FOR SOME CHRONICALLY ILL PATIENTS, POT SUCCEEDS WHERE PAINKILLERS FAIL

By KATHLEEN PALMER Staff Writer

Marijuana is keeping Clayton Holton alive. Holton, 23, has a rapidly
worsening form of muscular dystrophy that has kept him
wheelchair-bound for 16 years.

There is no treatment for his condition and he lives in "a great deal
of pain," he said.

Doctors have tried all manner of legal painkillers to help him get
through the day: OxyContin, Norco, Vicodin, Percocet. All had the
side effects of vomiting, passing out, falling over and basically
"making it more difficult to live my life independently."

With marijuana use, Holton said, after taking a dose, "I get hungry
and eat a couple pounds of food." He also feels better than when
using prescription pain relief.

"I'm in complete control, of my thoughts and actions," he said. "With
prescriptions, it's a constant state of being drugged, out of control
and feeling like you just want to lean against a wall all day."

He was first introduced to marijuana as a teen in high school. When
Holton lived in a nursing home, "they had a big problem keeping my
weight up" from his inability to keep food down while on OxyContin.
After living in California and growing his own cannabis, he had
gained 8 pounds in two months - a lifesaving amount for a man who, at
6 feet tall, had wasted away to 79 pounds from the disease.

Patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy are not usually expected to
live past age 16. Turning 24 in March, Holton says "my doctors are
extremely confused" as to what is keeping him alive.

Holton is not. He is currently up 15 pounds.

"I think it's ridiculous that I'm labeled a criminal by my government
for using something that's keeping me alive," Holton stated.

Ellen McClung, age 53, of Gilford, used the exact same phrase. "If I
hadn't discovered medical marijuana when I was 18, 19 years old," she
said, "I would be dead. It saved my life."

McClung has multiple sclerosis, a painful muscular disease that
wasn't even diagnosed until she was in her 30s. She uses medical
marijuana to control spasticity in her legs and for pain. She tried
Sativex, a pharmaceutical-alternative drug she obtained in Canada,
but it did not control her pain.

Before her diagnosis was confirmed, McClung "thought (she) was going
crazy" and wondered what, if anything, was wrong with her. Being
introduced to marijuana in her late teens allowed her to relax and
calm down, greatly improving her mental state.

Marijuana as medicine

New Hampshire is bordered by two states - Vermont and Maine - that
have allowances for medical-marijuana usage. Some are working hard to
make sure New Hampshire is next.

Matt Simon, of the NH Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy, is
heavily involved in getting a bill before the state legislature this
year to have New Hampshire join the ranks of states that allow
medical marijuana use.

The proposed bill, HB 648, "simply acknowledges the obvious fact that
some seriously ill New Hampshire patients benefit from their
medicinal use of marijuana," Simon observed. "There is no moral
justification for continuing a policy that criminalizes patients for
trying to relieve their suffering. (The law) would allow for the
individual or an assigned caregiver to grow a specific amount of
marijuana for personal medical use," he states. Speaking in January
at a screening of the medical-marijuana documentary "Waiting to
Inhale," Simon is to quick to mention that this would be "a
tightly-crafted law," and would not allow for large-amount growing fields.

A similar bill, HB 774, was narrowly rejected (186-177) by the House
in 2007, but Simon said he believes support will be much stronger this year.

"In the past two years, the consensus for allowing medical marijuana
has grown. Michigan and New Mexico enacted medical marijuana laws,
and now 25 percent of Americans live in medical marijuana states,"
Simon said in a press release about the bill. "In addition, the
prestigious American College of Physicians issued a paper supporting
marijuana's medical value. And, the new U.S. president has pledged to
end the federal raids on medical marijuana providers, which had been
a concern for many legislators." enlarge Taking a break from a
computer game, 23-year-old Clayton Holton takes a hit from his
marijuana pipe at his home in New Hampshire. Holton suffers from
Duchenne muscular dystrophy and chooses to smoke marijuana rather
than take painkillers. He is confined to a wheelchair, and said the
marijuana makes him hungry but doesn't make him sick like painkillers
did - at one point, he was down to 79 pounds. The medications, right,
are for his other ailments.

Taking a break from a computer game, 23-year-old Clayton Holton takes
a hit from his marijuana pipe at his home in New Hampshire. Holton
suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy and chooses to smoke
marijuana rather than take painkillers. He is confined to a
wheelchair, and said the marijuana makes him hungry but doesn't make
him sick like painkillers did - at one point, he was down to 79
pounds. The medications, right, are for his other ailments.

The bill's prime sponsor is Rep. Evalyn Merrick, D-Lancaster. An
initial hearing for the bill has not yet been scheduled.

Many are hoping 2009 is New Hampshire's year.

"I am cautiously optimistic about getting a bill through this year,"
said Rep. Joel Winters, D-Manchester, of District 17.

"New Hampshire has a history of doing the right thing and not caving
in to fear of the feds - we stood our ground with Real ID cards," he
pointed out.

Simon said a focus of the bill will protecting patients from arrest
and incarceration, and giving law enforcement clear aids in
discerning casual users from, for example, cancer patients.
Registered ID cards would be one good tool, he said, both for the
patient and the grower.

The bill Simon's organization will help to promote will be carefully
worded so as to "prevent recreational users from trying to use
medical marijuana laws as some sort of loophole. We simply want to
get patients off the battlefield."

Most law enforcement officials aren't buying the medical marijuana argument.

Bill Quigley, the state coordinator for law enforcement's drug
evaluation and classification program, has trained countless police
officers to detect and define drug effects in users.

Marijuana does not need to be legalized because there is a perfectly
acceptable legal version called Marinol. The synthetic lab-created
drug mimics the effects of Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

However, any medical marijuana users who have tried Marinol will tell
you the pills are much harder to tolerate, and that smoking real
cannabis allows the patient to better control the dosage. The user
can take one hit, wait for results, and repeat if necessary. Marinol
doses aren't as easily adjusted by the individual and are often more
debilitating.

From remedy to contraband

The medical benefits of marijuana have been long and vehemently
debated in medical journals and halls of justice, ever since cannabis
became an illegal substance in the 1930s. Before that, it - along
with cocaine, morphine and other now-taboo drugs - could be found in
tinctures, syrups and all manner of compounds aimed to cure what ailed you.

Cannabis has been used since ancient times as an herbal remedy. But
as suddenly as it was taken off the legal market, its legitimacy as a
medicine was quickly refuted, and those who asserted otherwise were
met with derision and sometimes outright hostility.

Doctors who dared to prescribe, or even suggest, marijuana to their
patients as an alternative source of relief for their symptoms were
often threatened with criminal charges. Dr. Marcus Conant of San
Francisco was the lead plaintiff in a successful lawsuit against the
federal government in 2002, claiming doctors' rights of free speech
were being trampled upon. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit held that the government couldn't punish physicians for
voicing their professional opinions, including recommendation of
medical marijuana.

Robert Randall, dubbed "patient zero," was the first person to win
the legal right to use marijuana medically in this country. A
glaucoma patient, he successfully argued in federal court in 1975
that "any sane person would break the law to save their eyesight."
His legal victory led to the creation of the Investigational New Drug
Program, in which several patients were supplied with marijuana
legally on a regular basis.

Still, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug.

"Schedule I drugs have a high tendency for abuse and have no accepted
medical use," according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
This schedule includes drugs such as marijuana, heroin, ecstasy and
LSD. Interestingly, "Schedule II drugs have a high tendency for
abuse, (but) may have an accepted medical use and . . . includes
examples such as cocaine, opium, morphine and methamphetamines."

If the effort to pass HB 648 succeeds, New Hampshire would become the
14th state since 1996 to pass legislation protecting medical
marijuana patients, joining Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii,
Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island,
Vermont and Washington.

Simon hopes New Hampshire turns the corner sooner rather than later,
adding "There are people now, patients now, that don't have years to wait."

[Sidebar]

The Pot Debate((

The Telegraph examines the debate about marijuana in a three-day
series in print and online, including the opinions of those who
enforce the law, make the law and those who run afoul of it.

Visit The Telegraph's Pot Debate page for an archive of all articles
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ON THE NET((

For more information from the New Hampshire Coalition for Common
Sense Marijuana Policy:

NHCompassion.org.

NHCommonSense.org.