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Friday, May 2, 2008

You Can Thank Yourself Later

posted by on May 2 at 10:00 AM

The problem with medical-marijuana marches, such as the one beginning Saturday at noon in Volunteer Park, is that people who hike for miles through the city don’t seem terribly sick. They just don’t appear to need life-saving medicine. Moreover, the stoners banging on djembes in the crowd seem to march mostly for their allegiance to the counterculture.

But those people aren’t the reason to march for medical marijuana. Well, not all of them. Some of those “stoners” are only healthy enough to trek through the city because marijuana has helped manage their MS, severe pain, wasting syndrome, etc. So they are the living proof that medical marijuana works. But even those folks are not why we go.

We march for the people who can’t.

Yesterday afternoon Timothy Garon died at Bailey-Boushay House. He had Hepatitis-C and needed a new liver, but Harborview and UW Medical Center denied him a transplant because he used medical marijuana. Even though it was recommended by his physician, and legal under state law, and didn’t cause liver damage—the hospitals called it substance abuse. If he’d instead taken federally approved drugs that caused liver damage, the docs probably would have let him live.

The people who need medical marijuana today have cancer and full-blown AIDS, and without pot they are too ill to hold down food or even anti-nausea pills. Those are the people who would be marching for medical marijuana tomorrow—if they could.

You and I are those people; at least, we will be. We will probably die from cancer or an equally miserable condition. So will our friends and families. But before we die, we can either experience pain and nausea, or we can hang out and watch Oprah reruns with our family and eat pudding. Medical marijuana, for many of us, could be the deciding factor.

Hospital officials, lawmakers, and opinion leaders routinely dismiss the proven medical value of pot and consider federal reform a low priority. And it is a low priority, until you or someone you love needs it. If they get it and nothing bad happens as a result, great. But as it stands, sick people are arrested for it, or in Mr. Garon’s case, he died because of it. So be healthy, and march on Saturday before you need that pot brownie. You can thank yourself later.

Seattle’s march, held in conjunction with 200 other cities, begins at noon on Saturday, May 3 in Volunteer Park and heads to a rally at Westlake Park. The poster is super hippie dippy. Too bad it looks like that.

RSS icon Comments

1

Before you need or eat? I'll be there. Sober.

Posted by Mr. Poe | May 2, 2008 10:09 AM
2

well put, domilla. thanks for being vigilant on this.

Posted by dpa | May 2, 2008 10:11 AM
3

I don't believe you, Poe.

If Sloggers are going, maybe we could have a meetup and march together?

Posted by NaFun | May 2, 2008 10:14 AM
4

I sent email to those doctors from the Slog post earlier in the week and got back an at-least-mostly-canned response about how medical marijuana use is never the sole determining factor used to make a decision about someone's qualifications for an organ.

Is there a chance we'll ever get more information about whether the marijuana was really the decision-maker in Garon's case?

Posted by leek | May 2, 2008 10:18 AM
5

Bull. Shit.

Posted by umvue | May 2, 2008 10:25 AM
6

@3

Showing up to a medical marijuana march stoned, carrying, or smoking, seems a little tasteless.

Posted by Mr. Poe | May 2, 2008 10:27 AM
7

leek@ 4) The UW sent me the same form letter, saying medical pot is never the sole reason for refusing a transplant, etc. However, that is the only reason the hospital has cited. (Specifically, Dr. Reyes says that pot is addictive and he was concerned Garon would likely have relapsed into marijuana use. The UW never acknowledge that medical marijuana is a legal therapy in Washington.) In the bottom paragraph of the letter I received, it said:

...the committee looks at a number of other issues, including behavioral concerns such as a history of substance abuse or dependency.

Was use of pot, under a physicians care, considered substance abuse? I replied seeking clarification.

Dear Clare,

Thanks for sending this.

Does use of marijuana, under a physicians care and legal under state law, qualify as "substance abuse" under the committee's criteria?

Dominic

Dominic, In answer to your question, I refer you back to the first sentence of our statement: Although medical marijuana may be an issue in rare cases, it is never the sole determinant in arriving at medical decisions about candidates for organ transplants, and whether a patient is listed. Clare Hagerty Assistant Director for Media Relations Health Sciences / UW Medicine
Clare,

I saw that, but the statement doesn't address the question: Does the use of marijuana, under a physicians care and legal under state law, qualify as "substance abuse" under the committee's criteria?

Thanks,
Dominic

The UW never replied, which I take to mean that medical pot is substance abuse in the eyes of the transplant team. Even if that's not the sole reason, according to everything they have indicated, it was the deciding variable. And, at the risk of sound like a broken record, if he'd take a federally approved drug for pain and nausea that actually caused liver damage, he probably would have received the transplant. And that's bullshit: marijuana is legal under state law and should be recognized as such by a state hospital.


Posted by Dominic Holden | May 2, 2008 10:38 AM
8

@6 - Agreed. If you want the march to be taken seriously by observers who may be undecided (or at least willing to be persuaded) on the issued of medical marijuana, showing up giggly, glassy-eyed and reeking of freshly-smoked pot is the last thing you'd want to do.

Posted by Hernandez | May 2, 2008 10:48 AM
9
You and I are those people; at least, we will be. We will probably die from cancer or an equally miserable condition. So will our friends and families. But before we die, we can either experience pain and nausea, or we can hang out and watch Oprah reruns with our family and eat pudding. Medical marijuana, for many of us, could be the deciding factor.

I think your dramatically overestimating the number of us who will die a horrific death. Don't be such a downer.

Posted by Giffy | May 2, 2008 10:48 AM
10

@6 And since when has seeming tasteless ever stopped you from doing anything before?

Posted by NaFun | May 2, 2008 10:55 AM
11

Yeah, sorry, Dominic, I hadn't gotten down to last night's post yet when I commented. I wonder if Garon's next-of-kin would be willing to talk to you about the specifics of these supposed other reasons that may have been involved.

Posted by leek | May 2, 2008 10:56 AM
12

I know I'm not being entirely original on this but another thing about marches. If all these people have 3-4 hours on a Saturday to walk down the street, they have time to write emails to state and federal electeds, send in op-eds and letters to the editor, and raise money for actual campaigning. You know...the things that may actually lead to policy changes.

Posted by Gabe Global | May 2, 2008 11:03 AM
13

@10

Good point.

Posted by Mr. Poe | May 2, 2008 11:12 AM
14

The problem with fighting for medical marijuana at all is that it dodges the more general issue - marijuana should be as legal or more legal than alcohol and probably sold at Safeway and QFC.

I hate the idea of hiding behind sick people on this.

Yes, yes, incremental change, small victories, etc.

Posted by JMR | May 2, 2008 11:15 AM
15

This case is absolutely tragic. Not only was Tim denied a life extending transplant because of his legally prescribed medication, but in the last few months of his life he was being actively prosecuted in Snohomish County for felony manufacturing of marijuana, again, FOR WHICH HE HAD A LEGAL PRESCRIPTION!

I represented Tim on his felony charges up here. He was growing marijuana for his own use, as prescribed by a licensed physician. On December 18, 2007, Tim's Mountlake Terrace home was raided by Lynnwood police officers, at which time they essentially confiscated everything in his house, including his guitar. He was subsequently charged with Manufacture of a Controlled Substance.

Under Washington's medical marijuana law (RCW 69.51A), a patient who is legally prescribed marijuana my produce and possess up to a 60 day supply. Unfortunately, the law does not define what constitutes a 60 day supply. Consequently, gung ho, war-on-drug cowboys are left to determine for themselves what is meant by a 60 day supply. And in Tim's case, police and prosecutors arbitrarily decided he had too much.

While Washington's medical marijuana law is a good step in the right direction, it obviously isn't perfect. Because of it's vagueness, people like Tim are put in a position to decide for themselves what is meant by a 60 day supply and still risk prosecution if authorities decide that what they have is too much. It's ridiculous.

It is tragic that Tim was denied his place on the liver transplant list. And it is also appalling that the State decided to put him in the position of defending his legislative right to possess and produce his medicine, adding absolutely needless stress and concern in the last months of his life.

Posted by Todd Allen | May 2, 2008 11:34 AM
16

The first two paragraphs of this article are dead on and needed to be said. Thank you, Dominic.

I believe in medical marijuana. That said, I don't believe for one minute that most of the marchers at the march will be there for that particular cause. Lest you forget, the Million Marijuana March has been going on for almost ten years and, if my memory is correct, I don't remember it initially being specifically about medical marijuana, but more of a pre-Hempfest throwdown. That first year's march I was on a bus to Capitol Hill, which was the starting point. About a dozen hacky-sack weilding crusty street kids board the bus at 45th and University and proceed to blaze up a bowl while repeatedly yelling "4:20 in back of the bus!"

Plus, if you've seen the posters for this event, it looks like just another pro-pot march. To paraphrase Chris Rock (and I know I've said this before so my apologize) I love pot, but I hate stoners. And the stoners have got to go.

Posted by Jason Josephes | May 2, 2008 12:09 PM
17

i'm an mmj patient myself, and i'm really torn on whether or not to go. on the one hand, i'm absolutely devastated to see what happened to Timothy Garon; but on the other hand, as others have said, the people at these marches, etc. are just way too over the top and I feel really damage the credibility of the whole movement. i appreciate that so many people are supportive of this cause, but also resent that so many of those same people are only supportive of the cause because they have a broader self-serving agenda. i've not talked to an extensive amount of other mmj patients, but there certainly is enough "shame" and stigma attached to mmj even amongst sympathizers let alone being humiliated by the pot-leaf-lei-wearing, green-and-white-dr-seuss-hatted, bongo-beating, cop-flipping-off, stoned dirtbags who so often end up at these things. most of the mmj patients i do know tend to be fairly quiet about their status - not just out of fear of discrimination or prosecution (which is very, very real), but also because they don't want to be associated with these people.

this is just one person's opinion, but it sure sucks to feel excluded and unwelcome from the march for your own cause!

Posted by kinkos | May 2, 2008 2:04 PM
18

kinkos @ 17)

I used to organize the marijuana marches, and after giving a speech at one of the rallies while wearing slacks, a button-up shirt, and a tie, an attorney who spoke at the march came up to me and said, pointing to some hippies in the crowd, "The problem here is that these people marching need to be wearing suits and ties."

And I said to him, "The problem is that people who own suits and ties aren't marching."

If you don't want the issue marginalized by people who don't look like you, then you're the one who needs to start doing something. Not the other way around.

Posted by Dominic Holden | May 2, 2008 2:49 PM
19

i'll be there in a suit, dominic.

Posted by kinkos | May 2, 2008 3:02 PM
20

Is this how the gay pride parade folks feel when NAMBLA shows up?

Posted by Jason Josephes | May 2, 2008 3:18 PM

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