MARIJUANA HELPS HER LIVE AGAIN, DISABLED WOMAN SAYS

FAYETTEVILLE -- In a small town in Northwest Arkansas lives a woman who
hates drugs but smokes marijuana every day.

Before being severely injured in a car accident in 1995, this woman --
we'll call her Jane Smith, which is not her real name -- was a
substance-abuse counselor.

A year after the accident, she could not walk, sleep, sit or stand without
experiencing constant, debilitating pain in her neck, shoulders, back, hips
and legs.

Her physician diagnosed her with fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by
aching and pain in muscles, tendons and joints all over the body,
especially along the spine.

Typically, doctors treat fibromyalgia symptoms -- there is no known cure or
treatment for the disease itself -- by prescribing non-narcotic
painkillers, medications to aid in sleeping and physical therapy.

Jane Smith tried all of these things, for months and months. She went to
physical therapy regularly, and tried dozens of different pain and sleep
medications.

But none of them were working.

"About a year and a half after the accident, I wasn't healing," Smith said
in an interview last week with The Morning News. "I was in so much pain, I
couldn't get comfortable any way, I couldn't go up and down stairs, I
couldn't sleep. It was terrible."

Many fibromyalgia patients, according to medical research, experience
similar problems in finding relief. In some cases, patients try narcotic
painkillers -- when their doctors will recommend it.

"I don't like the way narcotics affect my body, the way they make my mind
foggy and the other side effects," said Smith, who fears criminal
prosecution if local authorities discover her true identity. "So I was
never interested in trying those medications to ease my pain."

About the time she was near giving up hope, an "old hippie friend from the
'70s" dropped by to visit Smith.

"I know you don't smoke pot and haven't in a long time, but I really think
you ought to try this," Smith recalled her friend telling her. "I think it
will help your pain and allow you to still function."

As an addiction professional, she knew marijuana isn't physically
addictive, she says. So she agreed to try it.

"He had some with him and pulled out the pipe, and I took a couple of draws
on the pipe, and immediately my pain started subsiding," Smith said. "I
could feel my neck and shoulders and back starting to relax, and by the
time I finished (about five puffs) I felt relatively normal again -- almost
like I did before the accident."

After her friend left, Smith says she sat down and asked herself: "What now."

Having no other options for pain relief, Smith began using marijuana
medicinally on a regular basis. It has changed her life, back to
near-normal, and made it possible for her to do things like shop for
groceries, go to the movies with friends, clean her house, and simply sleep
through the night.

"It's been the most effective medicine for me by far, in terms of not
interfering with my life or with my thought processes," she said. "One of
the reasons I think it's so vital to people like me is because the patient
can control their own dosage."

A typical person with debilitating pain can get substantial relief by
taking just three to five puffs off a pipe or marijuana cigarette; the
effects can last anywhere from four to eight hours, experts say.

Smith noted that the amount of the active agent in marijuana that she
typically ingests two or three times a day is far less than the amount in
the only federally approved form of marijuana now available, a pill called
Marinol. Several national studies, including two by top federal health
agencies, have found that patients taking Marinol report significant pain
relief but complain of side effects such as marked impairment of mental
capability and lethargy.

"I don't want to go around being stoned all the time; that's not my cup of
tea," Smith said, referring to the way many patients report feeling after
taking Marinol. "In spite of the fact that I'm severely disabled, I still
lead a very active life."

A Northwest Arkansas-based group is working toward getting a
medical-marijuana law enacted in Arkansas.

ARDPArk, or the Alliance for Reform of Drug Policy in Arkansas, is a 2
1"2-year-old group of Arkansas residents who believe that many patients who
suffer from debilitating diseases and symptoms should be legally allowed to
use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The group, founded in 1999 by six Northwest Arkansans, has been working to
educate the public and state lawmakers about the scientific benefits of
marijuana for such conditions as multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy,
glaucoma, AIDS, cancer, stroke, Tourette's syndrome, arthritis and
muscle"joint injuries, and for chronic symptoms such as pain, muscle spasms
and tremors, seizures, nausea, vomiting, insomnia and migraine headaches.

ARDPArk has been concentrating for the last several months on a petition
drive to put a medical-marijuana initiative on the November ballot for
public vote.

It's an issue Smith is passionate about.

"Nowadays we in this country have a lot more important things to worry
about than whether people are smoking a little herb -- especially sick
people," she says. "Our country is wasting millions and millions
prosecuting these people for a drug that is proven to be safer than
cigarettes or alcohol."

In addition, Smith said, legalizing medical marijuana would take much of
the danger out of the lives of the patients, who currently have to
surreptitiously purchase their marijuana on the black market from career
drug dealers.

"I can tell you these are not nice people running these drug cartels," she
said. "They make Osama bin Laden look like a pussycat."