 at 19:58:11 PT
Thought I'd Pass This On...
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 17:03:06 -0700
From: "Jean Hanamoto" artworks garlic.comHi, DdC!Thank you for signing my guest book. I've been the artist/photographer for the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, CA for 5 years, and was at the blockade when the DEA cut down our beautiful garden on Sept. 5. My husband, George, is WAMMs garden coordinator, and a Glaucoma patient. I've designed a memorial ribbon for WAMM, and have it on my page for free downloading. At a protest a week later, with the support of the Santa Cruz City Council, members picked up their weekly pot allotment on the steps of City Hall. We made quite a splash. See more news at http://www.wamm.org.If any group can reverse these laws, it will be WAMM and Valerie Corral. We've done things right, have all our paperwork, and love each other enough to get through this. I hope we'll be able to eventually take this to the supreme court and get marijuana off schedule 1 for patients all over the US. The DEA picked the wrong target this time. Grrrrr!When our local police came to where our WAMM members were at the gate to the garden, it was because the DEA called them saying they couldn't get out- Oh, NO, sick people are blocking our way. Since they never bothered to let any local law enforcement know this was going to happen, our Sheriff was miffed. Said he would NOT disperse the crowd, but did help us get a phone call through to our founder Valerie Corral, still in San Jose in a holding cell. We told them to let Val go, and we'll let the DEA off the property. We were willing to lay (lie?) down in the road for her. Over the phone, Val asked us to let the DEA through the gate and not to do anything to get ourselves hurt. She told us that if we opened the gate, she'd be let go and the DEA would let her and Mike come home., They dropped them off in Davenport and wouldn't go all the way up to the farm 'cause we're such bad-ass invalids! HA!While handcuffed, Valerie had two hours to talk to some of these DEA guys, and that's plenty of time for her to convince someone that she's right. There were eyes glazed with tears in that room before she was done, she's so quietly powerful. They don't know what they're facing here. We CAN change the law so that no one has to be sick and scared to use what works to make them better. Thanks for your support.Sincerely; Jean Hanamoto
Jean's Artworks
16632 Lone Hill Dr.
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
(408) 776-8664
artworks garlic.comPlease visit my home page (Marijuana Art): http://www.marijuana-art.comMy old watercolor home page is here (Still Pretty!) http://www.garlic.com/~artworks/ArtNGarlic/WAMM Web site: Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana: http://www.wamm.org/ I'm the special feature on a DVD from Program Power Entertainment: http://www.programpower.com/cultweb/
--
Marijuana is medicine. It's time to stop treating patients like criminals. Please donate to the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, CA, a legal organization growing free medical marijuana for 250 very sick people and working for sanity in the drug wars. (831) 423-5413 309 Cedar St. #39, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 My Kynd a Town...Santa Cruz Legalizes Cannabis if its Organic!
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on October 17, 2002 at 20:38:37 PT
Nuevo Mexican
What are they going to do now that North Korea has a big bomb? They fessed up but what if Saddam fesses up too? Oh what strange times these are. Thanks for the link and compliment.
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Comment #7 posted by Nuevo Mexican on October 17, 2002 at 19:51:17 PT
You are all heros!!!
Valerie and Mike, FOM, Dr. Russo, and all the folks here at C-News, the writers of great articles full of facts, and not blatant propaganda, are making a huge difference, the future is so bright.....your gonna need a welders mask! A peaceful revolution is in progress, and it started in our hearts on 911! All good comes from bad! Or so it seems! Has anyone seen the big news for the October 26th anti-war protest at Rumsfelds house in New Mexico? Here are the details!http://nm.indymedia.org/newswire/display/356/index.php
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on October 17, 2002 at 19:37:40 PT
Just a Comment
I admire and respect Valerie even though I don't know her personally. She is an inspiration to many people. Life is short and when you look at what in your life is important you will find that the way Valerie looks at life is the only way to live that will bring true contentment. I think she is on a mission. I take that back. I know she is on a mission. We are very lucky to have her.
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Comment #5 posted by goneposthole on October 17, 2002 at 18:59:07 PT
Patch Valerie
When you watch a person slowly die and nothing can be done to stop it, it is one helpless feeling.To help them feel better is the only order of the day.The Supreme Court be damned.Forge on, Valerie.
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Comment #4 posted by afterburner on October 17, 2002 at 18:49:30 PT:
Should We Trust Emotions?
Americans, and most other citizens of "rational" Western countries, are not allowed to feel any emotions, especially feeling good. Emotions are considered sub-human, except for anger and fear. Of course, brain research does not agree. In Magical Child Matures, Joseph Chilton Pearce states, "Our mid-brain is the 'heart' of our brain system and, interestingly enough, has direct nerve connections with our actual heart. This physical connection prove a vital key in the function of bonding. Tradition has always connected emotion with the heart, and recently we found that the mid-brain actually does take directives, moment by moment, from our hearts. [Swami Mutakana. Mystery of the Mind. 1981.] Conversely, the mid-brain is constantly sending information to the heart. The two form the center of our life system."
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Comment #3 posted by pokesmotter on October 17, 2002 at 14:21:20 PT:
i agree dr. russo
Those in positions of power such as they are will ignore people like Valerie as long as they can. In the years to come, they will be exposed to truth. Its bound to happen. Then there will be change.
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Comment #2 posted by Ethan Russo MD on October 17, 2002 at 11:51:54 PT:
Read, and Get to Know Her
Valerie is a saint. My time with her has been inspiring and uplifting. She represents the essence of what hum(wo)manity is supposed to represent.I'd love to sentence Ashcroft, Hutchinson and Walters to just one hour in a room with Valerie in which they would have to listen, and really listen, to her message. Perhaps they would not change their minds, or know the shame of their transgressions against the people of this country, but they surely should. It has worked with almost everyone else.
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Comment #1 posted by trainwreck on October 17, 2002 at 11:45:14 PT
wow
Valerie Corral speaks truth to power. If our freedom is a house on fire, she's a firefighter willing to rush in and save it....
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