WANTS SYSTEM FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

I am the daughter of the late veterinarian Dr. Mike Lindey and an
advocate for LD 611, An Act to Create a Pilot Project to Fully
Implement the Maine Medical Marijuana Act of 1998. This act would
create a distribution system for medical marijuana.

My father was known to many people as a cancer survivor. He was also
a proponent of medical marijuana use for the alleviation of the
effects of cancer therapies that had weakened him and caused him to
feel depressed and lose weight.

To my family and to me, he was Dad or Doc or Papa. We watched him
lose his hair, weight and strength as he tried to enjoy our company
from his bed in the living room. Often, he would fall asleep from
exhaustion in our midst =F1 and anyone who knew Dad knew how long he
could normally sustain a conversation! It was really hard to see him
go through this lonely, painful process.

The first time I saw a marijuana plant at my Dad's house I was
amused. Had someone given it to him as a joke, knowing that he
probably wouldn't recognize what it was? He looked away sheepishly
when I questioned him and didn't answer me then. That was at the
beginning of his second round of chemotherapy.

The irony for me was that my father had always been a man who saw the
world in black and white. He was never a man who considered breaking
the law lightly.

As a result of smoking marijuana, my father's second round of
chemotherapy was much more successful than the first had been. He
held his weight because he felt less nausea and as a result, had a
better outlook and felt stronger at the end of the treatment.

When Dad was cured, he shunned all of the things that he associated
with his illness: from the fresh pineapple that he had craved to the
sofa bed that he had lived on during the sickest period. He also
stopped smoking marijuana, choosing instead his old standby,
Marlboro. He lived for nearly five more years as a healthy man and
loved every bit of it. He became ill again last spring and left
Parkview Hospital in February to go home to die. As soon as we got to
his house, he asked me to get hospice support for him. He asked that
I procure two drugs to help him relieve any discomfort that might
face him. One was marijuana and the other was morphine.

While both are controlled substances with known side effects, only
one has been proven to be highly addictive and that one, morphine, I
was able to buy in a pharmacy. Purchasing the marijuana was much more
covert, and I could tell that it made my Dad feel bad to have to ask
me to do it. I was uncomfortable with the fact that I didn't really
know where it came from or how pure it was.

He never needed the marijuana, but he did need the morphine. We
talked candidly about many personal issues during that week. He
expressed two regrets that he had about dying before the spring. One
was that he would miss his college reunion and all of his dear
friends, and the other was that he wouldn't be able to support LD 611.

After Dad's first round with cancer, I saw him change. He became a
more caring, giving person with greater empathy and a will to be
compassionate.

It was his wish that patients shouldn't suffer unnecessarily or feel
guilty trying to procure marijuana. Having the distribution above
board would help make so many patients who endure illnesses like my
Dad's more likely to feel less pain.

Please support LD 611, in memory of my Dad.