cannabisnews.com: Home-Grown Medicine





Home-Grown Medicine
Posted by FoM on February 03, 2001 at 13:51:25 PT
Editorial
Source: Register-Guard
The patient inhales sweet pungent smoke and within seconds THC and marijuana's other active ingredients move from the lungs into the bloodstream and head for the brain.The chemicals, known as cannabinoids, attach to the brain's cannabis receptors, creating not only a stoned feeling but also stimulating appetite, relieving nausea and easing pain.
It's an exercise repeated countless times each day by thousands of sick people in Oregon and across the West who have turned to marijuana, with their doctors' blessings, to help them in ways that pharmaceutical drugs don't.But all this smoking is taking place in hazy, uncharted legal and medical territory.Using marijuana for medical reasons remains illegal under federal law. And many doctors are skeptical of marijuana's benefits and fearful of getting in trouble with federal regulators. So even as Oregon's medical marijuana registry grows at an exponential rate, patients and doctors struggle to navigate the law's many gray areas."The law was written to pass. It wasn't written to work," said Todd Dalotto, a local cannabis activist.Two years after deciding that some sick people should be allowed to grow and smoke marijuana, Oregonians find themselves at the cutting edge of this green new world.Spreading Like a Weed:By most accounts, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, or OMMA, is working reasonably well, despite conflicting interpretations about how the law is supposed to work.The state's first-of-its-kind patient registry, which has since been copied by Hawaiian lawmakers, has helped remove some of the uncertainty that has plagued California's medical marijuana law. "Since we were the first state to have a statewide registration system," said Kelly Paige, who manages the medical marijuana program for the state Health Division, "I think we're a little more organized in terms of having a central contact point for all people to call and ask questions."California's pioneering Proposition 215, passed in 1996, didn't establish a central state registry, nor did it place a limit on the number of plants a patient may grow. It simply required that a patient have a doctor's note. The result has been legal chaos. The law is enforced differently around the state and has been subject to a number of lawsuits. By contrast, Oregon's Measure 67, approved by 55 percent of voters in November 1998, has seen relatively smooth sailing."In terms of the initial effort, the state of Oregon deserves some credit because they have strived to make the new law work the way the voters intended," said Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group known as NORML.After a relatively slow start, Oregon's registry has grown at a rapid clip. In its first year, 594 patients registered with the program. In the past nine months, the number has climbed to 1,600.Nearly 500 physicians have signed forms or made chart notes for patients about marijuana's potential benefits, an increase of more than 50 percent since May.Paige said she gets 30 to 40 phone calls a day from doctors, patients, police, lawyers, legislators and reporters inquiring about the law. She traveled to Hawaii last year to help legislators there write their own medical marijuana law.What's happening in Oregon is just one skirmish in what advocates view as a green revolution that started in California in 1996.Today, a majority of voters in eight states - Oregon, Alaska, Washington, California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Maine - as well as the Hawaii Legislature have decided that sick people should be able to smoke marijuana if it makes them feel better.That means about 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in states where medical marijuana is legal."Since 1996, there's been this revolt by voters when elected officials wouldn't deal with it," said NORML's Stroup. "What you're seeing is the public growing very weary of the excesses of the war on drugs. ... What you're seeing is a blueprint for the future."The state ballot measures are no accident, but rather are part of an ambitious campaign funded by New York financier George Soros and two other billionaires and coordinated by Americans for Medical Rights, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based group.The group, which persuaded Californians to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, has poured money into medical marijuana campaigns in Oregon, Alaska, Colorado and Maine.But all the ballot measures in the world wouldn't pass if the public didn't support the idea, and opinion polls show they do. A 1999 Gallup poll found that nearly three of four Americans (73 percent) support allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana, with support cutting across age groups and party lines.Two in three Americans (64 percent) oppose legalizing marijuana outright, according to a Gallup poll conducted in December. Americans were nearly evenly split, however, on whether possessing small amounts of marijuana should be treated as a criminal offense, the poll found.Yet, since 1971, the government has classified marijuana as a drug with no legitimate medical use - akin to heroin and LSD - meaning it can't be prescribed by doctors.Federal officials have fought the California law on various fronts, and their efforts will get the biggest legal test to date when the U.S. Supreme Court hears a case in March involving the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club. At issue is whether "medical necessity" is a valid defense under federal drug law.Medical marijuana advocates argue that "medical necessity" is an ancient common law defense that still applies to patients for whom marijuana is the only therapy that works. Therefore, they have the right to that medicine.The federal government counters that states have no right to waive federal drug laws, and that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use."Some Police Skeptical:In Oregon, law enforcement officials report few problems enforcing the law, though some are skeptical of activists' true motives."Medical marijuana is, I think, something of a dodge," said Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis, president of the Oregon District Attorneys Association. "It's a little disingenuous. It's really an attempt to legalize marijuana without doing so."While NORML has long called for legalizing marijuana, Stroup disputes that's the hidden agenda of medical marijuana advocates."This is not an attempt to have recreational smokers come in under the guise of medical use," he said. "These are serious and legitimate patients with serious illnesses who very frequently find marijuana is the only drug that will relieve their pain and suffering."But one of the unintended benefits of these laws, he said, is that "people begin to take a more rational look at marijuana" and realize that "it no longer makes sense for the government to make claims of `reefer madness.' " Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Noelle, a vocal opponent of Measure 67, said many of the problems he predicted haven't come to pass. "From my position, I have not seen as many of the attempts to manipulate the law as I had expected."It has made investigators' work more cumbersome, he said, because they first are supposed to check with the state Health Division to see if someone suspected of growing marijuana is a card-holder before they knock on the door."It's made it more difficult," he said, "but it's not something we haven't been able to work with." Junction City Police Chief Michael Cahill, who also spoke out against Measure 67 as a spokesman for Oregon Police Chiefs for Safer Communities, remains convinced the law has made it easier for teens to rationalize smoking marijuana."As predicted, it has created a lot more confusion in youths' minds about whether it's a drug or a substance they can abuse," he said.Eugene police Sgt. Lee Thoming, supervisor of the Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team, said the law is a "minor nuisance" for drug enforcers, but he doesn't begrudge truly sick people using marijuana if it helps them."First and foremost, if someone is dying a horrible death and in incredible pain," he said, "we ought to give them anything they want to deal with that."Co-Ops Offer Alternative:Medical marijuana cooperatives as well as formal and informal networks have sprouted up around Oregon. In Lane County, there's the Eugene Cannabis Grow-Op. In Klamath Falls, there's Green Mountain Medical Co-Op. In Portland, there's Medi-Juana and other groups.The groups help patients solve two of the most difficult aspects of the law: getting started growing marijuana and developing a steady, reliable supply of medicine.The law permits card-holding patients to designate a "caregiver," someone to grow marijuana for them if they can't or don't want to grow themselves.Dalotto, one of the founders of the Eugene Cannabis Grow-Op, said the purpose of the cooperative is "to implement and expand" the law, to help marijuana patients find caregivers to grow for them, and to educate the public.Dalotto, who has had several marijuana-related scrapes with the law, views the cooperative as a vehicle to legitimize the law and medical marijuana."People being able to grow marijuana legally is a new thing. If we don't get organized and do it right, we might use it or lose it."Whether the law permits caregivers and patients to pool their resources and form cooperatives is a question that not even the state's top legal authority can answer. "I can't get a good answer for you on the cooperative question," said Kevin Neely, spokesman for the state attorney general's office."The law is silent," said Phil Studenberg, a Klamath Falls criminal defense attorney and member of the NORML legal committee.Lee Berger, a Portland lawyer who helped write the medical marijuana law, said Measure 67 backers didn't anticipate the question of cooperatives."It's the kind of thing we ought to amend the law to allow to make sure no one gets in trouble for doing," said Berger, a member of the NORML legal committee. "It's not clear if it's legal or illegal at this point."It's just one of many gray areas in the law.Also unclear is whether a single caregiver can grow for multiple patients. In its advice to police for enforcing the law, the attorney general's office lays out two conflicting interpretations to this question, but comes to no firm recommendation.Under one interpretation, a single caregiver could grow marijuana for multiple patients as long as he or she doesn't grow more than a total of seven plants. Under the other interpretation, a single caregiver can grow seven plants for each of his or her patients.Berger said he's gotten calls asking, " `If I got 10 people, can I grow 70 plants?' I told them I didn't think that would work."Yet in reality, some caregivers are growing seven plants for each of their patients and haven't gotten in trouble with police."Some people are sort of testing the limits," said John Sajo, director of Voter Power, a Portland medical marijuana support group."This summer people grew outdoor gardens for more than one patient. Police came and let them keep the garden. This happened in a number of cases."True Believers:Patients of all stripes are using medical marijuana, according to statistics from the registry's first year, the most recent available. They range in age from 14 to 87, with an average age of 46, and 70 percent are males. Two-thirds of patients used marijuana to control severe and chronic pain. Clearly many of the people most interested in exploiting and seeing the law succeed are marijuana activists whose ultimate goal is the legalization of marijuana. And Eugene, with its deep vein of counter-culture activism, is fertile ground.There's Michael Anthony, an excommunicated Mormon priest who is now pastor of his own church, HEMP (Help Everyone Make Peace) Ministries, formerly the Church of Latter Day Hempsters of Christ. He's presided over three "hemp" weddings, testifies before the Eugene City Council on the benefits of cannabis, and likens his struggle to that of Jesus Christ, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr."I believe all cannabis use is religious," he said.There's Bruce Mullican, owner of Sow Much Hemp, a store in downtown Eugene that specializes in products made from hemp, as well as bongs and pipes. He recites the history of industrial and medical uses of hemp and cannabis in America from memory.And there's Dalotto, a New Jersey native, a longtime marijuana activist and author of "The Hemp Cookbook: From Seed to Shining Seed.""Naturally I have a very high connection with this plant," he said. "I've been communing with it for many years."Since the mid-1990s, he's been involved in several high-profile stories in Eugene with a decidedly green tint. First there was his snack business, Hungry Bear Hemp Foods, through which he baked and sold "Seedy Sweeties," a chewy energy bar made with sterilized, "super nutritious" hemp seeds.Then there was the 1995 outdoor reggae concert, which turned into a melee after Eugene police arrested Dalotto for selling hemp smoothies without a permit.In March 1997, someone in Switzerland shipped a package of marijuana to 302 Blair Blvd., the building that Dalotto's business shared with Ickies Tea House and other tenants. That led police to raid Hungry Bear Hemp Foods.Dalotto, who said he refused to sign for or accept the package from an undercover postal inspector, was charged with five counts of distributing marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms. Eventually, prosecutors dropped the felony charges in exchange for Dalotto's guilty plea to possessing less than an ounce of marijuana.The incident killed his snack business, but now Dalotto has channeled his energies into the Eugene Cannabis Grow-Op.He sees medical marijuana as a way to change people's attitudes and counter what he views as government lies."Now that we've moved forward enough where we can legally use it for medicine, it's a great opportunity to advance its use as medicine, to benefit humans and life all around us," he said."The more people understand what the plant is about, the less they fear it," he said. "The prohibitionist lies just aren't holding water anymore."Related Article:Here's How the Medical Marijuana Law Works for Patients:By Tim Christie, The Register-GuardRegister-Guardhttp://www.registerguard.com/ Questions and answers about the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act:Q: How does the law work?A: Patients suffering a "debilitating medical condition" can register with the state Health Division and obtain a laminated, wallet-size card, certifying that they're exempt from the state's marijuana laws, within certain limits.Q: How do people obtain a card?A: A medical doctor or osteopath must certify that they have one of the maladies specified in the law, and that marijuana "might mitigate" its effects. Applicants send the doctor's chart note or a form signed by the doctor, a completed form, along with $150, to the state Health Division. After verifying the information, the Health Division will send a card within 30 days.Q: What maladies qualify under the law?A: Cancer, glaucoma, HIV and AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, as well as any condition that causes cachexia (wasting disease), severe pain, severe nausea, seizures and persistent muscle spasms.Q: Why does the state charge for the right to use medicine?A: The program is entirely funded by the $150 fee. It's a hardship for many, but one advocate notes that the fee is cheaper than buying marijuana on the street, where an ounce sells for $400 (more than the price of gold). And it's cheaper than hiring a lawyer if a person gets arrested.Q: Will doctors get in trouble if they participate in the program?A: Though Oregon and eight other states now allow the use of medical marijuana, federal law continues to view it as a drug with no legitimate medical benefits. As a result, many doctors won't recommend marijuana for fear of losing their federal license to prescribe drugs. But as long as doctors don't write a prescription, it's unlikely they will get in trouble for making a chart note or signing a form.Q: Why not? A: Doctors reason that discussions with patients about their medical conditions and potential treatments are protected speech under the First Amendment. And a federal judge issued a permanent injunction in September ruling that doctors could recommend marijuana to patients without fear that federal authorities could strip them of their license to prescribe medicine.Q: Some worry that people could learn the identities of medical marijuana patients. Who has access to the registry of medical marijuana patients?A: Only the three people who work in the Oregon medical marijuana program office. They keep the registry on a computer Zip drive connected to a non-networked computer. The drive is locked in a cabinet at the end of each day.Q: Once people have a card, how do they get marijuana?A: This is where it gets tricky. People must obtain seed or cuttings (also called clones) and find an area in their home or yard to grow. Cooperatives and patient networks are forming to help new patients, and books are available for people learning to grow.Q. What happens if police check out plants?A: Under the law, police are supposed to call the medical marijuana office and check to see if someone has a card before busting in. If officers do visit a home, people should display their card. Q: How much marijuana can people grow and possess?A: The law permits each cardholder to have a total of seven plants: three mature, or budding, plants, and four immature plants. Those growing for themselves can possess three dried ounces - one for each mature plant. If someone else is growing for the cardholder, the patient can possess one dried ounce.Q: If plants produce extra marijuana, can cardholders sell the surplus to another patient?A: No, but cardholders can give another patient up to one dried ounce. Q: What about patients who don't have the time or know-how to grow marijuana?A: They can designate a caregiver, who will also receive a card and be permitted under law to grow plants. Q: Can patients pay caregivers for the marijuana they provide? A: No. Q: Can patients compensate caregivers for their time, labor and materials?A: This is a gray area. "It depends on the situation, and how specifically you define compensation," said state attorney general spokesman Kevin Neely. Said Phil Studenberg, a Klamath Falls lawyer: "I think you can, but you have to be careful how you structure it. ... I would advise someone to be careful in exchanging value on a one-to-one basis."Q: Can a single caregiver grow for multiple patients?A: This also is a gray area. The attorney general's office said a single caregiver can grow for multiple patients, so long as he or she doesn't grow more than three mature and four immature plants. But some caregivers are growing for multiple patients and haven't gotten in trouble with police.Resources: For more information on the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, or to acquire an application packet, contact program manager Kelly Paige at (503) 731-8310, or at: kelly.paige state.or.us or visit the program's Web page at:Oregon Medical Marijuana Acthttp://www.ohd.hr.state.or.us/hclc/mm/The Eugene Cannabis Grow-Op meets the first Wednesday of each month at the Baker Building, 975 High St., Room 134, Eugene (use 10th Avenue). The 6 p.m. meeting is an introduction on how the law works. The 7 p.m. meeting is a support group for people enrolled in the medical marijuana program. For more information, call (541) 484-6558, or send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to: PO Box 10445, Eugene, OR, 97440Source: Register-Guard, The (OR) Author: Tim Christie, The Register-GuardPublished: February 3, 2001Copyright: 2001 The Register-Guard Address: PO Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440-2188 Contact: rgletters guardnet.com Website: http://www.registerguard.com/ Related Article & Web Site:NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Reluctant Advocates Say it's the Best Optionhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8563.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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