MAN CRUSADES FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

A couple of years ago, Charles Homan was driving by some apartments
that he and his wife owned. He spotted a tenant they were trying to
evict walking down the stairs outside.

Homan pulled over and started screaming at her. She retreated into
the apartment.

He stood out on the lawn for a long time, screaming, cursing and
waving his arms as his outpouring of anger became ever more
hysterical. Then he returned to his home in Manheim Township, where
he continued the tantrum in front of his wife.

As he paced back and forth in their living room, he threatened
violence. He would drive back out to the apartment and smash the
tenant's car repeatedly with his truck.

His wife knew better than to try reasoning with him. As always, the
episode passed, his anger replaced with a despondent depression that
left him feeling sick and unable to get out of bed for days. In the
clarity that came afterward, he thought back on it all with regret.

"I beat myself up," Homan said. "Why did I react like that? What is
wrong with me?"

In fact, he knows what's wrong with him. It's bipolar disorder, a
diagnosis he received 12 years ago.

And at the age of 58, after a lifetime of suffering with its effects,
Homan said he knows what he needs by way of treatment - marijuana.

Homan has begun a personal campaign for the legalization of
marijuana. The driveway to his home is lined with signs proclaiming
his need for his "medicine." He's printed out flyers.

On Monday, he will hold a rally on the steps of the Capitol in
Harrisburg. He said many people have e-mailed him to express their
support. But he doesn't know if anyone will join him, because he said
virtually everyone who has contacted him is afraid to come forward.

Homan doesn't care. As far as he's concerned, he has nothing to lose.
He's already been arrested for growing marijuana on his property, yet
he said he simply can't function without it.

He's undertaking his campaign at a time when the move toward
legalizing medical marijuana is "gaining significant traction,"
according to Derek Rosenzweig, co-chairman for the Philadelphia
chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Rosenzweig said 13 states already have approved the use of marijuana
for medical treatment. His organization has been trying for years to
get similar legislation passed in Pennsylvania.

In other states, much of the opposition to legalizing marijuana has
come from law enforcement groups arguing that the policy would make
it easier for people to obtain marijuana for recreational use.

While he applauds Homan's efforts in principle, Rosenzweig recommends
that he coordinate them with similar efforts taking place throughout
Pennsylvania.

Before the bipolar diagnosis, Homan said, a lack of appetite and
chronic insomnia plagued him throughout his life. He runs his own
business restoring slate roofs and said he's seriously injured
himself on more than one occasion after many days without sleep.

Over the decades, doctors prescribed to him just about every
prescription sleeping pill on the market. He doesn't respond well to
pharmaceuticals, he said, and he struggled with side effects
including a perpetual haze of exhaustion, addiction and outright mania.

After the diagnosis, he went through much the same ordeal with
prescription antidepressants, he said.

Some prescriptions made him scratch compulsively until he tore his
skin. Others only intensified the all-too-familiar cycle of
uncontrollable rage followed by crashing depression. He can point to
patched-over holes in his living room walls that he made during those episodes.

He had tried marijuana while visiting a friend's college in the early
1970s, he said, and experienced what he described as the only natural
sleep of his life. With that in mind, he tried it again a few years
ago. For the first time in decades, he said, his symptoms went away
without debilitating side effects to replace them.

The problem was getting hold of it. He began growing marijuana on his
property. In July, he said, state troopers entered his property and
his home while he was away and confiscated 21 plants.

He maintains that they entered without proper search warrants. A
spokeswoman for state police declined to comment. At a hearing this
week, he will attempt to get the charges dismissed on the grounds
that the evidence was obtained illegally.

In the meantime, Homan has been carrying on his campaign. He said
he's met with state Rep. Ron Miller, R-Jacobus, and state Sen. Mike
Waugh, R-Shrewsbury Township, and neither was particularly supportive.

So Monday, he will be at the state Capitol - alone, if necessary.

"I'm not a 17-year-old at the mall wanting marijuana on a Friday
night," he said. "I'm wanting to not hurt myself and take care of my
family. There's a difference."

POSSIBLE LEGISLATION

State Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, said before the end of the
month, he intends to introduce a bill that would legalize the use of
medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.

Cohen said he can get bipartisan support for the measure if his
fellow lawmakers are properly educated about the surrounding issues.
He wants to do everything possible to ensure that it doesn't allow
marijuana to be redirected for recreational use.

"I think there's more caution than opposition," Cohen said. "I think
many members of the legislature understand that marijuana has
legitimate medical purposes, but members don't want a system that's
just a series of loopholes."

The bill he's crafting could theoretically be used to treat mental
illness as long as a legitimate medical doctor has prescribed it, Cohen said.

According to Leon Czikowsky, a House of Representatives research
specialist who has been working on the bill, marijuana is most
commonly prescribed to ease pain and nausea for people with
conditions like cancer, promote appetite for patients of wasting
diseases like AIDS and relieve the symptoms of glaucoma.

While other medications exist to treat those conditions, Czikowsky
said, many patients and physicians find marijuana preferable because
of the lack of side effects.

State Rep. Ron Miller, R-Jacobus, said he would be opposed to any
such measure. He said the information he's received from medical
consultants indicates that anything medically beneficial in marijuana
could be extracted in pill form.

Miller also said he believes that legalizing something the federal
government classifies as illegal creates a kind of legal gray area
with which he's uncomfortable.

"Now we're saying we have laws on the books that we won't enforce,"
Miller said.

LEGALIZED

States that have legalized medical marijuana:

- -- Michigan

- -- New Mexico

- -- Rhode Island

- -- Montana

- -- Vermont

- -- Hawaii

- -- Colorado

- -- Nevada

- -- Maine

- -- Oregon

- -- Alaska

- -- Washington

- -- California

A bill that would legalize medical marijuana has also been introduced
in the New Jersey legislature.

Source: Pennsylvania House of Representatives

THE RALLY

Charles Homan will be on the steps of the State Capitol in Harrisburg
from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday.

For more information about the rally, visit www.MedicalMovement.com.