MEDICINAL POT ADVOCATE 'IN A MUCH BETTER PLACE'

Disabled Lake County Woman Taps Benefits To Pay For Drug

A good morning for Sylvia Price is getting out of bed, bathing and making a
cup of tea inside her trailer on the lakeshore.

She also puffs marijuana from a glass pipe.

Marijuana helps ease pain from a variety of disabling ailments. Price
turned to pot after an array of drug treatments that often left her anxious
and bedridden, and caused seizures.

What sets her apart from others who claim medical benefits from marijuana
is that she taps her state and federal disability benefits to pay for it.

And she does so with the approval of Lake County social service officials
who administer a state caregiver program that helps elderly and disabled
people stay in their homes.

"I'm a poster child and a guinea pig," she said. "Someone else is going to
want this. I feel an incredible moral obligation to stand up for people and
say medical marijuana works."

Price, 55, is allowed to deduct the cost of marijuana from her state
workers' compensation and federal disability income. As a result, her
income is low enough that she doesn't have to pay part of her caregiver costs.

Lake County Social Services Director Carol Hutchinson refused to discuss
the matter. She cited a law barring any comment on specific cases, even
after Price waived her right to confidentiality.

California Department of Social Services officials weren't aware of any
similar case among the 260,000 people in the state served by the caregiver
program, which is known as In Home Support Services.

"This is the first we have become aware of this," department spokesman
Andrew Roth said, adding that state officials are reviewing whether it's
legal to deduct costs for pot.

A potential alternative to pot is Marinol, a pill containing a synthetic
form of THC, the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana.

Medi-Cal, one of Price's government health care programs, allows doctors to
prescribe the pill. Price's doctor did not, however, given the side effects
she suffered from other medications. Instead, he wrote her a recommendation
to acquire marijuana for medicinal use.

"There is a group of chronic diseased patients who are going to respond to
this, particularly for illnesses that don't have easy treatments," said Dr.
Craig McMillan, who was Price's physician before his recent appointment as
Lake County health officer.

Having cared for many patients who are disabled, older and on fixed
incomes, McMillan said there are others who might be helped if allowed to
pay for marijuana with government benefits. He noted that Marinol is far
more expensive.

"Our patients are at a real disadvantage up here," McMillan said. "We're in
a rural area. We don't have a lot of specialists to refer you to. We don't
have a lot of pain management consultants in this area."

First diagnosed with lupus 25 years ago, Price also suffers from
osteoporosis, epileptic seizures and a condition known as reflex
sympathetic dystrophy syndrome. The chronic pain syndrome is linked to her
work as a massage therapist.

Price has been disabled since injuring her right hand at a Calistoga spa in
1992. She began smoking marijuana in 1996 and entered the caregiver program
a year later.

On a fixed income, Price appreciates the help she is getting to live on her
own under the care of her longtime companion, Terry Robl.

"The county and my doctor have been a godsend," Price said. "I'm in a much
better place now."

A former Navy ship's cook and country club chef, Robl met Price seven years
ago. He keeps house, cooks and helps her through periodic seizures and
bouts with pain.

"Somebody's got to watch the gal or else she will bug out," Robl said.

The refurbished trailer Price and Robl call home is at the end of a dusty
drive in Clearlake. It has proved to be a comfortable place for her to
reclaim a daily regimen.

In the morning, she can watch and listen to birds at a feeder Robl built
just beyond a small side yard where roses climb along a lakeside wall.

At sunset, Price might feel the energy and inspiration to take photographs
of Mount Konocti and its wooded slopes looming above the lake's shore.

One day recently, she sipped tea and munched an energy bar as jazz played
on a satellite TV service.

"I have an insatiable desire to live and let me smoke my weed, thank you
very much," she said after taking a puff from her glass pipe.

Price smokes the pipe periodically throughout the day. She goes through two
grams of marijuana, enough to fill a small tin box.

Smoking marijuana to battle pain has been quite a change for the mom who
raised three children in Hayward and then worked as a legal and bank
secretary in San Francisco for more than a decade.

She moved to Harbin Hot Springs in the Middletown area in the mid-1980s,
where she trained and worked as a massage therapist.

"I loved being a massage therapist, and then all of a sudden my life turned
around," she said.

The injury she suffered at a Calistoga spa in 1992 cost her the use of her
right hand and arm.

Doctors prescribed Vicodin and opiate patches, and she even took shots to
her spine to treat the pain. Her hand and arm still hurt, however, and she
suffered blackouts, memory loss and seizures.

"I was in a lot of pain and just terrified," she said.

California voters approved the state's medical marijuana initiative in 1996.

When Robl and Price met the same year, he suggested she try smoking
marijuana to treat the pain. He made purchases from pot clubs in Oakland
and San Francisco, and then became a regular Ukiah Cannabis Club customer.

Using receipts from the Ukiah club, Robl asked Lake County social services
officials in August 2000 to consider the money Price paid for marijuana.

A month later, the county began crediting her for the cost, about $430 a
month, so she wouldn't have to pay a similar amount toward her
$1,300-a-month caregiver benefits.

Last fall, the county reconsidered its decision to credit Price for the
cost of marijuana. A hearing was set before an administrative law judge,
but then the county dropped the matter without giving Price an explanation.

"They've got to prove to us that we're doing something wrong," she said. "I
can sit peacefully on the side of a lake and regain my health. I'm not
afraid of anything."