PATIENTS DEFEND MARIJUANA

Don Lisk, 57, of Kalispell has spent at least 20 years in pain from
back injuries.

A year ago, Sarah Baugh, 25, of Billings suffered 12 seizures a day
while taking 14 medications that cost $2,000 a month.

Both say medical marijuana has changed their lives for the better.

They shared their stories to get the word out about the benefits of
marijuana to counter the recent wave of negative stories.

"People don't understand how much it's helping people - it's changed
everything for me," Baugh said. "People always focus on pain and
cancer but it helps so many other diseases."

Baugh, who grew up in South Carolina, first was diagnosed with
epilepsy at 15. She suffered both grand mal and petit mal seizures as
well as uncontrollable tremors between seizures.

"It caused me to lose my handwriting," she said.

Because the stress of exams worsened her condition, Baugh was forced
to drop out of college just a few credits short of graduation. As a
side effect of one of her many medications, she gained 150 pounds.

On two occasions, her fiance had to resuscitate her when she failed
to start breathing after a seizure. Even when she started breathing
on her own, Baugh suffered horrible nausea and muscle aches in the
recovery period.

"It's the worst part of having a seizure," she said.

While experimenting recreationally with marijuana, she discovered the
drug helped without the side effects and expense of her prescription drugs.

She and her fiance, Shane, researched the states in which medical
marijuana was legal, then moved to Billings in 2008 where retired
physician Dr. Edwin Stickney gave her the recommendation needed to
receive the card that changed her life.

By using marijuana, she weaned herself off most of her medications
and now takes just a small dose of anti-seizure medication. Baugh
trimmed her drug costs from $2,000 to less than $600 a month.

She dropped 150 pounds, lost the tremors and seizures. Baugh had one
setback when she came down with swine flu in November and couldn't
smoke or eat her cannabis. She had two seizures that stopped as soon
as she could again ingest marijuana.

"Now I'm fully healthy and planning a wedding," Baugh said.

With her epilepsy controlled, she fears the negative headlines tied
to medical marijuana may turn the public against the legal use that
Montana voters passed by a large majority in 2004. Several local
governments around the state have passed laws banning or restricting
the sale of medical marijuana inside city limits.

She said she can't face returning to a life of uncontrolled seizures
without medical marijuana.

"It's as critical to me as blood-pressure medication is to a heart
patient," she said.

Lisk of Kalispell has the same fears about losing legal access to the drug.

His journey with medical marijuana began last September.

He received a Montana medical marijuana card so he could use the drug
to dull his back pain enough to let him sleep at night.

Lisk said the drug takes the edge off the pain and he doesn't suffer
the withdrawal he experiences with opiates such as Lortab. He uses
marijuana mostly in the evenings and never drives impaired.

"I don't get up and get high all day," he said. "I don't think most people do."

According to Lisk, the drug relieves muscle cramps and gives him some
relief from the chronic pain that he said has driven him to the
brink. He said he doesn't know all the potential side effects, but
points out his prescription drugs have long lists of side effects up
to and including severe liver damage.

Lisk keeps his marijuana locked up and he has discussions with his
teenage children about the difference between medical and
recreational uses of marijuana. Like Baugh, he wants to present his
point of view with the goal of improving the system before abuses
turn the public against medical use.

"It's way too easy to get a marijuana card now," he said.

Lisk wants to see the regulations changed to narrow the conditions
that qualify for marijuana cards. He said people should blame the
poorly crafted law for abuses of medical marijuana use and sale.

"We shouldn't make scapegoats out of physicians," he said.

He said he was "an easy person to prescribe for" with extensive
medical records to document his back problems that started during
eight years in the Marine Corps. After the military, years of
construction work made matters worse.

Finally, he opted for major back surgery, including insertion of
screws and spine fusion, in the early 1990s.

"The fusion didn't take - it got worse," he said. "I came here on
Social Security Disability in 1994."

He had more surgeries in futile attempts to cure his back pain.
Finally, in 1999, Dr. Ned Wilson performed a procedure that
alleviated his pain enough to allow him to go back to work.

Lisk arranged financing to buy tools to lay carpet and later moved
into specialty concrete floor finishing. He initiated termination of
his government check.

"How many people do you know who called Social Security Disability
and said 'Take me off?,'" he asked. "I didn't want to cheat."

Eventually, the heavy concrete grinding work damaged his back and
brought back pain along with numbness in his feet and legs.

Lisk uses medical marijuana as just one part of his pain control therapy.

"I'm not advocating legalization for recreational use. It's another
form of pain medication that should be available," he said. "It's
just so badly controlled."

He said that groups such as the Montana Caregivers Network, in their
zeal to help people find physicians to prescribe the drug, caused a
backlash with their mass clinics that attract people in pain as well
as those seeking recreational pleasure.

"It's turned into a carnival," he said. "We need to treat this
respectfully, responsibly for what it was meant to be."

Baugh agreed that the very public clinics "have hurt the movement."
She said many patients didn't want to attend these events but had no
choice because their own doctors refused to even consider
recommending medical marijuana.

"They [patients] feel judged as illegal just for having gone to that
clinic," she said.

Lisk was one who participated after he couldn't find a physician who
would help him obtain a card. While working on a construction job in
Great Falls, he took his medical records a Montana Caregiver Network clinic.

Lisk said Dr. Patricia Cole of Whitefish spent about five minutes
reviewing his records then talked with him for about 10 more minutes.

"She told me that I was the kind of person that this program was
pointed towards," he recalled.

He estimates that about 100 people went through the clinic that day,
comparing it to a turnstile operation. However, both Lisk and Baugh
say that Cole was unfairly targeted when she was fined $2,000
recently for seeing 150 patients in 14 1/2 hours at one of these clinics.

Baugh said her fiance saw an emergency-room physician in Billings for
not more than five minutes before he prescribed two opiate pain
killers and a muscle relaxant without even knowing the source of his back pain.

"Why did they single her out?" she asked about Cole. "I think it was
a witch hunt."

Baugh questions the fairness of demonizing crimes related to medical
marijuana while giving a pass to those related to prescription drugs.

She said medical marijuana theft from patients and growers is no
different than theft from patients of prescription painkillers such
as Lortab for illegal distribution to minors and others. Baugh said
no one has suggested closing pharmacies distributing Lortab or
outlawing the drug.

To get their views out, Baugh and some 147 others supporters of
medical marijuana had formed "Citizens for Cannabis Comprehension,"
an organization with a stated goal of educating "on all aspects
surrounding cannabis for the benefit of our entire community."

A Facebook page includes articles and discussions.

Baugh favors legalizing the drug completely but said Montana isn't
ready for that. She hopes that the state solves its card system
problems without completely rejecting medical marijuana for patients
who benefit.

"It's the inevitable growing pains of legalizing a drug that was
previously illegal for 70 or more years," she said.