ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA — Lynn Nicholson has spent a great deal of her life in more pain than most people could imagine.

When she was 10 years old, she and a friend were playing in the attic of her family’s house in Minneapolis when the floor gave way. The two girls fell 8 feet and crashed onto the floor below.

Lynn landed on the hard floor. She stumbled up to get help, but her back was so hurt she wasn’t able to balance herself and tumbled down a flight of stairs.

She’s had 10 back surgeries and spent three years in a body cast. She’s been on a long list of painkillers and had to check herself into a detox facility in an effort to get off them. She received steroid injections in her back, which she said her doctors told her caused steroid-induced diabetes. She was prescribed the painkiller Fentanyl, of which a possible side effect according to some studies is tooth decay, and had to have all of her teeth pulled. She put on more than 200 pounds, has trouble getting around and sometimes has to use a wheelchair and stair lift.

In order to help with the pain, Nicholson smokes marijuana. She said she does it because it does not produce the negative side effects of her prescribed painkillers, like addiction and tooth decay.

Nicholson said some of her doctors have recommended to her that she smoke, and others have shrugged their shoulders when she told them. None, she said, ever told her to stop.

The problem is that Nicholson lives in Minnesota, where doctors are not allowed to prescribe marijuana, so what she is doing is illegal. It’s something that the former Hebrew teacher is not proud of. “I don’t like doing things that are illegal,” said Nicholson. “I’m a mother. I don’t believe in teaching my children to do as I say not as I do.”

Nicholson soon may not have to break state law anymore. The Minnesota Legislature is close to passing a bill that would allow smoked marijuana to be prescribed by physicians.

The bill was passed by the state Senate last year, and Republican representative and co-sponsor of the bill Chris DeLaForest said he believes the bill has enough support to pass the House. But Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said he will veto the bill because of opposition to it by law enforcement organizations.

“In my world, I don’t think we’re going to be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys,” said Bob Bushman, president of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, when he testified before the Senate in 2007.

DeLaForest said he believes Pawlenty could still be swayed to sign the bill, which would make Minnesota the 13th state in the country to pass a medical marijuana bill that is in direct defiance of federal law.

Other states, such as New York, Illinois and Rhode Island, also have medical marijuana bills currently under consideration by their state legislatures.

The Minnesota County Attorneys Association and the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association oppose the bill.”Marijuana is not a medicine,” said MCAA President James C. Backstrom in an e-mail. “Medicine in this country requires the approval of the FDA before it is used to ensure the safety of Americans. Numerous studies and medical organizations, as noted in the MCAA position paper, have concluded that marijuana has no proven medical value.”

I’m always amazed at the argument that medicinal use of marijuana shouldn’t be legal because it makes it tougher for law enforcement to “catch the bad guys”. Essentially they are saying that because some people smoke marijuana to get high, a few people will just have to suffer pain, addiction, and pharmaceutical side effects. We know you’re in incredible pain, Ms. Nicholson, but we just can’t have you smoking pot, because then some college kid will spark up a doobie in his dorm room while listening to Kottonmouth Kings on his iPod. Some people must suffer so that others don’t get high. It’s ridiculous!

Tags: Minnesota

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 2:43 am and is filed under 4:20 NewsHour, Medical Marijuana. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a trackback from your own site.