SENSE SINSEMILLA

Is "Green Medicine" A Lifesaving Therapy Or Just A Great Way To Get Over On
The Man?

Ken Brown's world collapsed on Nov. 6, 1991, at approximately three o'clock
in the afternoon, when he was on his way to the hardware store for a
49-cent plumbing fixture.

While he sped north on a busy stretch of Highway 101 toward the coastal
town of Florence, an Audi full of teenagers locked in a high-speed drag
race hurtled toward him from the opposite direction. Without warning, the
Audi zig-zagged across four lanes of traffic, veered into an embankment,
flipped over twice and crash-landed on top of Brown's 1971 Datsun station
wagon--flattening it down to the door handles.

"It was like...being hit by a meteor," Brown remembers.

The occupants of the Audi crawled from the wreckage relatively unscathed.
Brown was not so lucky: The collision broke his neck in three places,
crushing his spinal cord at vertebrae C2, C3 and C4. When he regained
consciousness, 13 days later, he was lying in a hospital bed in a tangle of
tubes, his lungs ventilated by the mechanical whoosh of a respirator. He
tried to sit up, but his legs wouldn't move. He tried to lift his arm, but
his biceps wouldn't contract.

He was paralyzed from the neck down.

Ten years later, lying in a Tigard rest home, Brown's hairless body has the
texture and color of a Vietnamese salad roll--a translucent pinkish white
with the hint of the blue veins beneath. He breathes through a tube
sticking out of his Adam's apple. Tasks as mundane as taking a sip of Diet
Coke can be accomplished only with the help of an attendant holding a cup
and straw to his mouth.

To cope with the intense pain that accompanies his paralysis, Brown takes
massive amounts of morphine. He also uses pot. "The marijuana is...10 times
better than...the legal drugs," Brown explains, in gravelly phrases that
come in three-second bursts dictated by the mechanical ventilator. "It
amplifies the morphine.... I hardly ever spasm.... It's pure bliss."

Brown, 51, is a registered cardholder in the state medical-marijuana
program, which gives him the right to eat cannabis-laced brownies. Two
months ago, however, the Oregon Department of Human Services told Brown's
attorney that his attendant could no longer feed him his marijuana--a
seemingly obscure decision that has had far-reaching consequences, limiting
patients' access to marijuana and plunging the 3-year-old program into
confusion. In response, Brown and other advocates have launched an
initiative to overhaul the program and shake loose some of its most odious
restrictions--relax them so much, opponents say, that marijuana would
become legal in everything but name. (For more on the initiative, see
"License to Chill," page 27.)

The battle over the initiative, which hits the streets this week, provides
a tantalizing glimpse into the evolution of medical marijuana in Oregon.
Despite its original intent--to let patients with severe or terminal
illness smoke pot without fear of prosecution--the program has created a
hazy netherworld at the ragged frontier between state and federal law,
where legitimate patients rub elbows with seasoned stoners seeking refuge
from the War on Drugs.

Ever since Oregon became the first state to decriminalize possession of
small amounts of cannabis in 1973, hempheads have mounted at least half a
dozen attempts to legalize it. They all failed--until the medical-marijuana
movement gained momentum in the late 1990s.

Oregonians may not have been ready to end the prohibition on pot, but they
were receptive to the idea that severe or terminal illnesses--particularly
cancer, AIDS and glaucoma--could be treated with a home-rolled joint
instead of an avalanche of expensive pills, each carrying a small-print
portfolio of side effects.

Like an old-time country doctor, Clifford Spencer makes house calls on sick
patients with his "green medicine."

In 1998, with the backing of three deep-pockets libertarians--currency
speculator George Soros, University of Phoenix founder John Sperling and
Ohio insurance executive Peter Lewis, who together contributed
$140,000--advocates launched Measure 67, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.

OMMA was billed as a practical and compassionate measure. Only patients
with specific conditions would qualify--and only with their doctor's
permission. Patients would grow their own weed and smoke it in the privacy
of their own homes, hidden from public view. Those too sick to grow pot
could ask their caregivers to do it for them. No money would change hands.
The campaign, led by a grandmother with multiple sclerosis under the
rallying cry, "Protect dying and suffering patients," proved persuasive:
Oregon voters approved Measure 67 by 54.6 percent.

In reality, however, the majority of patients aren't terminal cancer
victims, but aging baby-boomers with much vaguer complaints.

A WW analysis of data provided by the state Department of Human Services
shows that relatively few of the 1,700 current cardholders suffer from
marquee diseases: 3 percent have cancer; 3 percent are HIV-positive; 2
percent have glaucoma; and 1 percent have cachexia, or wasting syndrome. In
fact, the overwhelming reason patients sign up for the program is pain:
fully 53 percent of cardholders report "severe pain" as their primary
medical condition, citing causes as varied as arthritis, migraine,
carpal-tunnel syndrome, menstrual cramps and fibromyalgia (see chart, page 23).

The prospect of a bunch of middle-aged patients demanding marijuana to cope
with their arthritis is likely to prompt skeptical spluttering.
Nonetheless, the case of Ken Brown would still the harshest critic.

Brown suffers from severe pain that requires up to 300 milligrams of
morphine a day. Not only does the morphine make him woozy, but the high
doses cause constipation so intense that his feces must be extracted by
hand. With marijuana, however, Brown can reduce his dose to as little as 35
milligrams.

Pot also relieves the spasms that convulse his entire body for minutes at a
time. "It's like a bear hug...I can't take air in," he explains. "It's
frightening.... You don't know when it'll end...."

Brown was one of the first patients to sign up for the medical-marijuana
program, and he quickly discovered the law's drawbacks. The state of Oregon
may be willing to let him consume cannabis, but under federal law,
marijuana is still a Schedule I substance. The managers of his previous
group home in Eugene worried that if federal authorities got a whiff of
Brown's marijuana use, they'd dispatch hordes of inspectors to shut the
place down. Brown moved to a more accommodating home in Tigard, but the
paranoia continues--the administrator of his new home asked WW not to
mention its name for fear of official reprimands.

Physically unable to grow his own marijuana, Brown hooked up with a
registered caregiver from Portland, who drove to Tigard once a week with a
Tupperware container full of marijuana-laced brownies. But this, too, ran
afoul of the law--the box contained more than one ounce of pot, the maximum
allowed--so his caregiver had to make frequent trips with smaller amounts.

Then there was the issue of who would actually administer the brownies.
Brown can't feed himself, so volunteers had been. In getting on the ballot.
So far, it has failed to line up major financial backers. Conventional
wisdom holds that shoestring petitions should start circulating by January
if they are to have a chance of making the June 5 deadline for the November
election.

"It's going to require an awful lot of money to get this on the ballot in
such a short time," says Dr. Richard Bayer, who campaigned for the original
law. "Without six figures in the bank, it's going to be a challenge."

If the initiative succeeds in becoming a fully grown ballot measure, the
campaign is likely to resemble a family squabble over curfew, with
advocates arguing that the current law is unreasonably restrictive, while
opponents predict that loosening the screws will only trigger more
outrageous demands.

Critics of medical marijuana frequently charge that "dopers" are sneaking
in under the guise of the sick. But this complaint ignores reality. Pot
smokers are already breaking the rules. Is it really any worse if they bend
the rules instead?

"Yeah, it's hypocritical," shrugs Floyd Ferris Landrath, a marijuana
activist who has encouraged pot smokers to apply for cards even if they
have no legitimate medical reason. "But the laws on prohibition are
hypocritical."

License To Chill

This week, medical-marijuana advocates fired the latest salvo in Oregon's
ongoing cultural war over cannabis. Known as OMMA II, the initiative would
make radical changes to the state's medical-pot law.

Under current rules outlined by the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, patients
may qualify for the medical-marijuana program only if they suffer from
Alzheimer's, cancer, glaucoma, HIV, seizures, spasms, nausea, severe pain
or cachexia (a withering of the body.) They must obtain a physician's
approval. They may not possess more than one ounce of marijuana at any
time, nor cultivate more than three mature plants and four immature plants.
They may designate a caregiver to grow the pot for them, but they cannot
pay the caregiver any money. And they can't give or sell their pot to
another cardholder.

If OMMA II becomes law, patients would not be restricted to any particular
diagnosis so long as a doctor, nurse practitioner or naturopath says they
could benefit from marijuana. Patients would be allowed to possess up to
one pound of marijuana--or, under certain conditions, up to six pounds
(that's 96 ounces, or 2,722 grams, kids). They could grow up to 10 plants
at a time. They could also obtain marijuana from licensed dispensaries.
Caregivers could be paid for their pot.

Finally, if patients successfully register after they have been busted, any
punishment is automatically reduced to a $500 fine.

Advocates say the changes are necessary to guarantee cardholders access to
a lifesaving drug. "We approach this not as a political issue but as a
medical issue," says John Sajo, the executive director of Voter Power, a
group of medical-marijuana patients and advocates. "Marijuana is
medicine--safe, effective medicine--and patients should get however much
they need. It might be politically risky, but it's the right thing to do."

Law-and-order types, however, pooh-pooh the proposal. "Six pounds?!"
splutters Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis. "Jesus Christ!
That's a lot. These guys aren't really trying to expand medical marijuana.
They're looking to legalize recreational use."

Activists say the current law suffers three major flaws: supply, access and
stigma. OMMA originally assumed most patients would simply grow their own
marijuana, but the reality is that few patients have the space, the
equipment or the expertise. The caregiver system, in which registered
caregivers grow pot for patients, has proven tricky to maintain, in part
because of the niggardly restrictions of the law. An ounce of weed is not
enough for many patients. "Most of the patients who qualify don't have
medicine most of the time," Sajo says. "That's intolerable."

In addition, many patients can't find a doctor willing to sign the form.
Those who do discover that, although the law requires the state Department
of Human Services to process applications within 30 days, cards often are
not issued for a year or more. The paperwork hassles and the cost ($150 a
year) conspire to keep many deserving patients out of the program. "For a
lot of people, getting the card just isn't worth the bother," Sajo says.

Finally, the program has been bedeviled by perceptions that patients are
just looking for an excuse to get high. It remains unclear whether OMMA
II--or any other law--can do much about that "Cheech and Chong" image.