Norman Stamper, retired police chief of Seattle, WA and member of LEAP, relates a wrenching tale of medical marijuana brought back from his trip to Minnesota whose state lawmakers are entertaining a conservative, highly restrictive medical marijuana law. This is a long snip and I make no apologies. Hit the link at the end for the complete piece.
Ms. Whiting told the House’s Public Safety Policy and Oversight Committee of her 26-year-old daughter Stephanie’s two-year battle with facial melanoma that surfaced during the young woman’s third pregnancy. The packed hearing room was dead quiet as Ms. Whiting spoke of Stephanie’s face being cut off “one inch at a time, until there was nothing left to cut.” She spoke of her daughter’s severe nausea, her “continuous and uncontrollable pain.”
Stephanie moved back to her family’s home and “bravely began to make plans for the ending of her life.” The tumors continued to grow, invading the inside and outside of her mouth, as well as her throat and chest. Nausea was a constant companion. Zofran and (significantly) Marinol, the synthetic pill version of THC, did nothing to abate the symptoms. Stephanie began wasting away. She lost all hope of relief.
Joni’s other children approached their mother, begged her to let their sister use marijuana. But Ms. Whiting, a Vietnam veteran whose youngest son recently returned from 18 months in Iraq, was a law-abiding woman. And she was afraid of the authorities. There was no way she would allow the illicit substance in her house. As she held her ground, her grownup kids removed Stephanie from the family home.
Three days later, wracked by guilt, Joni welcomed her daughter back. “I called a number of family members and friends…and asked if they knew of anywhere we could purchase marijuana. The next morning someone had placed a package of it on our doorstep. I have never known whom to thank for it but I remain grateful beyond belief.” The marijuana restored Stephanie’s appetite. It allowed her to eat three meals a day, and to keep the food down. She regained energy and, in the words of her mother, “looked better than I had seen her in months.”
Stephanie survived another 89 days, celebrating both Thanksgiving and Christmas with her family.
Shortly after the holidays, Stephanie’s pain became “so severe that when she asked my husband and me to lie down on both sides of her and hold her, she couldn’t stand the pain of us touching her body.”
Stephanie died on January 14, 2003 in the room she grew up in, holding her mother’s hand. A mother who, as she told the legislative committee, would “have no problem going to jail for acquiring medical marijuana for my suffering child.”
Following Joni Whiting’s presentation, it was all I could do to hold it together during my own testimony. Such was the power of this one woman’s story. And of the sadness and rage roiling inside me as I reflected on the countless other Stephanies who are made to suffer not only the ravages of terminal illness and intractable pain but the callousness and narrow-mindedness of their leaders.
via – The Huffington Post “Marijuana No Laughing Matter, Mr. President“
That’s some A-list comedy material coming out of Minnesota, isn’t it? It took the president how long to apologize for an offhanded Special Olympics comment? One day. How long will we wait?
I’ll mince no words: I smoke marijuana recreationally because I like to get high. I want to see marijuana legalized in my lifetime so I can enjoy my vice the same as cigarette smokers and alcohol drinkers. That said, if I could make medical marijuana legal today for people like Stephanie at the price of another 40 year wait for me to have ‘fun’, I wouldn’t hesitate.
That it’s two separate issues is the point. I feel people that use mj for pain and are waiting/working for legalization is more important than my recreational use.
I also subscribe to Russ’ feeling that ALL mj use after age 40 is medicinal. It helps with my aches and pains. It doesn’t fix my arthritis but it makes the pain more tolerable. As a mood stabilizer, it is invaluable to me. I’d have to go the wacky rainbow of pharmaceuticals route otherwise and with side effects ranging from bleeding from your butt to DEATH, I’ll stick to the kind, thank you!
But it’s two totally different, separate issues. (Industrial hemp is a third.)
With regard to recreational marijuana, it might be helpful to point out that the police will never be able to track down every plant growing in a closet, a basement, a back yard or even a secluded window sill. Given the sheer amount of commerce we have, they’ll never infiltrate it all.
Let’s reduce the harm. Concentrate on Meth, PCP, and ecstasy. That fake shit is nasty.
The stoners are here to stay.
We can make peace and even take up a common cause by keeping it out of the hands of under-18s.
Peace is cheaper, more fun, and more practical than war. Other advantages: less destruction, violence, and death.
when these law makers feel the pain we(as medical marijuana users) have on a constant bases and conventional medication make us SICKER, what is there to do? When i cant even get out of bed in the morning because of the pinched nerves i have in my back thanks in most part of me being BORN that way..
Maybe once they live with pain for years and years and years and they find this plant that when vaporized OR cooked correctly into foods takes away the pains and helps you get through the day by lessening the pain, then they will see why these millions and millions of people willingly break the law to try to live without pain..