MEDICAL NEED OR PUBLICITY STUNT?

Ann Arbor marijuana advocate to go on trial for lighting up

WASHINGTON - Renee Emry Wolfe says the only way she gets relief when
her muscles go into spasm from multiple sclerosis is to take a few
puffs from a marijuana joint.

Last year, the Ann Arbor woman lit up a joint in a congressman's
office to bring the issue of medical marijuana to the federal
government's attention. Now Wolfe is facing trial here for possession
of a controlled substance.

"This patient has run out of patience," the mother of three said while
sitting in her wheelchair after a Monday morning court hearing. "It's
an uphill battle that I'm fighting. But I feel that if I have to talk
to every judge in this country to get things changed, I will."

U.S. attorneys are prosecuting the case because "the possession of
marijuana is against the law in the District," spokesman Channing
Phillips said.

The trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but District of Columbia
Superior Court Judge Anita Josey-Herring delayed it until April 26.

There is a growing national debate over the use of marijuana for
medical reasons.

Voters in six states have approved measures in the last few years
allowing use of marijuana for medical reasons - California, Arizona,
Alaska, Oregon, Nevada and Washington.

Congress has barred the counting of voting results from a similar
measure on the ballot last fall in the District of Columbia.

The New England Journal of Medicine has editorialized in favor of
medical marijuana, and the American Medical Association altered its
policy and voted to urge the National Institutes of Health to support
more research on the subject.

On Sept. 15, Wolfe went to the offices of Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla.,
to protest his resolution on the House floor that day that said
marijuana is a dangerous and addictive drug and should not be
legalized for medical use.

The 38-year-old Wolfe said she uses marijuana as a medical necessity
to control attacks in which her hands shake and she loses control of
her legs.

Her lawyer, Jeff Orchard, said Wolfe started to feel tense when aides
to McCollum did not want to talk with her and she lit up a joint
because she felt her symptoms returning.

However, an aide to McCollum said she talked to Wolfe, then Renee Emry
before her recent marriage, and the incident that day seemed more like
a publicity stunt because Wolfe had several cameras and a reporter
with her. "She was very calm and almost immediately lit up the joint,"
Shannon Gravitte said.

Wolfe, who was diagnosed with MS in 1979, was arrested and spent
several hours in jail. Possession of a controlled substance is a
misdemeanor, so her case is being decided by a judge rather than a
jury.

However, if Wolfe is found guilty, she faces up to 180 days in jail
and a $1,000 fine.

Her attorney says jail time could hurt her health because multiple
sclerosis is a progressive disease.

"Right now, she does not always have to be in a wheelchair. If she

does 180 days without any (marijuana), she will always be in a
wheelchair," Orchard said.

Wolfe, who says she is pregnant with her fourth child, is using a
medical necessity defense, arguing her multiple sclerosis compelled
her to use the marijuana. "For Renee Emry, having a joint is like an
asthmatic having a bronchial inhaler," Orchard said.

However, prosecutors argue that a medical defense does not apply in
this case because there was no immediate danger to Wolfe and there was
a legal medical alternative available.

"The evidence overwhelmingly establishes that her real purpose was to
conduct a protest in the United States Capitol in order to publicize
her position regarding the marijuana laws," prosecutors wrote in a
legal brief.

Denis Petro, a defense witness and a neurologist from Arlington, Va.,
said that studies have shown an ingredient in marijuana is effective
in controlling muscle spasms associated with MS and is much quicker
than swallowing a pill that can take a half hour or more to work.
"It's amazing what it does for spasticity," he said.

Wolfe says legal drugs, such as pills, make her ill. She has been
smoking marijuana since 1981 when she was in a clinical study at the
University of Michigan on the use of marijuana to treat MS. She is
able to mitigate her spasms in seconds with marijuana, and it is much
less costly than pills, Wolfe said.

"Within 5 seconds it affects the motor skills part of my brain," she
said. "If I go without my medical marijuana for six months, I will be
bedridden."

Wolfe has been convicted at least two times in the past in Ann Arbor
on marijuana charges. She said she was also ticketed last year under
the city's pot law, which makes possession of small amounts of
marijuana a civil infraction, but the case was tossed out after she
told the court she uses marijuana for medicinal purposes.