DON'T TREAT PATIENTS USING MARIJUANA AS CRIMINALS

NEW YORK -- YOU MAY KNOW me as a television talk-show host, but here in
Rhode Island and 39 other states, I am also a criminal. My crime? Using the
medicine that has allowed me to lead a normal life, despite having multiple
sclerosis: medical marijuana.

Being diagnosed with MS, in 1999, felt like a death sentence. I doubted my
ability to function as a father, son, brother, friend, talk-show host and
producer. I honestly couldn't see a future. I had always taken excellent
care of my body; I'd worked out, followed a healthy diet, and looked the
picture of health. What no one could see was the mind-numbing pain that
seared through my legs, as if I were being stabbed with hot pokers.

My doctors wrote me prescriptions for some of the strongest painkillers
available. I took Percocet, Vicodin, and Oxycontin on a regular basis, two
at a time, every three or four hours. I was knowingly risking overdose just
trying to make the pain bearable. In my desperation, I even tried morphine.
Yet these powerful, expensive drugs brought no relief.

I couldn't sleep. I was agitated; my legs kicked involuntarily in bed, and
the pain was so bad I found myself crying in the middle of the night. And
all these heavy-duty narcotics made me nearly incoherent; I couldn't take
them when I had to work because they turned me into a zombie.

Worse, these drugs are all highly addictive. I did not want to become a
junkie, wasted and out of control. I spiraled deeper into a black hole of
depression.

In Climbing Higher, my book on living with MS, I write in detail about the
severe mental and physical pain that I experienced. It was so bad that I
twice attempted suicide.

Finally, someone suggested that I try smoking a little marijuana before
going to bed, saying that it might help me fall asleep. Skeptical but
desperate, I tried it.

Three puffs and within minutes the excruciating pain in my legs subsided. I
had my first restful sleep in months. The effect was miraculous.

But the federal government classifies marijuana in the same category as
LSD, PCP, and heroin -- considered unsafe to use even under medical
supervision. Physicians are allowed to prescribe cocaine, morphine, and
methamphetamine, but not marijuana.

Ninty-nine percent of marijuana arrests are made by local police, under
state law -- but the states can decide not to arrest medical-marijuana
patients. Ten states now protect medical-marijuana patients from arrest,
the latest being Montana, whose medical-marijuana law passed in November
with 62 percent of the vote. Yet in Rhode Island, I'm still a criminal.

Medical and public-health organizations agree that medical marijuana can be
beneficial. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National
Academy of Sciences, released a study commissioned by the White House that
had found marijuana effective in combating pain, nausea, and other symptoms
afflicting patients with MS, cancer, and other illnesses. The American
Public Health Association's policy statement summarizes the extensive
research showing marijuana's effectiveness, and adds: "Marijuana has an
extremely wide acute margin of safety for use under medical supervision. .
. . Greater harm is caused by the consequences of its prohibition than
possible risks of medicinal use."

Patients struggling for their lives against such illnesses as MS, cancer
and AIDS should not be treated as criminals. We need to get beyond
politics. We need more research into marijuana's medicinal effects, and we
should heed the research already available. The federal government should
change marijuana's classification so that physicians can prescribe it.

But while we wait for the federal government to act -- which, sadly, may
take some time -- the states should take action to protect patients. Just
such legislation, Senate Bill 710 and House Bill 6052, is now under
consideration by the Rhode Island legislature. The bills deserve immediate
passage.

Because of medical marijuana, I am still alive -- and leading a far more
fruitful life than before. I am not alone. There are thousands of patients
like me, and we should not be treated as criminals.

Montel Williams is a television talk-show host.