JIM SARGENT, 43, DENVER

Jim Sargent keeps two pints of liquid morphine on hand to quiet the
constant pain in his right side. It's enough to numb his entire neighborhood.

He also keeps a tiny stash of marijuana near his bed. It's barely enough to
help him sleep.

Guess which drug could get Sargent arrested?

For more than three years, Sargent, 43, has been undergoing cancer
treatment. It was diagnosed as non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but the disease
spread to his liver.

A robust engineer who once managed an office for a Fortune 500 company,
Sargent was thrown into a cycle of chemotherapy and steroids. His wife quit
her job to care for him.

Today, Sargent is past the chemo, and chances are he'll live a long time.
That doesn't mean getting through the day is easy. Red-hot pain flares from
his side, from the place doctors performed a biopsy in his liver last year.

"It's like somebody took a claw hammer to me.''

The prescriptionmorphine, he says, just isn't enough - even at 350
milligrams a day. It's the pot that gives Sargent the rest he needs.

"The biggest fight is to stay mentally stable enough to want to get up the
next day to do it again,'' Sargent says. "If there's something out there
that gives me that edge . . . nobody has the right to take that away.''

Before bed each night, Sargent puffs the marijuana from a pipe then packs
himself in pillows and tries not to move.

While his morphine supply can be refilled with a call to the doctor, his
illegal pile of pot is dwindling, and "the people I get it from'' just
moved out of state, Sargent says. "Which means,'' Sargent adds, "I'll have
to increase my (prescription) drug doses, which I'm not into doing.
Morphine really affects me, it affects the way you think.

"I'm stretching (the marijuana) out. There's enough to last another week
and then I will be completely out. That has me a little concerned.''

Checked-by: Richard Lake