BREAST CANCER HAS MADE ME A CRIMINAL

LOS ANGELES -- AT 9 O'CLOCK on the night of my first round of
chemotherapy, exactly six hours after I left the oncologist's office
wondering what all the fuss was about, my stomach tumbled into my
knees, my knees refused to work altogether, and I crumpled to the
floor in a clammy, shivering heap.

I lay there until dawn, at one point vomiting on myself, at another
crying that I'd rather die of cancer than undergo chemo again. I was
hot. I was cold. My shoulders wouldn't stop shaking. My legs wouldn't
move at all. Huge hallucinations rolled over me.

In the morning I was stunned to realize I was still alive. But there
was my 2 1/2-year-old daughter, poking me with her toe, wondering
whether we could dance. I made my way to the stereo and made myself a
vow: I'd do whatever necessary to avoid having her find me on the ground again.

First call was to the doctor, who promised to fine-tune my protocol
and adjust my pre-chemo meds. The second was to a friend I thought
might have a marijuana connection. I had read enough, and written
some, about the medicinal uses of marijuana to believe it might keep
me from suffering so in three weeks, when I was scheduled for my
second poison drip. Not to mention that months of treatment loomed.

A day or two later, a manila envelope with nothing but my initials on
it was delivered to me, free of charge. I stuck the gift deep in the
freezer without even opening it. I didn't need to then. But I needed
the option. For one of the few times since I had been diagnosed with
Stage 1 breast cancer, I felt a sense of control.

Maybe someone who hasn't been there can't understand my willingness
to break the law. Sure, a number of states, including mine, have
legalized the medicinal use of marijuana. But the Drug Enforcement
Administration refuses to go along. It sees me as a criminal. Then
again, none of the Supreme Court justices who ruled that medical
marijuana users could be arrested despite those state laws stopped by
to see how skinny I'd gotten or to retrieve me from a bookstore when
I wasn't able to walk another step without retching.

That was left to D., one of my more conservative friends. She was the
one who had warned me: Do not get high, or you'll be sorry. She was
not, however, telling me to forgo marijuana. The forbidden leaf had,
after all, seen her through her own chemotherapy. Now my own
unfortunate turn was at hand, and she was encouraging me to smoke
until the nausea passed but to stop smoking before any paranoia set in.

"Trust me," she said dryly, "cancer and thinking too much are not a good mix."

And now the Food and Drug Administration has said cancer and cannabis
don't mix at all. The federal agency recently announced that "no
sound scientific studies" support the medicinal use of marijuana, a
finding contrary to a 1999 review by scientists from the Institute of
Medicine. That highly regarded panel confirmed what many sick people
already knew: Marijuana makes the nausea bearable during chemotherapy
and can keep AIDS patients without appetites from wasting away.
Proponents of its use called the FDA ruling political, as opposed to
scientific or, say, humane.

Within weeks of starting chemo, I was down a dozen pounds, not so
much queasy as unable to eat. Of course, since I live in Los Angeles
this was considered by some a perk. "You're so teeny," women would
tell me. "Yeah, well, I have cancer," I'd reply, running a hand
through my shockingly good synthetic wig. "Oh, sorry, but . . .
you're so teeny."

My oncologist, however, wasn't as thrilled about my size, especially
with my cell counts so dangerously low that any cut and every sneeze
put me at risk. Alone with her in the examination room, the scar from
my lumpectomy still raised and raw to her touch, I asked about
marijuana use in cases like mine. The doctor didn't scoff. She did
say I needed to stop losing weight despite having eliminated dairy,
sugar, and alcohol from my diet in a cancer-fighting frenzy.

So I dug into the freezer for the manila envelope. I undid the clasp
and removed a fat bud of seriously stinky marijuana. I remember
standing in the kitchen thinking, I have to save the life of my
daughter's mother, and whose business is that but mine?

Lynda Gorov is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer