Up in Smoke:

A MEDICAL MARIJUANA SUPPORTER SHARES HIS PAIN

New Bill to Legalize the Drug Has Been Filed in the House

After enduring two rounds of back surgery and suffering nerve damage
in his leg, Marshall Parks knows the rest of his life will be a
battle against pain.

He's taken a laundry list of medications and treatments.

The one he said works the best is illegal.

He was rarely a political activist, but now he feels it's time to be
an advocate for medical marijuana. Not just for himself, but for
people he has watched suffer, including his late mother.

"I don't want to live a life where I have to make excuses for myself," he said.

He's trying to get an answer to a question that is becoming asked
more and more around Illinois - should he be legally allowed to use
marijuana for medical purposes?

The Journal-Courier agreed to identify Parks by his pseudonym because
of concerns of legal repercussions.

Snuffed by a Narrow Margin

The medical marijuana issue in Illinois may only be on the back
burner after efforts to approve it were quashed by the state General Assembly.

The bill, known as the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot
Program Act, has been filed again as House Bill 30. It would provide
that those diagnosed with a debilitating condition such as AIDS,
glaucoma, cancer or chronic pain would be issued a card by the
Department of Public Health allowing them to possess no more than six
cannabis plants and 2 ounces of dried cannabis.

The former bill - Senate Bill 1381 - failed by four votes.

It was the closest the measure has come to passing in the state.
Although proponents saw it as a change in the tide, opponents said to
expect similar results in the future.

One opponent is Illinois Rep. Jim Watson, R-Jacksonville.

"There are a lot of studies in these states that have used it, teen
use has gone up. And when you ask them how they got it, they say it's
just easier," Watson said.

He said Illinois' bill was modeled after one implemented in Colorado.
Watson said most bills for medical marijuana he has seen fail to
effectively regulate it in a manner that prevents increases in drug
abuse, which he called a "disaster" for those states. He said his
opposition to the bill isn't because he is not compassionate, but
that ease of accessibility though methods such as dispensaries or
doctors who readily issue prescriptions would allow the wrong people
to abuse the system.

Even though the previous bill failed by only four votes, Watson said
he expects it to be harder to pass a bill in the current General
Assembly now that lame ducks are gone and there are new Republican legislators.

Watson also said he doubts he would ever vote for a medical marijuana bill.

"Nothing I've seen so far would entice me," Watson said.

Trying to Get Through Pain

Parks' recollection of time is muddled between his second back
surgery up until the time he lost his job because of the heavy doses
of pain medication he was on: Prescription medicines he said made him
feel like a zombie.

He suffered a herniated disk in his back in 2001, which was fixed
without too much trouble.

But years later, in 2006, an accident at work caused his back to go
out once again.

After tests he compared to torture, the second surgery was less
successful because of scar tissue.

Doctors. Therapies. Drugs. Some were more successful than others. The
chronic pain exacerbated his clinical depression and he admitted that
suicide would sometimes drift into a mind clouded by pain medication.

Such thoughts took a toll on his daily life. One example was when he
was pulled over by a police officer on his way to the store.

He explained he was changing lanes to let another driver go by but it
seemed someone thought he was driving erratically and called police.
Parks - who was taking Oxycontin - said he was pretty angry and
wasn't feeling right.

"I said to him 'if you had any compassion, you'd take your gun out
and put two to the back of my head'," he recalled.

The police officer asked if it might be good to take Parks to the
hospital for a mental evaluation, but ended up calling his wife, who
had to make excuses for his strange behavior.

He was forgetting things, too: Important things. He credits his wife
for preventing a drug overdose that could have killed him - a result
of not remembering when he took his last dose.

His life was spiraling in other ways, too, including losing insurance
that paid for the drugs. He turned to marijuana.

It was a drug he had used for recreational purposes in the past. Even
though he thinks of it as a luxury item, it was still cheaper than
buying prescription pain medication.

"Marijuana gives you something else to focus on other than the pain.
It doesn't take away all the pain, but neither did the Oxycontin. But
I feel a bit more lucid," he said.

Parks said the behavior he exhibited while taking Oxycodone was
taking its toll on the family, but marijuana allowed him to enjoy his
life more.

He said he feels guilty that his wife has to go to work while he
stays home, but he enjoys helping her around the house so she can
relax when she gets home.

"We're in our mid-50s and she works real hard," Parks said. "If I'm
well enough to do things for her, it makes me feel good. When I was
on Oxycontin, I was a puppet. You may as well of put me in a case. I
had problems communicating, I was paranoid."

Police: Reasons for the Law

Jacksonville Police Chief Tony Grootens worked for many years as an
agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. He disagrees with
medical marijuana legislation for a plethora of reasons.

One problem it presents to law enforcement officials is handling laws
that prevent driving under the influence of drugs.

"It metastasizes with the fat in your body. If you smoke a joint
today, it stays in your blood for 30 days," Grootens said. "So how do
we determine if a person is driving under the influence?"

For this reason, Grootens said legal marijuana may require a revision
of the motor vehicle code.

Still, Grootens said medical marijuana may be popular for reasons
outside of it's medicinal effects.

"The problem I have with medical marijuana is it's a strategic ploy
by the people who want legalized drugs," Grootens said.

He pointed out states such as California and Colorado, where he said
medical marijuana led to easy access and increased the ease of
abusing the drug. He said some dispensaries have been known to mark
up the price and sell it out the back door.

"Do you think there's not doctors out there that won't just write
prescriptions?" Grootens said. "That there are doctors out there who
are not on the up and up and you tell them symptoms and they'll write
you a script?"

He said many doctors are reprimanded every year for writing
prescriptions without keeping accurate records, showing a medical
need or even seeing a patient.

If marijuana becomes a prescription drug in Illinois, it would likely
join the ranks of other abused prescription drugs.

Grootens said one of the problems with prescription drug abuse is
it's easily accessed, typically stolen by younger people from their
parents' or grandparents' medicine cabinets.

"It would be a real problem to regulate it. It would be easily
abused. I'm not for it at all," Grootens said. "I don't think any
good can come from it."

Finding a Middle Ground

Some law enforcement authorities, including Grootens, said they might
be in favor of medical marijuana if it wasn't for the fact that
medication already exists that can do its job.

Marinol is a synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol - that's an active
ingredient in cannabis - that has been approved by the FDA and
endorsed by the DEA. It is prescribed for chemotherapy patients
suffering from nausea and vomiting or AIDS patients who have a loss
in appetite.

The side effects of the drug are similar to those of marijuana.

"What other drugs do we have that are smoked?" Grootens said, adding
that marijuana is known to have four to five times more tar than
tobacco and other adverse health effects like memory loss and loss of
depth perception.

Parks said that he's heard of the drug and has known people who were
prescribed it and said it was less preferable to cannabis itself. He
said that marijuana vaporization or ingestion is the preferred method
of use as it does not generate the tars from smoking and works faster
than Marinol.

Focusing on the Stigma

One of the biggest reasons Parks wanted to take on the fight to
approve medical marijuana was because of his mother.

She died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma when Parks was only a young man.
He said she had no appetite and was always in pain and he believes
she might have lived longer and suffered less if she had used marijuana.

"It was hard on the family as much as the person," Parks said.

He said family members and even medical professionals suggested it to
her, but she would have no part of the drug.

He said he has this feeling that medical marijuana may never be
passed in the state.

Ironically, Grootens said he feels as though there may be no stopping
medical marijuana legislation. He felt what had happened in other
states has been the result of legislators giving in to pressure from
pro-marijuana special interest groups such as the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Many advocates for marijuana like to make comparisons to alcohol and
other drugs and Parks feels that alcohol is far more destructive than
marijuana.

"Have you ever seen two stoned guys fighting each other for a quarter
on a pool table?" Parks said. "People on alcohol do that. And they
might have $50 in their pockets while they do it."

Grootens said he felt that the prohibition on alcohol didn't work
because it was already a part our culture and stopping marijuana laws
may keep that from happening again.

"We have so many problems with alcohol, so why would you want to add
to that?" Grootens said.

"There is this stigma," Parks said. "It's that whole 'reefer madness'
thing that started in the '40s or '50s maybe. It got vilified
somewhere along the line."