Ailing women say smoking pot kills pain best

A medical doctor says it's less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, about
in the range of caffeine.

By Eric Bender
Free Press Reporter

Two women told a court in London on Tuesday that illicit pot smoking
has been the only medicinal relief they have found for their ailments.

"The last time was yesterday," Brenda Rochefort told Mr. Justice John
McCart in the cannabis trial of London hemp store proprietor Chris
Clay.

Rochefort, 41, of Milverton, said she was born with Ehler Danlos
syndrome, a tissue disorder "that affects pretty well every part of my
body." It causes her to be weak, susceptible to glaucoma, sclerosis,
skeletal pain, bladder and bowel problems and "unbearable" muscular
spasms.

She said she smokes marijuana almost daily.

"When it comes to muscle spasms the pain is tolerable and it
(marijuana) decreases the spasms," she said.

She once quit marijuana for three years but her condition deteriorated
to the point where she had to resume smoking. "The difference was
night and day," she said of the comparison between marijuana and
prescription pain killers and relaxants. The prescribed drugs helped
little and left strong or intolerable reactions, she testified.
Marijuana has no bad side effects, she said.

Rochefort said she can't afford to buy marijuana on her disability
pension so she was growing it in her basement. She's been arrested
twice for cultivation, she said.

Although the charges were dropped, she told the court, her plants and
parapharnelia were confiscated by police.

ROBBED OF HEALTH: "I felt they had robbed me of my health," she said.

Rochefort was one of two women testifying about the medical benefits
of marijuana in Clay's defence. Clay is trying to show that Canada's
cannabis prohibition is arbitrary, irrational and not scientifically
based.

Lynn Harichy, 36, of London, who suffers from muscular sclerosis, a
disease of the nervous system, testified she has been diagnosed as one
of the worst cases. She has suffered pain and disability for years to
the point of being hospitalized.

"I don't feel pain now," she told the judge. "I believe it's because I
smoke marijuana." She said her doctor can see it helps her.

Harichy said she usually smokes every day but hadn't smoked for a week
because she anticipated testifying in court and "I really don't want
to get busted."

While marijuana is expensive, she said, she doesn't get headaches any
more and she's now going to college to "study the body and why
marijuana is supposed to be so bad."

GODSEND: She said she gets her marijuana through a Toronto "club" she
learned of from Clay. "Chris Clay told me about it. He's been a
godsend for me."

Neev Tapiero, 25, a volunteer caregiver with the Toronto AIDS
Committee, said he went to San Francisco to learn about marijuana
buyers clubs and is helping set up such a club in Toronto to make
marijuana available to people with ailments who have a bonafide
application from a doctor. Although it's illegal, he and the committee
are forging ahead, Tapiero told defence counsel Alan Young.

"It's very hard to tell these people 'I can't help you' when I can."

Bruce Rowsell, director of the Bureau of Drug Surveillance in Ottawa,
said Health Canada has done no marijuana medical use studies since
1972 and it's up to drug companies, organizations or other applicants
to present documentation for approval of cannabis for medical
products. None has come forward, he said, but it's impossible to
patent a plant that grows indigenously. Safety and efficacy of a drug
must be demonstrated, he said.

Rowsell said licences have been issued to growers of experimental
cannabis for commercial or hemp production. The plants must have less
than 0.3percent toxicity to qualify, a threshold level that he said
was adopted from a European standard. At some point, after gaining
information from the experiments, the bureau will determine an
appropriate standard for Canada, he added.

RELATIVELY HARMLESS: John Paul Morgan, medical professor at the City
of New York Medical School, who has spent 21 years studying all facets
of drugs, primarily marijuana, said he has concluded even heavy
smoking of cannabis is relatively harmless. "The recreational use of
cannabis is less harmful than that of alcohol and tobacco, he told the
court, and its effects are "low level" in the range of caffeine.

Morgan challenged much "misinformation" about marijuana. There is no
evidence to show it causes sterility or harms the fetus, it doesn't
cause pulmonary problems (although other plant material inhaled with
it might) and it doesn't impair the immune system.

Morgan said much of the misinformation is created in the media. "The
news media is inherently biased to show harm," he said.

Morgan continues on the witness stand as the trial continues today.