Willamette Week | “Organ Failure” | May 21st, 2008

Garon, a 56-year-old professional musician who had hepatitis C, died after a University of Washington Medical Center committee denied him a spot on a liver-transplant list. Part of their reason: Garon used medical marijuana—which is legal under Washington law.

Garon wouldn’t have fared any better in Oregon, where medical marijuana has been legal since 1999. Hospitals here refuse to perform transplants on patients who treat their severe pain, nausea and other symptoms under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program.

The state’s largest transplant program, run jointly by Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland VA Medical Center, turns away patients who use marijuana. Legacy Health System also performs kidney transplants and refuses marijuana users.

Those are the only two transplant programs in the state, leaving Oregon’s medical marijuana patients completely out in the cold.

It’s impossible to say anyone died just because they didn’t get a transplant. But at least 30 Oregonians who use medical weed have died in the past 10 years after hospitals denied them new organs, says Paul Stanford, head of the THC Foundation, a chain of medical-marijuana clinics based in Portland.

“It’s a death sentence,” says Madeline Martinez, head of the Oregon branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “Most of the people have already expired because they didn’t have the transplant.”

Those affected include Jim Klahr, a 56-year-old professional musician from Brookings. He suffers from cirrhosis and hepatitis C, and quit taking medical marijuana in 2004 to qualify for a new liver.

Meanwhile, he lives with crippling nausea that used to vanish with a single puff of smoke. “I’ve capitulated because basically I don’t have much of a choice,” says Klahr, who sits on the 11-member state Advisory Committee on Medical Marijuana.

OHSU doctors also bar marijuana users because of medical concerns, including a higher risk of infection and pulmonary problems. Users of other illegal drugs, drinkers and even tobacco smokers are also barred from getting transplants, but anyone can join once they pass a drug test and meet other requirements.

Dr. William Bennett, head of kidney transplants at Legacy, says those are the same reasons his program bars marijuana users. He and Seely also say patients on mind-altering drugs are less likely to stick with their treatment in the long run, leading to a higher rate of transplant failure.

It amazes me when I read quotes from medical professionals that are so ignorant about cannabis.  Take that line “Users of other illegal drugs, drinkers and even tobacco smokers are also barred from getting transplants”.  Because those medical marijuana patients are just more “illegal drug users”?  They’re just people looking to get high recreationally, like smokers and drinkers?

“Anyone can join once they pass a drug test?”  What other legal, doctor-recommended medicines will you be testing for?  Lipitor?  Xanax?  OxyContin?  Percocet?  Viagra?  No, you’ll be testing for coke, meth, heroin, and of course, marijuana.

“Patients on mind-altering drugs are less likely to stick with their treatment?”  What, you don’t think OxyContin is mind-altering?  Have you ever listened to Rush Limbaugh?

“Risk of infection and pulmonary problems?”  Once again, cannabis can be grown organically and taken orally or in vapor form - no infections or lung problems to speak of!

They can wrap it in as many excuses as they want, but these transplant programs simply want to discriminate against cannabis users because they have a moral issue with cannabis.

Medical marijuana and organ transplants don’t mix - Los Angeles Times

SEATTLE — This month, Timothy Garon, 56, a Seattle musician, died after being turned down for a liver transplant. He was rejected partly because he had used medical marijuana.

Now, a second critically ill patient in Washington state says he has been denied a spot in two organ transplant programs because he uses doctor-prescribed marijuana.

Jonathon Simchen, 33, of Fife, a town south of Seattle, is a diabetic whose kidneys and pancreas have failed.

He said he was removed from the transplant program at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle because he admitted using medical marijuana. Later, he said, University of Washington Medical Center transplant officials refused to accept him because of the medical marijuana issue.

The lawyer who represented Garon has taken on Simchen’s case.

Douglas Hiatt argues that his clients are the victims of a loosely defined transplant policy, one not based on science.

University of Washington officials, citing privacy laws, declined to discuss specifics of individual cases, but issued a statement acknowledging that they took marijuana use into consideration.

“Although medical marijuana may be an issue in rare cases, it is never the sole determinant in arriving at medical decisions about candidates for organ transplants,” the statement said.

A spokeswoman for Virginia Mason Hospital said smoking of any kind could “lead to patient-safety and transplant-effectiveness issues” and was precluded. She said the hospital’s transplant committee would also weigh a patient’s use of medical marijuana in pill form.

At the University of Washington, the transplant committee said it reviewed “behavioral concerns such as a history of substance abuse or dependency. If such a history exists, then the committee looks at the period of abstinence the candidate has demonstrated to date,” as well as the patient’s efforts to maintain abstinence and potential to abuse again.

Asked why the committee considered marijuana use under a doctor’s supervision “a history of substance abuse,” a hospital spokesman cited the federal law categorizing marijuana as an illegal drug.

Peggy Stewart, a clinical social worker with the liver transplant program at UCLA Medical Center, said bias existed in the medical community against marijuana because of the federal law.

Some transplant committee members see it as an illegal substance and as grounds for automatic rejection.

She said many other addictive prescriptions, particularly pain medications, did not automatically disqualify patients from transplant lists because they were not illegal substances under federal law.

It’s bad because it’s illegal because it’s bad because it’s illegal because it’s bad because it’s illegal…

It is simply beyond my ability to process the outrage of this ignorant cowardice!  Medical professionals will knowingly divert the frailest patients from the safe non-toxic herb and onto the dangerous addictive pharmaceuticals, and then hide behind the government’s skirts?  Ooh, it’s against federal law?  Your state doesn’t think so, members of your profession are recommending it, and your oath is to first do no harm!

Furthermore, that one official says they’d even “weigh” use of medical marijuana in pill form.  That’s called Marinol, and it isn’t against federal law.

As for the “patient safety and transplant-effectiveness” issues, you don’t have any evidence to back that up.  Vaporization or edibles eliminate the problems with smoking.  Post transplant there is no “addictiveness” in the serious physical sense of the word to jeopardize transplant-effectiveness.

This is nothing more than institutionalized discrimination against a disliked minority, only this isn’t about the color of their skin but rather the color of their medicine.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-05-02

It’s Friday, May 2nd and it’s 4:20 somewhere in the world! I’m your host, “Radical” Russ Belville and this is your NORML Daily Audio Stash.

Tomorrow is the Global Marijuana March, taking place in over 200 cities worldwide. Check out GlobalMarijuanaMarch.org for more details on the march in your area. Take to the streets and demand respect. We are not criminals, we are cannabis consumers. We are no more criminals for smoking pot in private than citizens who take a drink in private. We can end adult marijuana prohibition, but the world needs to see us standing up for our rights! It starts with you – take the time to get involved.

Friday is Cannabis Community day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re speaking with our regular guest Steve Bloom, the webmaster at CelebStoner.com. Steve’s got the details for New York City’s Marijuana March, along with a New York native’s look at how the Big Apple became the marijuana arrest capital of the world. We also break down the role of weed in the NFL draft and great box-office weekends for Harold & Kumar and CelebStoner Amy Poehler’s movie, Baby Mama.

Next, Cannabis Karri brings back Freedom People with a perfect song for a protest weekend, “New (R)evolution”. Let’s all start a new revolution and get hemp re-legalized in this country.

Then we wrap things up with Tim Smith, a criminal defense attorney in Cincinnati, Ohio. Tim’s here to tell us about the Marijuana March event this weekend in Cincy and the threats by law enforcement to shut them down by threatening the venue owner’s liquor license.

Finally, don’t forget that every Saturday we’re now posting the NORML Weekend Music Stash, where you can get all of the last ten songs from our daily musical breaks in one podcast, suitable for your weekend party pleasure. If you have a band that would like to be featured on our podcast, please send us an email at stash ‘at’ norml.org.

So sit back and relax with your favorite strain and enjoy your NORML Daily Audio Stash…

Finally today, a personal note. This year’s Global Marijuana March marks the third year of my involvement with NORML through my local chapter, Oregon NORML.

We want to invite everyone in the Portland / Vancouver area to enjoy the huge festivities we have planned. We have Pioneer Courthouse Square reserved in the heart of Downtown Portland for the entire day. Vendors and bands will begin at 10am.

Then we leave for the march at High Noon, led by Ma, our Cannabis Dragon – a forty-foot-long hemp-cloth dragon like you might see at a Chinese New Year, with a four-foot head made completely from cannabis stalks.

We return to the Square for more of the festival, with special guest speakers, including myself, educating the public about marijuana in-between band sets.

We’re kicking off our PR campaign for OCTA 2010, the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, an initiative for 2010 that will legalize, tax, and regulate the sales of cannabis in Oregon through state-run liquor stores.

The outdoor festival ends at 5pm, but then we’re off to the Mt. Tabor Legacy Theater at SE 39th & Hawthorne at 8pm to enjoy the Marijuana March After Party, a concert featuring The Martyrs and Marquee, with special guest Chief Greenbud and our headliners, Las Vegas hemp-hop superstars, Los Marijuanos.

Then the after after party is at my place, I suppose, since the DJ, his girlfriend, a visiting Sacramento NORML board member, and two vendors are crashing there for the weekend. Ah, you know what? I have the greatest job in the world.