MY LIFE AND MEDICAL POT

As one of the four remaining patients enrolled in the U.S.
Government's Compassionate Investigational New Drug program (CIND) I
am compelled to respond to the snide and fallacious letter from Larry
Crompton (Can't Pot Cure Everything?), published in the
Democrat-Herald Monday, March 30.

I was born with congenital cataracts and as a child I had several eye
surgeries. By the time I reached my thirties I had developed glaucoma.
In 1975 my doctor recommended that I try cannabis, because if I didn't
I would completely lose my eyesight. My doctor made that
recommendation as my friend and not as a doctor because that
recommendation could have cost him the loss of his license to practice
medicine.

But I was shocked, I was very anti-drug and I viewed cannabis as very
much a drug to stay away from. But my stance was based on ignorance
and not knowledge. Cannabis did save my vision. Over 30 years later
and I still live independently in spite of my visual impairment. I
have lost vision completely in my right eye (because of too may
surgeries) but the vision in my left eye is better than it has ever
been - because of cannabis! All those surgeries have cost U.S.
taxpayers more money than I will ever earn in my lifetime.

I received care at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University
of Miami School of Medicine. Paul F. Palmberg, M.D., Ph.D., Professor
of Ophthalmology, is my eye doctor. Dr. Palmberg's work is
internationally recognized and he is an award winning researcher for
his work on glaucoma. He is a respected elder in his Episcopal church.

Where Mr. Crompton is correct is in his noting that I was arrested for
cannabis in Florida. What Larry doesn't say is that I was acquitted
and that my case set the precedent for medical necessity as a defense
in medical cannabis cases in Florida. In fact Circuit Judge Mark
Polan, who presided over my trial, concluded after reviewing ten years
of my medical records that I "would have to be crazy NOT to smoke cannabis."

Ironically that arrest was one of the best things ever to happen to me
in my life. It was that arrest that prompted me to apply as a patient
in CIND. Robert Randall, the first CIND enrollee and the man whose
lawsuit prompted the program's creation also suffers from glaucoma and
he too was arrested for cannabis possession.

Cannabis saved my eyesight. It should be an accepted medicine but the
federal government continues to block research and has acted in a
manner that has cost too many citizens too much by not acknowledging
this wonderful plant's efficacy as medicine. Criminalizing people who
use pot is an egregious wrong and the laws need to be changed.

In the 1980s DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young did an
exhausting study of cannabis and concluded that it is "is one of the
safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

I travel extensively presenting testimony to legislators and giving
presentations. I have crossed the continent many times, speaking in
all 50 states and I have traveled to many countries in Europe
presenting my case and speaking on behalf of patients and cannabis.

In an absurd statement Mr. Crompton says that there "is not one single
record of anyone with a medical marijuana card who did not smoke dope
before they found a problem that marijuana would fix." Absurd and false!

In my travels I have had conversations with thousands of patients and
my estimate is that at least half did not even know pot was medicine
and had never tried it in their lifetimes. But it is truly saddening
that people like Mr. Crompton, speaking from ignorance instead of
knowledge, have been the roadblock to discovering more about cannabis
as medicine.

The Larry Cromptons of our country perpetuate a cruel and expensive
hoax upon society.

In his report's conclusion Judge Young states, "It would be
unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand
between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of
the evidence in this record."