GLAUCOMA PATIENT CALLS FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

ELVY MUSIKKA, 63, says she's one of only seven people in the nation to
receive legally prescribed medicinal marijuana from the federal government.
She earned that distinction after being arrested for growing pot at her
Hollywood, Fla., home in the late 1980s. She decided to cultivate and use
the controlled substance, she said, to alleviate the effects of severe
glaucoma. Since winning a 1988 court battle, she has traveled the country
calling for marijuana's legalization for medical use. In Wisconsin recently
for the Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival in Madison, Musikka talked
with Journal Sentinel reporter Jesse Garza about her medical marijuana use,
what she describes as the insanity of the war on drugs and the need for
lawmakers to take a new look at national drug policy.

Q. Did you smoke marijuana before your glaucoma developed?

A. No, unfortunately. Had I been a smoker in the '60s I would have never
made the decision that turned my life upside down. I'm sure I smoked more
cigarettes and consumed more alcohol as I was pondering. I needed to make a
life-altering decision.

Q. Do you have to get your prescription renewed?

A. I get the cannabis every five to six months. I have to fly back to
Florida to pick up the cannabis at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. It's
part of the University of Miami. I get it renewed when I pick it up.

Q. What is the potency of the marijuana you receive?

A. This, I would say, is comparable to high-grade Mexican marijuana. It's
made from Mexican seeds grown at the University of Mississippi. They come
in a tin with 300 rolled (cigarettes), 238 grams. I consume seven to eight
grams a day. I bake with it or make butter for bread. I will smoke 10
joints a day, if I don't have access to an oven.

Q. Do you think marijuana should be legalized solely for medical use, or
are you in favor of complete legalization?

A. Knowing the history of marijuana, I believe to arrest an adult for
choosing a "wiser bud" is the epitome of hypocrisy. And to arrest a patient
for helping another patient is a blasphemy on the creator's work.

Q. What would you say to those who believe that marijuana, in all forms,
should be outlawed?

A. The killer drugs are all legal. Thousands of people are lost every year
to legal drugs and alcohol. We don't have a war on drugs, we have a war on
the drugs that compete against the pharmaceutical industry.

They have not read any reports that have been requested and financed by the
government. It is not a gateway drug, it's not addictive and it is, in
fact, very beneficial for people with several illnesses.

Seven hundred thousand people are arrested a year. The prison industry and
the pharmaceutical industry are supported by the war on drugs. I personally
know people who have committed suicide from taking prescription
pharmaceuticals. Responsibility and compassion are needed at this time.

I see tremendous stupidity to waste all of our resources and continue in
this insane war on our own people. There's got to be a better way to deal
with this.

God made this plant. They would have to put God as the chief conspirator.