THE PERSONAL DOPE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The pot smokers came to a downtown hotel on a recent afternoon to
hear the speeches, to meet others and to talk. Who, me? I attended
the Cannabis Awareness Forum, not because I am unaware, nor because I
inhale, but because I tend to favour legalization.

I sat up front, next to Erin Maloughney. By way of making
conversation, I asked if she was a medical user of marijuana. Erin
smiled amiably, dug into her wallet, showed me her licence and said,
"I can grow 25 plants. I can transport 1,125 grams, and I can possess
150 grams. I have to renew my licence annually. Which is funny,
because the pain never goes away."

The pain?

"I broke my back twice. The first time, I was 13 years old. I was
asleep in the car with my lap belt in place. My friend's father
didn't turn on the highway where it bends. The car jumped a creek bed
and it crumpled. A doctor found us and pulled us out. We were taken
to Sick Kids Hospital. My friend didn't walk again. I did.

"The second time I broke my back, I was riding my bike to work. I was
hit by a car. The car didn't have its turn signal on." Erin had been
a career receptionist. She can no longer work. She smiled
enigmatically and said, "In my last job, I was on the joint health
and safety committee."

It took me a moment to catch on.

Joint health.

What is not funny is that she is in constant pain; several of her
vertebrae are fused, and she has other annoying chronic problems. How
bad is the pain?

"I'm always at four out of ten. I can turn my head and ... oh, I just
jumped to a seven. It's never-ending. It gets worse with the rain,
with humidity, with menses. I can't walk with my groceries. That's life."

The dope keeps the pain at a manageable level.

"I started smoking after the first accident. It was a teenage thing;
someone's brother was a dealer. One day we lit up. The other girls
got giggly. I didn't.

"Normally, if I'm sitting on the ground, I get stiff and it's hard to
get up. I can't walk uphill. I can't run. But after smoking the joint
I got up easily. The other girls asked me why wasn't I shaking my stiff leg."

She said, "I felt good."

Let's be clear: good is relative. Let's be clear about something
else. Regular painkillers do not work for her, and they are hard on
her body, nor are they meant to be taken in the dosage she needs. And
even though the grass helps her get around, she is not now and will
never be as mobile as she'd like to be.

She got an insurance settlement a few years after she broke her back
the second time. She said, "I've been living in a condo downtown.
I've made adaptations. I have grab bars, a raised toilet seat, cork
floors. I wear better shoes. I get cortisone shots."

She also gets her nerves zapped with microwaves. "They place a needle
in my spine, and they test to find the nerve that's hurting and they
zap it; the nerve cooks inside me. Eventually it re-grows and the
pain comes back."

So, um, how does she use grass? Is she a smoker? Is she a baker? Does
she make tea with her tea? "I take bong hits and I make marijuana butter."

I am familiar, in an academic way, with the uses of the bong; the
butter was new to me.

Erin said, "I take a crock pot, add a pound of butter, add my
marijuana and some water. I leave it overnight. I stir it once in a
while. The butter turns green. I don't clarify it." And with her
magic butter she bakes cookies and makes chocolates, and dresses her pasta.

She has recently turned part of her apartment into a modest garden
for some two dozen marijuana plants. And she is being pursued by the
other residents of her condo, who think she's running some sort of grow-op.

Oh, kids.

If you think two dozen plants are a problem, you have never seen a
real grow-op. In any case, she's legal.

Erin twisted in her chair and stretched her back and winced, and then
she smiled. I said she seemed pretty chipper, all things considered,
and I asked if her mood was a function of the herb. She said, "No,
it's a quirk of character. Live long. Sing out loud. Dance even if no
one is watching." Words to live by.

How often does she use?

"I smoke every hour on the hour. I'll just nip out into the alley
now. If anyone gives me lip, I'm feisty. I don't see asthma sufferers
going into the alley to inhale. What I'm doing is legal."

And, frankly, it is necessary for her health. She is not a product of
reefer madness. She is the girl next door. She is also one of some
1,800 medical users of marijuana in Canada. I'll talk to others in a
future column.