WEIGH PROS & CONS OF POT FOR MEDICAL PURPOSES

I didn't know Michael Phillips, but I've had patients like him. Born
with an inoperable brain tumor, he was prone to seizures. There were
always doubts he'd live to see the next day. From the start, he never
had much of a chance.

Some patients like that turn bitter. They give up hope. Others just
make do, much like the rest of us. They go with what they've got, and
they don't look back.

Then a few are like the young man everyone called Michael.

He took joy in life. Michael gave it, too. From his earliest days, he
loved music. Whether it was singing in church or listening to his
favorite bands, he savored a melody and he went with the beat. He
liked songs that rocked.

Friends tell how Michael took his pastor's words to heart and went
home and trashed his rock'n' roll CDs after he joined the church. He
held on to the ones by Kiss, though. To Michael's way of thinking,
they couldn't be all bad if they rocked like that.

He wanted to take a bigger part in his community, but his precarious
condition held him back. The seizures didn't help, either. Call them
grand mal or major-motor: By whatever tag, they hit him like a
mugging and left him in a heap.

In spite of all the different medicines he took for them, the
seizures still came so often that he had to fight just to keep on his
feet at the brink of life.

Maybe that's why some of his friends saw Michael as being not quite
of this world. Or maybe it had to do with his namesake, the chief of
angels. Anyway, those who knew him couldn't help feeling this young
man walked on higher ground than most.

Finally, Michael caught a break. He came across a means to make his
seizures much less frequent. It wasn't medicine, exactly, and it came
with more than a little baggage. Just using it got Michael arrested,
twice, even with prescriptions from doctors.

Still, he saw the promise in it, and not just for himself. Michael
heard about patients with painful eye conditions who got better with
it. There were people with cancer who couldn't take chemo without
just about heaving their guts up, too, but now they could get their
treatment and didn't turn sick.

Michael also listened to stories of folks at the end of their lives
and how they'd come by some ease from what had helped him.

So, he set out to get the same aid for others he'd found for himself.
That's what took him down to New Orleans. Michael was out to do good,
for sure. But this time he got to have a good time while he was at it.

Some say it's hard to find the beat in blues, but Michael nailed it
straight off. He took a stroll down Bourbon Street, and the notes
that lilted from the doors he passed caught up with him. Soon he was
tapping his feet and bobbing his head.

A December breeze hustled in off the river and made the day as crisp
as it ever gets in the Quarter. The sun came out, and the sky was
like glass. Michael tried raw oysters for the first time in his life,
and they were good.

The young man who had never strayed far from Millbrook, Ala., looked
around with all his eyes. Then he cracked a big smile. He saw the
face of a city that could take a punch and roll with it, with style.
In a way, it felt like home.

Then he got down to business. Shy as he was, Michael pitched into the
meeting he'd come for. Networking, asking questions, patching up
alliances and charting common ground, he was all about working for
the goal they shared here. Anyone could see the momentum pick up around him.

Early the next morning, Michael's old and new friends went to look
for him. They rang his room at the hotel, but there was no answer.
There never would be. At last, the angel had flown.

If you go to the Web site for Alabamians for Compassionate Care, the
group Michael worked with, you'll see a caduceus, the medical staff,
outlined against a suspicious-looking leaf. That's cannabis, all
right. Weed, pot, marijuana - call it what you will. It's what helped
Michael. It could help other patients, too.

ACC is pushing a bill (HB679) to make marijuana legal for medical use
in Alabama, and it's in a legislative committee. On behalf of the
patients who need it and the ones who want help for them, I urge
readers to check it out. Look at the pros and cons. Weigh the issues.
Make up your mind. Then tell your state senator and representative.

That's how we do things in Alabama. That's how we can change the
rules. That's how we can lend a hand to those in need, even if we've
never seen their faces and don't know their names.

That, I can just about hear Michael say, rocks.