CANCER CHANGES LAWMAKER'S MIND ON DRUG

Illness Leads Underheim to Introduce Bill for Use of Medical Marijuana

Madison - After doctors removed his cancerous prostate, Gregg Underheim was
frozen by uncertainty: Had the cancer spread? Would he need chemotherapy
and, if so, would the treatment itself make him miserably ill?

Underheim, chairman of the Assembly's Health Committee and a Republican,
began thinking of others who had waged brave and painful battles with
cancer. Some, like his father, had lost the fight.

He also engaged in an internal debate about whether those suffering from
cancer should be allowed to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, to cope
with the pain of the cancer and the nausea often caused by the treatment.

That consideration alone was a major shift for a legislator who in the late
1990s was quoted in High Times magazine opposing the legalization of marijuana.

In the end, he decided to buck his party's leadership and introduce a bill
that would allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for medical reasons.

"Certainly, having gone through what I went through makes you think about
things differently. That affected my decision on this," said Underheim, of
Oshkosh.

"I bumped into a couple of people - going through my episode - of people
who had chemo. We sort of talked about things, and how violently ill people
got, how miserable life was for a period of time." His father, then him

His own father had died of colon cancer in 1986, although he had fought it
with a strict diet and alternative medicines.

Years later, Underheim, 53, himself showed signs of cancer. He tried to
ward off the disease by eating gardens of vegetables, losing weight and
drinking gallons of green tea.

Eventually, however, biopsies confirmed doctors' suspicions and he
underwent surgery in June 2002. He then waited several agonizing days for
test results, which provided good news.

The cancer had not spread.

"That was a day of great relief, but you think about things like that while
you're waiting to hear what the outcome was," he said. "You're wondering
about chemotherapy, that kind of stuff."

Those months of emotional churning and internal debate prompted him to
change his mind about the medicinal value of marijuana.

"If you do the chemo, for a period of time you really feel miserable," he
said. "Then, just as you're getting better, it's time to do another chemo.
I've talked to a couple of doctors who say it's worthy, certainly, of
looking at." Stiff opposition

Underheim knows his bill faces tough sledding, particularly among his
fellow Republicans, who control the Legislature and wish the measure had
again been floated by a Democrat.

Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo) said Underheim's bill has "got a
big mountain to climb - I think he understands that the odds are stacked
against him."

Told that Underheim plans a public hearing on his bill this year, Gard
said, "It's a free country."

Underheim knows the election-year political reality, so he has a fallback
position he could accept: a compromise that would result in thorough
research of the medicinal value of marijuana.

But he said that it could cost up to $2 million for an institution like the
University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics to do such a study - money state
government doesn't now have. Hospital officials declined to comment on the
issue, saying they had not seen a final copy of Underheim's bill.

But Paul Wertsch, president of the Wisconsin Medical Society, said his
organization supports research on the potential medical use of marijuana -
if those who participate don't have to smoke it.

The medical society "supports research into whether smoked marijuana may be
therapeutic for certain patients, but marijuana should not be generally
used until scientific evidence is available regarding its safety and
efficacy," Wertsch said.

"Research should be directed toward developing a smoke-free, inhaled
delivery system for marijuana to cut the health risks related to the
combustion and inhalation of the drug." Public open-minded

Underheim said he doesn't believe the average citizen would object to his bill.

"I think the public is much more comfortable with this than policy-makers
are right now," he said.

Having seen his father take alternative medicines, and using a strict diet
himself to combat cancer, Underheim is willing to endure any soft-on-drugs
political flak.

"Medical marijuana falls into that category of stuff that's 'alternative'
in its approach right now," he said.

No, Underheim said, he didn't smoke marijuana after his prostate surgery.
And he won't say whether he ever has.

"This really isn't about my past personal habits," he said. "This is really
about a public policy question . . . . I was young so, so long ago.

Underheim conceded that there are unresolved issues associated with his
bill - particularly the question of how to distribute marijuana to the
critically ill.

"If you're going to do this - if you're going to legalize - you've got to
make sure that the opportunities for abuse, and recreational use, are not
enhanced by people using it for medical purposes," he said.

His bill specifies "if you have (marijuana) legally, you cannot provide it
to anyone else - even someone with a medical problem," he said.

"We specify also that, if you have a prescription and you provide, you lose
the prescription. You are no longer able to have the drug provided to you.
We're trying to be very, very serious about making certain that the people
don't misuse (marijuana), and this is truly a medical question."

Even the terms used in the public debate over his bill are important, he
said. That's why when quizzed about the measure while on a UW-Oshkosh
student radio program, he objected to the term "munchies."

"If you're serious about this bill, you can't use the language of the drug
culture to talk about this in medical terms," he said. "That's the fastest
way to undermine serious interest in it as a medical question."