REEFER MADNESS

The U.S. Supreme Court's Recent Ruling Against The Use Of Medical Marijuana
Ignores The Reality That It Works At Restoring Health And Relieving Pain -
The High Court's Decision Also Overlooks The Fact Most Californians Believe
It Should Be Legalized For Those Purposes

Brian smokes pot every day. Sometimes just once, but on his worst days,
when he feels particularly depressed, anxious and in pain, he may toke up
three times throughout the day. Today, 36-year-old Brian is in so much pain
that he rarely leaves his South Pasadena home. In healthier times, Brian
occasionally smoked pot for pleasure, but not anymore. Brian remembers
experimenting with marijuana for fun in his 20s, and then discovering that
it relieved the pain he suffered in his back as the result of an injury.

By 1994, Brian was deemed permanently disabled and could not continue his
career as a fashion designer.

But it wasn't until 1995, when he was diagnosed with HIV, that he began
referring to reefer as medicine. Brian, who declined to use his last name
because he believes openly admitting marijuana use would embarrass his
family, lost 30 pounds in two weeks and couldn't keep down food or pills.

His T cell level, the white cell measurement used to determine the severity
of the illness, plummeted to 230, nearing the 200 mark or the level of
full-blown AIDS. "I felt like death was coming," said Brian. "It was two
years after I became HIV positive, when I was always in my bed, losing
weight, throwing up that my doctor recommended medical marijuana." At this
point, pot took on an entirely different meaning for Brian. "When I became
sick with HIV, partying was not on my mind. I've been in chronic pain for
16 years.

I've tried physical therapy and pain pills, and they didn't work. I was
thinking survival," he said. Since he began smoking marijuana under the
direction of his doctor, Brian's life has changed significantly. So has his
health.

For one thing, his appetite has improved vastly.

For another, Brian's T cell count has steadily registered at 1,000. "It has
gotten me out of my bed. It has gotten me out of my room. I am able get
dressed, to laugh, to talk to people and I've been able to maintain my
weight." In 1997, he became a member of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource
Center. "Before that, I was buying on the streets not knowing who I was
buying from. I was worried about fungus and bacteria," he said. Brian now
volunteers as a baker at LACRC twice a week. There he crafts marijuana into
cookies, brownies and other goodies for the cannabis center's clients.

The Pot Shop

When approaching the center, herbal aromas perfume the air, but once you
step through the door of the shabby loft you realize that you are not in a
paradise retreat for burnouts.

This is a medical center, complete with a waiting room, a kitchen for
making medical baked goods, an office with files and other commonplace
administrative supplies and a lounge for smoking medicine -- not a swatch
of tie-dye in sight. And the people sitting in the lounge, they don't look
like the characters from a love-in. No pot bellies, no hemp insignia
clothes or jewelry.

The members of the LACRC are sick with different ailments, from HIV to
glaucoma to cancer, and they are all at different stages of their
particular afflictions. Most are very thin and sickly looking.

Their faces are aged beyond their years. The LACRC in West Hollywood, like
cannabis buyer's clubs throughout California, grows and distributes
marijuana to members at little or no cost. Upon a first visit, it may seem
as simple as selecting a medicinal brownie off of their menu for $5, or a
baggy of LACRC-cultivated Tiger Bomb green buds ranging from the suggested
prices of $3 to $20 per gram, but the LACRC is a legitimate and legal
organization with strict verification practices. For starters, marijuana is
only distributed to members.

For people to apply for membership, they need a doctor's recommendation.
The center calls the physician to verify the recommendation and then
researches and confirms the physician's medical license.

Finally, the potential member is interviewed and must agree to the terms of
the LACRC, which include not smoking medicine in a public place, not
exposing others to second-hand smoke and being completely honest with
authorities. Under these conditions, the person becomes a member, and is
issued a cannabis club card with photo identification. With this membership
comes the security of legal protection. If a member gets busted for
possessing marijuana, and is following the club rules, the LACRC supplies
the member with a lawyer. Scott Imler, director of the LACRC, is
responsible for legal distribution of marijuana to members in California.
He co-authored Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative, which
passed by 56 percent of the vote in November 1996. "Before major grassroots
medical marijuana efforts started in 1991-92, people just got it from
anywhere they could.

When we organized politically, patients started meeting together and
realized that it's easier and safer to pool your pennies and divide it up."
Imler uses marijuana to control epileptic seizures that he said were
brought by injuries suffered in a skiing accident. "I was growing my own
and minding my own business in 1991, when the helicopters came and took it
away." Today, Imler keeps an oversized zip lock bag of seizure suppressing
medications prescribed to him; pills that he doesn't take and
affectionately refers to as "poison." "With epilepsy medication, the side
effects are devastating. You sit in a chair, drool and watch television. I
smoke marijuana a couple times a day, have a better quality of life,
control seizures -- and I'm a criminal." While former President Bill
Clinton and his family were moving into the White House in 1992, Imler was
collecting 14,000 signatures in Santa Cruz County to get Measure A on the
ballot.

Measure A, which eventually evolved into 1996's Proposition 215, passed by
a 77 percent margin and advised the county board of supervisors to send
letters to state and elected officials to make marijuana available for
prescriptive medical use. But when advocates took the measure to the state
Legislature for adoption statewide, the measure was vetoed by then-Gov.
Pete Wilson. Four years later, in spite of Wilson's veto, marijuana's use
as medicine only grew. Says Imler, "One of us needed to come down to
Southern California, and I got the job." Six weeks before Election Day in
1996, the LACRC office in Los Angeles got busted, but that didn't stop
distribution. The group operated out of a Methodist church until Nov. 6.
The day of the election, with the help of a city grant and a bank loan,
LACRC moved into its present home on Santa Monica Boulevard in West
Hollywood and has been operating undisturbed by the authorities ever since.

Mary Jane Goes To DC

While medical marijuana is still legal in California under Proposition 215,
it is still illegal in the eyes of federal authorities. The U.S. Supreme
Court last month ruled 8-0 in favor of the federal government in U.S. v.
Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative. The Court ruled that "medical
necessity" is not a defense in federal court for distributing marijuana.
The legal status of the LACRC is murky today, although the Supreme Court's
ruling does not overturn state laws, and the Constitution prohibits state
officers from upholding federal law over state law. Under the controlled
substance act, the Supreme Court had very little choice, considering
marijuana is categorized as a Schedule One drug -- in the same category
with heroin and ecstasy. However, as Imler points out, "People's medical
necessity doesn't change just because the Supreme Court says there is no
medical use for marijuana." Since 1978, only eight people beat the
government under the legal doctrine of necessity, which follows the 'I
stole the car to drive my mother to the hospital because she was having a
heart attack' logic.

The first of those eight people to successfully use this argument for
medical marijuana was Bob Randall, who was suffering from glaucoma and
living in Florida in 1978. He argued that only an insane person would obey
the law, which in essence ordered him to obey the law and go blind.

Since then, the argument has worked for seven others, and the United States
government grows marijuana for them on a plot of land in Mississippi.
Pasadena police Commander Mary Schander said the medical marijuana issue
has not come up for the department. "We would follow the law as well as the
Supreme Court decision and take the appropriate enforcement actions," she
said. The Glendale Police Department has a similar policy.

Sergeant Rick Young said, "Basically, anytime we find marijuana, we treat
it as illegal possession. If the defendant can produce a doctor's
(recommendation), we submit it as evidence, and present that to the
district attorney to determine if it is in fact prescribed by a doctor." He
added, "Most people who use it for medical purposes, are not usually using
it in the streets committing crimes." Neither Glendale nor Pasadena police
honor a cannabis card. Imler brings attention to the irony of the Supreme
Court ruling when he says, "We didn't create this problem with marijuana.

They did. They let people with glaucoma go blind and let crippled people
die in pain for 30 years, knowing all along that marijuana could help them,
all the while pushing and marketing their poisonous pharmaceuticals. The
hypocrisy is overwhelming. Arresting sick people isn't good for their
health." Although it is unlikely that a cannabis club member will be
convicted for possession of marijuana, the criminal treatment is an undue
hassle for the terminally ill. "I am completely ashamed of our government
that picks on the sick and the weak," said Brian, with disgust. "We're just
trying to survive as best we can for as long as we can." But why isn't
prescribed marijuana being treated like medicine among law enforcement, and
what does the medical community have to say about the legitimacy of
marijuana as medicine? Pharmacist Jim Avedikian, said, "I'm in favor of it,
quite frankly." Avedikian owns Phoenix Pharmacy and Wellness Center, a
pharmacy in Pasadena specializing in the needs of people with HIV and AIDS.
Although his pharmacy cannot dispense marijuana because of the drug's
Schedule One criminal status, he said, "Buyer's clubs have done a good
job." However, he speculated, "I don't think that Pasadena's senior
citizens with glaucoma would go down to West Hollywood to get their
medication. Maybe baby boomers who are graying, my generation, would be
more open to it." Avedikian added, "I certainly would if I had glaucoma."
Avedikian said that he would distribute marijuana through his pharmacy if
it were re-categorized to a Schedule 2 drug, or one requiring a triplicate
narcotics receipt (one for the doctor, patient and government), which makes
the drug traceable by the government. "I don't think it will be rescheduled
with the current administration," he said. "They won't even agree to a
needle exchange program, which we know stops the spread of AIDS." Janis
Martin is a health education team leader with the Aids Service Center in
Pasadena. The ASC is not a medical facility and employees do not prescribe
medical marijuana or any treatment, but they do council, educate and make
referrals.

During her 10 years in the AIDS education field, Martin says she has heard
patients say medical marijuana works for them. "People I've spoken with who
have wasting syndrome because of HIV told me that marijuana takes the pain
away and allows them to eat again," said Martin. Wasting syndrome, which is
responsible for the weight loss experienced by people with AIDS, occurs
when people cannot benefit from the nutrients of their food, explained
Jorge Sandoval, an ASC treatment advocate for four years. "Once their
immune system has been shattered and HIV is eating away at their muscle
mass, they start losing weight.

It is important that HIV patients gain muscle mass," he said. With regard
to the Supreme Court's ruling that found no medical benefits to marijuana,
Sandoval said, "I don't know if there are any medical benefits, but I can
certainly tell you that I have seen people use it under the supervision of
a doctor, and they have gained weight, dealt with the side effects of their
medication and stayed healthier."

The Alternative Alternative

"I'm all for cannabis centers like this -- they bridge an important gap --
but they are not the answer," said Imler. "People should be able to go to
Walmart or their hospital pharmacy and get what they need. If they came out
with patches or sprays or inhalers or suppositories that delivered this
medication, that would be fine. But until they have that, they should leave
us alone." The medical community seemed to have heard the pleas of Imler
and others for a less controversial -- and less noticeable -- marijuana
alternative, and created Marinol. Marinol is synthetic THC, a legal form of
the herbal original, in pill form. Marinol isolates one out of 61
cannabinoids in marijuana, but that one psychoactive ingredient just
happens to be the one responsible for getting pot smokers stoned.

While a handful of patients say it quells the nausea brought on by
treatment of HIV and cancer, with Marinol, you can't control the dosage
within one pill. For the most part, people who try Marinol say they hate it
because it gets them too high. "Marinol is to marijuana what NutraSweet is
to an apple," said Imler. He explained that Marinol was invented to kill
lab animals to set a scale for toxicity. "They couldn't get lab animals to
smoke or eat enough to take a lethal dose to cause death," he said. And
because Marinol contains only one cannabinoid, it doesn't help people who
need one of the other 60 ingredients in marijuana to alleviate their
symptoms. "Marinol is the only version of marijuana that is toxic," said
Imler, "And it costs $33,000 a year to be on. Who is the government trying
to fool?" Avedikian has heard similar complaints about Marinol, including
"It doesn't work for everyone." and "Patients say it gets them too high."

And The Band Plays On

While Marinol points out the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, and a
pipe on the cover of this paper will attract readers, the important story
is that for people like Brian, Imler, and the others I met at the cannabis
club, marijuana is the only medicine that gives them the strength to fight
for their lives. Said Imler, "We're going to be dependent on drugs for the
rest of our lives. People with AIDS are dependent on protease inhibitors.
People with cancer are dependent on chemotherapy. Epileptics are dependent
on anticonvulsants. We found something that works for us. We're not going
back to the ages of shame and darkness," Imler said passionately, adding,
"It's not very good for us how it's going.

Consensus is we're dead, but in some cases, we're dead either way so we
have no reason to stop fighting." If the Supreme Court's recent decision to
ban medical marijuana at the federal level begins affecting state
legislation, Brian of South Pasadena says his days are numbered. "It
wouldn't be long before I would die either through my disease or through
chronic pain. Try having a migraine in your entire body for 16 years. If
the disease wouldn't kill me, the pain would overcome me and I would blow
my head off."

SIDEBAR

THE SUPREME SMOKE OUT

In Spite Of Supreme Court's Ruling, Legislative And Popular Support For
Marijuana As Medicine Continues To Grow

The Supreme Court, those titans of justice who most recently handed George
W. Bush his job on a gilded platter, say that the sick and dying of Oakland
can't obtain an efficacious theraputant because the medical experts who
comprise the Congress of the United States say they can't. But by no means
have the justices thwarted the growing political legitimacy of medical
marijuana.

Gripped in the painfully redundant throes of reefer madness, the Supreme
Court handed down its decision in the case of the United States v. the
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative on Monday, May 14. The be-robed ones
denied a medical necessity defense to the OCBC for manufacturing and
distributing marijuana and consequently denied the cannabis club the right
to re-open. The ruling was hinged on the federal Controlled Substances Act
that prohibits marijuana use for any reason other than government approved
research projects, of which one can count using the fingers on one hand --
including the middle one.

To be fair, the High Court was not presented with the best possible test
case for medical marijuana.

The Oakland club was one of six clubs slapped with a civil suit by the
Clinton administration in 1998 for distributing marijuana.

Oakland and the others slipped up and, through careless intake procedures,
allowed a DEA agent with a fake identity and doctor's recommendation to
join their centers.

The narc procured cannabis and the jig was up. The non-patient status of
co-op director Jeff Jones further devalued Oakland's credibility.
Traditionally, a necessity defense is available to an individual when, as
Justice Stevens noted, "physical forces beyond the actor's control rendered
illegal conduct the lesser of two evils." In this case, the primary
"actor" named in the suit -- Mr. Jones -- was neither sick nor facing
imminent harm, diminishing the legal "necessity."

Nonetheless, there are Oakland patients with clear medical need and the
excuse of bad federal law to invalidate access to medicine, which is deeply
troublesome, as was the 8-0 decision (Justice Stephen Breyer recused
himself because his brother is the judge in the original suit against the
OCBC). The so-called liberal Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg filed a
concurring opinion, which means that while they agreed with their
conservative colleagues, they also noted that this is a narrow opinion
leaving unaddressed issues such as medical necessity for individual
seriously ill patients, as well as questions of states rights versus
federal supremacy.

In fact, in spite of some media confusion, the Supremes neither overturned
Proposition 215 nor declared it unconstitutional. Nor did they invalidate a
medical necessity defense for qualified patients.

Both Colorado and Nevada continued plans this week to implement medical
marijuana laws based on voter initiatives. The governor and attorney
general of Colorado, bound by their allegiance to the state's constitution,
but adamantly against medical marijuana, asked the feds to come in and stop
their own program. Interestingly, they were informed by the local U.S.
Attorney that Colorado law was their problem, not the Bush
administration's. This reaction by the feds indicates that Bush may adhere
to states rights and practice a hands-off attitude.

Ultimately, therapeutic pot will continue to be legally controversial until
Congress removes it from its current Schedule I status (high abuse
potential, no medical use) to Schedule II (some medical use). While the
rationale for marijuana being categorized with other Schedule II drugs such
as morphine and cocaine is questionable, many patients would be relieved
just to get their medicine from a pharmacy and stop debating the issue. To
this end, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, has introduced HR1344, which would
reclassify cannabis from I to II and would allow for prescriptive access.
While the Bush administration may be inclined to allow sovereign states
their eccentricities, it's a stretch imagining a president in political
debt to drug war dinosaurs caving in federally.

In California, adherence to Proposition 215 by law enforcement has been
erratic. Patients in rural counties have been particularly susceptible to
cowboy cops who don't give a damn what Californians have voted into law.
State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, has sponsored SB187 that would
establish a voluntary statewide registration and identification program
overseen by county health departments. The bill also authorizes the State
Department of Health Services to issue guidelines for possession and
cultivation and would permit qualified patients to associate "in order
collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes."
In other words, the bill would protect legitimate cannabis co-ops.

SB187 is currently sailing through the state Senate. It will likely pass
the Assembly, but may hit an impasse when it reaches Gov. Gray Davis'
office. Like too many centrist Democrats, he's been as rigidly
unsupportive of medical marijuana as right-wing Republicans. But marijuana
as medicine is now an accepted concept.

Eight states and the District of Columbia have passed initiatives
supporting it, and Hawaii has legalized it legislatively. What remains to
be seen is how long it will take before the federal government concurs with
the public and revises an absurd and antiquated law.