Crusaders For Marijuana

A cancer patient says it gets him through chemotherapy. A doctor wants it
in his treatment arsenal. Together, they are pushing for the right to use
pot as medicine.

Caroline Young Ullmann ; The News Tribune

Cancer patient Ralph Seeley has vivid memories of chemotherapy during his
first year of law school: It left him lying on the floor, vomiting
uncontrollably, covered in his own excrement.

A year later, during his second bout of chemotherapy in 1992, he discovered
that smoking marijuana relieved his symptoms. But he was aware that he was
breaking the law.

As he researched the drug, he learned that years earlier, the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration had overruled its own administrative law judge,
who had recommended that the DEA legalize marijuana for medical use.

In a 68page opinion, Judge Francis L. Young concluded that it would be
"unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious" to block seriously ill people from
the benefits of marijuana.

The ruling sent Seeley into orbit.

"I was so angry," said Seeley, recalling his intense reaction. "As I read
Judge Young's opinion, my spine tingled." The hair on the back of his neck
stood on end.

"And it has driven me for all these years."

For five years, Seeley has fought for what he says is his constitutional
right to be free from needless suffering. He has spent hundreds of hours
researching the state constitution, starting when he was still in law
school.

He filed suit in Pierce County Superior Court in 1994, arguing his own
case, and a year later, Judge Rosanne Buckner ruled in his favor. The state
appealed her decision.

Now, the Washington State Supreme Court is considering his argument that it
is unconstitutional for marijuana to be listed as a Schedule 1 drug.
Schedule 1 drugs can't be legally prescribed.

"God, I hope I win," Seeley said, sitting on a couch in his Tacoma house
west of Wright Park. If the justices rule against him, he said, "my faith
in the system will be pretty much gone."

Seeley's key argument is simple. The state constitution protects individuals. He's an individual. So the state should protect his right not
to suffer unless it can prove a greater benefit to society.

The state, however, takes a different view.

The constitution gives the Legislature the power to regulate drugs,
assistant attorney general Melissa BurkeCain said. And lawmakers chose to
require objective, scientific proof before allowing drugs to be legally
available, she added.

That kind of argument makes Seeley livid. How can you show that a drug has
become accepted and is in use when it's illegal to prescribe and illegal to
possess?

"There is nothing theoretical about my suffering," he said.

Seeley was diagnosed with chordoma, a rare bone cancer, in 1986. Since
then, he's had 12 major surgeries and numerous bouts of radiation and
chemotherapy to combat the recurring cancer.

He has one lung, and he frequently uses braces to walk.

In November, his surgeon tried to remove another tumor, but closed him up
when it became clear he couldn't get it all, said Seeley, a former News
Tribune columnist.

Now, he's about halfway through another course of intensive chemotherapy
treatments.

Though his symptoms aren't as severe as when he was a law student, Seeley
said he still needs a puff or two of marijuana to quell sudden onsets of
nausea, in addition to the prescribed narcotics he takes to blunt his
constant pain.

"When you smoke some marijuana, it's the same as if you're in unbelievable
pain and you get a shot of morphine or Demerol," he said. "It's just so
wonderful."

He tried the tablet form of synthetic THC, the active ingredient in
marijuana, but it didn't work. Most often, he vomited the pills. When they
did stay down, they took hours to take effect and then he stayed high for
so long that it was impossible to function.

Seeley said he obtains his medication from Green Cross, a local network of
people who grow or otherwise obtain marijuana and provide it, for free, to
people suffering from illnesses such as AIDS, cancer or multiple sclerosis.

Seeley told his story on a breezy, sunny Thursday, a good day for Seeley.

He had energy physical and mental. As he talked, his voice sometimes
blazed with passion, though he frequently paused for breath.

On medical leave from his law practice, he was tying up loose ends on other
cases. His cello teacher had just left. His wife had been home for lunch.
It was the first day in a month that he didn't need his braces to move
about his house.

But some days, he said, he rises at noon, and it's all he can do to feed
himself and keep himself clean.

And now both Seeley and assistant attorney general BurkeCain wait.

Seeley said his suit is based on the belief that as a cancer patient he has
a legitimate need for marijuana. He argued his case, in part, using the
constitution's "privileges and immunities" clause.

People who need other restricted drugs such as cocaine, morphine or THC
in tablet form have the privilege of using the drugs and immunity from
arrest with a doctor's prescription, he contended.

Seeley said he isn't sure what would happen if he wins. He'd like Attorney
General Christine Gregoire to fight the federal government, championing the
right of her state's citizens to use marijuana to relieve suffering.

BurkeCain said she sympathizes, but her job is to defend the law.

"We rejected a long time ago that folks are left to themselves to decide
what's helpful and what's harmful, what works and what doesn't," she said.

And right now, the vast majority of physicians do not accept smoking
marijuana as legitimate medicine, she said.

The state also is concerned that removing marijuana from the drug schedule
would generally make it more available and could affect drug use among
Washington youth, BurkeCain said.

Also, because there's no predictable source for marijuana, the state can't
guarantee that a tainted product won't make sick people sicker, she said.

But legal arguments aside, BurkeCain said she has great compassion for
Seeley.

"On a human level, you have to empathize with the suffering he has
experienced," she said.

"On the other hand, you still have to look at the legislative duty, which
is to look at all of society and all individuals."

© The News Tribune
5/11/97