CANNABIS USERS FACE DAILY FEAR

Marijuana Supporters Seek Understanding

It's hard to ignore the humorous aspect - the sniggering side - of efforts
to legalize marijuana. A week before this city hosted yesterday's first
"Cannabis Liberation Day" rally, I received a press release from organizers
and called the person listed as the contact. Except that the man who
answered the phone wasn't the organizer - his number was mistakenly listed
with the contact's name.

"Her cell phone number got confused with my number," 22-year-old Yakov
explained, rather fuzzily. "Things got mixed up while we were putting this
stuff together." He later added that organizers tried to hold a similar
rally last year, but failed to secure the necessary permits "in a timely
manner."

Like, hey, go figure. Marijuana is blamed for many things, but it's never
been accused of turning users into CEOs.

But the time and money spent by law enforcement to prosecute benign pot
smokers is no laughing matter, especially when municipal budgets are
busting and we're laying off cops. Nor is it funny that sick and dying
people are denied access to medicinal marijuana, when voluminous anecdotal
evidence shows it can ease a host of painful and debilitating symptoms.

Marcy Duda is a 42-year-old mother of four who lives in a three-bedroom
ranch in Ware. She's suffered from severe migraines since she was 12. Five
years ago, she underwent two surgeries to remove five aneurysms from her brain.

She still has the migraines, along with nerve damage from the surgery. Her
doctors prescribed OxyContin, but the drug makes her nauseous. So about
once a month, when she feels a migraine begin its excruciating dance behind
her eyes, she smokes marijuana to relieve the pressure.

"I'm just trying to survive," said Ms. Duda. "There are times when these
migraines come on, I wish I had a gun. It's like a hot ice pick is grinding
around in my brain. When I smoke pot, at least it doesn't feel like my
head's going to blow up."

If not for pot, she said, "I'd be hooked on OxyContin, and I don't want to
be. When I take that, I feel drunk and like I want to vomit. I can't even
drive to a lousy soccer game."

As the well-heeled drug wars sputter on, the real crime is that someone
like Marcy Duda lives in constant fear of getting arrested in a society
where marijuana prohibition causes more social damage than the drug itself.
She said she doesn't keep pot on her premises and wisely declines to
divulge her drug source, although one time her grandmother supplied it and
"friends who love me" sometimes help out, she said.

Ms. Duda urged compassion when she spoke in 2001 before the state
Legislature's Joint Committee on Health Care, if we can ignore the pun. And
earlier last month, Beacon Hill held more hearings to consider the
decriminalization of marijuana, after polls and referendums showed solid
public support for removing marijuana from the criminal realm.

Meanwhile, law enforcement continues to treat pot smokers like Al Capone.
Last month, police in the small town of Holland raided the home of a vocal
advocate for pot legalization after citing in their request for a search
warrant the man's recent letter to the editor and involvement in "pro
marijuana rallies." After finding $850 and one-quarter of a pound of pot in
the home, police charged David and Judith Bunn with possession of
marijuana, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and violation
of drug paraphernalia laws.

Mr. Bunn wasn't home at the time of the raid; he was in the hospital after
undergoing stomach surgery. He said six armed police officers used a
battering ram to burst into his home. One officer handcuffed his
18-year-old son while four others "had their guns trained on my son's naked
girlfriend as she stumbled across the floor to get her clothes," he said.

Mr. Bunn showed up at yesterday's rally in a wheelchair. Earlier last week,
he told me he smokes marijuana to ease a breathtaking array of physical and
psychological medical woes, including bipolar disorder, panic attacks,
arthritis, asthma and a swallowing disorder.

He acknowledged he's been smoking pot for 34 years and has been arrested
for it a half-dozen times. And if you question whether he really needs
marijuana for medicinal reasons, the real question we should be asking is -
who cares? Why is our cash-strapped government wasting time on this man?

"I'm a criminal in my own country and all I do is smoke marijuana in my
home," said Mr. Bunn, 49, a board member of the Cannabis Reform Coalition.
"The things that are done under the guise of this drug war make me sick."

Opponents of medicinal marijuana use the "slippery slope" argument,
claiming that it opens the door to full legalization and leads to community
breakdown, as if an influx of Twinkies and renewed interest in "Gilligan's
Island" reruns would cause lasting social harm.

"I absolutely do not believe marijuana has any positive medical effects on
people," said William T. Breault, chairman of the Main South Alliance for
Public Safety, who acknowledged he has no medical training. "There are
better, more effective drugs than lighting up a joint."

When I asked him to name one, he offered Marinol, an FDA-approved drug that
contains synthetic THC, a component of marijuana. Marinol is well known to
Ms. Duda - under her Mass Health insurance policy, it would cost her $2,080
a month to use it.

If pot were legalized, she said, she'd grow 10 plants a year for free on
her acre of land in Ware.

"I'm getting very frustrated with the Legislature," said Ms. Duda, a former
home health aide who said she's seen sufferers of AIDS and multiple
sclerosis benefit from marijuana. "I pay my bills and my taxes. I do
everything I'm supposed to do as a parent. I'm not a criminal, but I'm
always looking over my shoulder."

The New England Journal of Medicine has called on federal authorities to
rescind their prohibition on the use of marijuana for seriously ill
patients. And for those who would still deny Marcy Duda the means to ease
her suffering, she issued a challenge.

"I'd tell them to put their feet in my shoes when I'm having one of my
headaches and then tell me no," she said. "If it's still no, then these
politicians don't give a crap about me."