cannabisnews.com: Medicinal Pot Worries Addicts in Recovery 





Medicinal Pot Worries Addicts in Recovery 
Posted by FoM on May 21, 2001 at 08:15:41 PT
By Karen de Sá, Mercury News 
Source: San Jose Mercury News 
Haight Ashbury Free Clinics founder David Smith oversees hundreds of group-therapy sessions each year for recovering drug addicts, but the woman who whipped out a marijuana cigarette at a recent gathering baffled even him. ``I'm smoking it because I'm HIV-positive,'' she said.``She totally discombobulated the whole group,'' recalled Smith, who oversees the drug treatment of about 5,000 HIV-positive people; two-thirds got the disease from using drugs.
``Had she pulled out an inhaler that looks like medicine, then it wouldn't have caused a problem, but the marijuana she got from the cannabis buyers club that you smoke in a joint looks like dope.''It's a conflict under debate in recovery centers across the country. While legal experts, scientists and politicians wrangle over the Supreme Court's ruling last Monday that rejected marijuana as a medical necessity, people battling the human immunodeficiency virus and the lure of addiction have a much more personal choice to make.They know marijuana offers relief for aching joints and the nauseating effects of AIDS and its arsenal of drugs. They know it stimulates the appetite to combat AIDS-related wasting disease.But smoking pot may also mean breaking a pledge to stay drug-free and risking falling back into a habit that could kill them more quickly than any disease.Noah Briones, a 40-year-old crisis counselor, told his future roommates he didn't want to smell pot smoke wafting from the bedrooms before he moved into a San Francisco cooperative for people with HIV and substance abuse problems.``It was upsetting to me, so I said, `Look, this is going to be a trigger for me,' '' he said.But Greg, a member of Briones' Redwood City HIV support group, swears by the marijuana he smokes every day. ``It increases my appetite and puts me in a better state of mind,'' said Greg, who did not want his last name used for fear of being stigmatized. He isn't comfortable about smoking pot. ``I've been clean for 15 years -- well I call myself clean -- but my buddy wants to beat me up'' for using marijuana.Like the woman who pulled out a joint at the San Francisco group therapy session, recovering addicts who choose to use pot are setting off a stir.Some centers, such as the Sitike Counseling Center in South San Francisco, won't accept clients who reveal they use medicinal marijuana.``The group doesn't want to connect with them; they want to stick with people who are clean and sober,'' said Rhonda Ceccato, Sitike's director. ``Most of our clients have a lot of difficulty having anyone in their group who is under the influence, and they don't care why they're under the influence -- methadone, marijuana, Vicodin, whatever -- it doesn't fit well with a clear abstinence model.''Individual Choice:Other centers are more flexible, like Redwood City's AIDS Community Resource Consortium, which encourages individual choice for the 400 recovering addicts with HIV who visit the center each month.``If pain or nausea or lack of appetite is such that it is killing them, they have to weigh between that and their recovery, then we help them through that analytical process,'' executive director Michael Edell said. ``Does your body have to live so you can stay in recovery? Or do you stay in recovery and not live?''Symptoms Tracked:In San Mateo County, some of these conflicts may arise in a recently launched two-year study of medicinal marijuana. All of the HIV-positive participants have a history of drug use and suffer from neuropathy -- a largely untreatable symptom of AIDS that causes excruciating pain in the arms and legs.Researchers want to see whether marijuana will relieve participants' symptoms. They also will track whether the 35 rolled joints passed out to study participants each week will be smoked as prescribed, or end up on the streets.Word of the study has spread through the county's drug treatment centers, intensifying the debate about whether marijuana is safe for a person precariously perched between drug addiction and a deadly disease.Nationwide, 237,000 injection drug users make up more than 31 percent of total AIDS cases among adolescents and adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The tally, which does not include HIV infection rates, includes cases reported from 1981 through June 2000. In California, 9,600 AIDS cases among IV-drug users were reported through April of this year. In the absence of effective legal remedies for many of HIV's maladies, many patients in recovery, such as 50-year-old Burton Stevens, resign themselves to live with the pain. Stevens was in a San Francisco hospital last week, undergoing treatment for pneumonia.``I've toyed with this decision of medical marijuana a lot,'' said Stevens, who is two years in recovery and struggles with neuropathy. ``Myself, I don't dare touch it -- it would lead to going back to using full time -- the speed, the meth -- because when I used marijuana, I used marijuana to get loaded.''Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)Author: Karen de Sá, Mercury News Published: Monday, May 21, 2001Copyright: 2001 San Jose Mercury NewsContact: letters sjmercury.comWebsite: http://www.sjmercury.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:O.C.B.C. Versus The U.S. Government News http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/mj.htmMedical Pot Raises State's Rights Issues http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9811.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #2 posted by Dan Hillman on May 21, 2001 at 12:03:47 PT
David E. Smith not to be trusted.
After some initial enlightened thinking towards drug users and treatment strategies, David E. Smith of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic took up the prohibitionist line about 10 years ago.  When you hear Smith talking you hear the drug-testing industry talking.
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Comment #1 posted by J.R. Bob Dobbs on May 21, 2001 at 10:24:04 PT
Do they raise such a fit over coffee or tobacco?
  I know a guy who's struggled with heroin addiction, and he'll tell you - smoking marijuana relieves the cravings for a hit of smack. At least it helped him cope with the cravings better...  So whoever wrote this clearly doesn't have true harm reduction in mind. No, this article seems to me a lot more like postmodern prohibitionist propaganda...>>``I've toyed with this decision of medical marijuana a lot,'' said Stevens, who is two years in recovery and struggles with neuropathy. ``Myself, I don't dare touch it -- it would lead to going back to using full time -- the speed, the meth -- because when I used marijuana, I used marijuana to get loaded.''  Just because you're unaware of the proper uses of cannabis, doesn't justify locking up the rest of us. You, and Rudy Giuliani, will be free to choose to use medical marijuana or not only when it is a truly free choice... just like your doctor can freely choose whether to administer an addicting opiate to relieve your pain.
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