EMPTY POT PIPE CAUSES MORE PAIN FOR MONTEL WILLIAMS

Rest easy, Milwaukee, knowing that Montel Williams' pot pipe has been
taken away.

We're sending a clear message that we're not going to tolerate the
former talk show host's use of marijuana to ease the chronic pain of
multiple sclerosis. No sir. Not in our city, punk. Rub some dirt on it.

The celebrity didn't have any actual evil weed, you understand, but
the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department lightened his wallet by
$484 just for the empty pipe in his bag at a security checkpoint at
Mitchell International Airport this week. The contraband was very
much like the pipes you can buy in shops all over town.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Williams told me it was a wooden
pipe that he had forgotten to remove from the travel bag. It was
spotted by the screener, and Williams wound up being detained at the
sheriff's airport substation for an hour, though he did not miss his
plane. The pipe tested negative for marijuana residue. He did not
have to pose for a mug shot or leave fingerprints.

Williams doesn't call it a pot pipe. "It's an instrument I utilize to
take my medication," he said. That medication is marijuana.

"There were four police officers involved in this entire situation.
It's very interesting that a wooden pipe that tested negatively took
away the actions of four security officers that were there to protect
and serve the country against the potential of terrorist attacks,
bombs and other things," he said.

It turns out Williams had come to Wisconsin in search of healing, and
the drug paraphernalia ticket was a crummy parting gift.

Since September, he has been participating in experimental treatment
at the University of Wisconsin medical school in Madison. The
research involves stimulating the tongue with electrical impulses
that then flow into the brain stem and enable the brain to more
effectively process information in patients with MS, stroke, brain
injury or Parkinson's disease.

Williams found out about it when a fellow air traveler called his
attention to an in-flight magazine article about UW's Tactile
Communication and Neurorehabilitation Lab.

"I'm all in on this," he says excitedly in an online video about the
lab. At one point, he breaks down when talking about the possibility
of easing the pain in his feet and legs and improving his gait and balance.

Williams, 54, who hosted a TV talk show from 1991 to 2008, was
diagnosed with MS in 1999. He founded the nonprofit Montel Williams
MS Foundation.

The UW lab is trying to keep a lower profile until more test results
can be gathered and published, medical school spokeswoman Susan
Lampert Smith said. After Williams talked about it on Oprah Winfrey's
show, the lab was overwhelmed by requests from people who wanted the
treatment. No new patients are being accepted at this time.

Williams was in Wisconsin this week for a follow-up visit to the lab,
and he was returning home to New York on Tuesday when he got busted.
He said he'll be returning here to the lab once a month for the next
six months.

He told CNN he uses marijuana every day and expects that will
continue the rest of his life. "I don't get the same euphoria that
other people do. I get neuropathic pain lessening, and that's why I
use it," he said.

He's become an outspoken advocate for legalizing the drug for
medicinal use, and said he's a "card-carrying" user in two of the
states where it's been approved. Wisconsin has talked about joining
those more enlightened states but so far hasn't. Neither has his
state of New York.

For now, we're the place that nails sick people at the airport for
carrying their medicine dispensers. Williams was not critical of the
screeners or the deputies and said they were doing their jobs. He
said he deserves no special treatment.

This happened to him once before at the airport in Detroit in 2003.
He was ticketed for having a marijuana pipe, but the case later was
thrown out in court, he said. Without detailing his defense, he said
he plans to send some paperwork about his medicinal use to the court
in Milwaukee. His court date is Feb. 2.