PATIENT RECEIVES FEDERAL MARIJUANA TO QUELL CHRONIC PAIN

Bradley Nowell of the band Sublime sang of smoking two joints in the
morning and smoking two joints at night. George Mcmahon, a medicinal
marijuana user, smokes 300 pre-rolled joints a month and it is perfectly legal.

After suffering a lifetime of pain, Mcmahon is now one of only five
citizens in the United States to receive federal medical marijuana.

Mcmahon feels he is one of the lucky ones and wants to get the message out
that marijuana can be beneficial to patients in need, and sometimes is a
better cure than many painkillers prescribed today.

Each month Mcmahon receives 300 machine-rolled marijuana cigarettes, which
he can smoke legally in any state of the union. The National Institute of
Drug Abuse has been sending him his medicine since March of 1990 and as he
smokes 10 joints a day, his pain is subdued as much as possible.

Pain had been a constant part of Mcmahon's life until 1990. He suffers from
a long unknown illness, finally diagnosed as Nal Patella Syndrome. NPS
causes bones to become deformed, brittle and break easily. The disease
affects major organs such as the kidney and liver and disrupts the immune
system in mysterious and unexplained ways.

Mcmahon was born with various physical deformities, including missing
fingernails, double-jointed fingers, and small kneecaps.

Doctors did not prescribe marijuana for NPS because there are only 200
known cases in U.S. medical history and marijuana cannot be prescribed
legally for the disease .

Instead the doctor set him up with the green leafy herb to quell his muscle
pain and spasms.

Previously, to correct the pain caused by his physical ailments, doctors
had prescribed opiates like morphine, Demerol, Codine and anti-depressants
like Valium. These prescriptions caused nothing but constant loss of focus
and major constipation. Mcmahon describes he felt dopey and drugged and
couldn't function normally. The prescription drugs would damage his
stomach, he couldn't eat and they left him in a terrible nauseated state.

It turns out; marijuana was they key to calming the chronic pain.

"The marijuana relieves my pain. The day I received my prescription I was
taking 10 a day," Mcmahon said. "When I received my prescription for
marijuana, I was in a hospital bed and I had not eaten for 30 days and not
slept for I don't know how many weeks. Then the orderly handed me a joint."

Mcmahon said after he finished the dose he was able to both eat and sleep.
The doctor had given him five hours to live and that was 12 years ago.

"I have gained strength instead of losing it," Mcmahon said about his life
after the marijuana prescription. "I am now able to do interviews and,
until recently, I have been traveling the country educating people about my
medicine."

From 1997 until 2000, Mcmahon and his wife circled the country in his
motor home trying to get his message to the masses. He has visited
universities and politicians and encountered many patients who have
benefited from marijuana.

"We just won a court case in the seventh district of the United States,"
Mcmahon said. "The judge ruled that doctors could talk to their patients
about prescribing marijuana."

Along his journey across the nation, Mcmahon said he constantly saw the
helpful effects of marijuana on not only adults but also children.

Mcmahon said he came across one boy out of a group of 21 who suffered from
cystic fibrosis. The boy was the only one who smoked marijuana. The boy
lived long enough to get a lung transplant, but not one of the other
children with similar diagnoses lived long enough to see the transplant.

Mcmahon doesn't know if marijuana was the reason for the child's survival
but he stresses that research is necessary to see if marijuana is a viable
medicine.