FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE SHOULDN'T BE A CRIME

Talk-Show Host Montel Williams Tried Many Different Medications to Dull the
Pain From MS, but the Only Thing That Has Worked for Him Has Been
Marijuana. That Makes Him a Criminal in Illinois.

You may know me as a television talk-show host, but I am also a criminal.
My crime? Using the medicine that has allowed me to live a normal life
despite having multiple sclerosis.

Being diagnosed with MS in February 1999 felt like a death sentence. I
wondered what the future held for my family and me. Would I cease to be
self-sufficient and independent?

I always took excellent care of my body. I worked out, followed a healthy
diet and looked the picture of health. What I was hiding was the
mind-numbing pain that seared through my legs as if I was being stabbed
with hot pokers. I doubted my ability to function as a husband, father,
son, brother, friend, talk-show host and producer. I honestly couldn't see
a future.

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.

These powerful, expensive drugs brought me no relief. Instead, they made me
nearly incoherent. I couldn't take them when I had to work because they
turned me into a zombie.

Yet, even with all the drugs, I couldn't sleep. I was agitated, my legs
kicked involuntarily in bed, and I found myself crying in the middle of the
night.

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
how I became suicidal and twice attempted to end my life. I was in severe
mental and physical pain, getting little sleep and feeling completely
spent. Someone suggested that I try smoking a little marijuana before going
to bed, saying it might help me fall asleep.

Skeptical but desperate, I tried it. It was like a miracle. Three puffs and
within minutes the excruciating pain in my legs subsided.

I had my first restful sleep in months. When I awoke, the sheet and
blankets weren't on the floor and my legs had taken a break from their
nightly kicking.

Marijuana is classified by the federal government as a Schedule I drug,
meaning that--like PCP, LSD and heroin--it is considered unsafe to use
under any conditions, including medical supervision. Physicians are not
allowed to prescribe it. But 99 percent of marijuana arrests are made by
local police under state law, and states can choose not to arrest medical
marijuana patients.

Last year, Montana and Vermont joined the list of states that protect
medical marijuana patients from arrest under state law, bringing the total
up to 10--one-fifth of the U.S.

But in Illinois, I'm still a criminal.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of
Sciences, released a two-year study of marijuana that showed it was
effective in combating the muscle spasms associated with MS. Canada, Great
Britain, Israel and Netherlands also have conducted studies on marijuana
and found that it can help people suffering from certain forms of cancer,
AIDS, MS and Tourette's syndrome by relieving symptoms such as pain,
nausea, loss of appetite, muscle spasms and tics. Patients struggling for
life and dignity against illnesses like MS, cancer or AIDS should not be
treated as criminals.

It is time to take politics out of the debate. It is time for
government-sanctioned research into the medicinal effects of marijuana and
time to heed the research already available. It is time to change
marijuana's classification so that physicians can prescribe it.

And while we await that rescheduling--which must be done at the federal
level--states can and should act now to protect patients under state law.
Just such a bill, House Bill 0407, is under consideration by the Illinois
House.

In the eyes of the law, I am a criminal. But because of medical marijuana,
I am still alive and living a far more productive, fruitful life than
before. And that shouldn't be a crime.

TV Talk show host Montel Williams is the author of "Climbing Higher."