Legalize It, Don't Criticize It

When Debbi S.Talshir was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis 14 years ago, her furture looked grim. She knew that, before long, her condition would confine her to a wheelchair and cut into her busy, community-activist lifestyle. Meanwhile, the treatments her doctors recommended did little to alleviate her symptoms.

Then she started smoking pot.

It's been smooth sailing ever since. "It gives me energy, it helps to eat, it helps to sleep, it helps me to function and it's like oil for my brain," says Talshir, 39, a resident of Bourne, Mass. "Am I going to take all the bullshit chemicals the doctors prescriber? I know that this stuff really works."

Spread the Word

Now, Talshir is trying to spread the good word about the cost-effective miracle drug that she says changed her life.

And she is not alone in that effort. A steadily growing number of Americans, including many members of the medical community, are jumping on the medicinal cannabis bandwagon, as activist groups across the country--including the newly-formed Cambridge Coalition for Medicinal Cannabis (CCMC)--fight the powers that be to legalize conditionally one of the number one targets of Bush's Wart On Druges.

For Talshir, marijuana relieves the spasticity associated with MS. For others, marijuana provides the only effective relief from the almost unberable nausea caused by chemotherapy. And for those with AIDS, it is one of the few known effective appetite enhancers.

But because, as activists put it, the feds cringe at anything that combines the words "legalize" and "marijuana," despite a wealth of personal testimonies and dozens of conclusive studies, the movement is running into closed doors at every turn.

"What (the government) is trying to say is that in order to win the war on drugs we have to paint all drugs as all bad," says Rick E. Doblin, co-author of an important Kennedy School of Government study released in May that revealed that many cancer specialists had recommended at least once that a patient break the law and smoke marijuana to counteract the effects of chemotherapy.

"The government was saying it was a fringe group of doctors (advocating the medicinal use of marijuana)." Doblin says. "We found there's definitely more to it. (The government) rides roughshod over people's real interests, real health needs, for bureaucratic reasons."

Numbers to Prove It

Doblin's study, based on surveys of 1035 members of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, showed that 44 percent of the doctors had, on at least one occasion, urged a patient to smoke marijuana, and that 48 percent would do so if the drug were legal.

"We were quite surprised, because doctors are heavily regulated by the government," Doblin says of the results.

The study is the most recent in a small line of which have shown that marijuana is widely accepted by members of the medical community as an antidote to chemotherapy, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and AIDS, among other disorders.

According to Doblin, the mounting evidence has the government running scared. With the increase in demand and visibility that the new studies presaged, the federal department of Health and Human Services announced that it would phase out a program that provided free marijuana to the very ill, fearing that publicity about the program would project a soft-on-drugs image. Because of the enormous amount of red tape involved, the program served only 12 individuals nationwide, but it was one of the few cracks in the government's otherwise united front in the war against drugs.

What About Dylan?

Gregory Y. Porter, director of the Washington-based National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws (NORML), calls the war "a government instrusion on civil liberties."

"It's unfortunate that one of the worst side effects of this drug war stuff is the climate of fear," Porter says. "A lot of it's propaganda, and a lot of it's very simplistic, like Just Say No,' which isn't very effective. I can only hope that this tide of hysteria can be stemmed before we end up giving up all these liberties."

NORMAL is currently attempting to chip away at strict--and, the organization contends, unjust--marijuana laws through a suit against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that would force the agency to reclassify the drug. Marijuana is now a Schedule I drug, like heroine, meaning it cannot be used medically except in special circumstances because of its supposed dangerous side effects. NORMAL wants it switched to Schedule II, which covers substances with potential for abuse but acknowledged medicinal value.

"There are a number of side effects attributed to marijuana that are at best speculative," Porter says. "Drugs have been used by many prominent individuals throught history. Dylan Thomas: the guy drank like a fish. But who's to say he could've written the poetry he did if he hadn't?"

The 'Grass' Roots Movement

Cambridge's new conditional legalization group, the CCMC, which formed in August, just jumped into the fracy this month, getting at the issue through the legislative branch. CCMC members have begun by canvasing the city, collecting signatures on a petition in support of Senate Bill 1582, the State Medical Marijuana Bill. Organizers say they hope to collect 5000 signatures, which they will present to state Speaker of the House Charles F. Flaherty (D-Cambridge) to persuade him to support their cause.

The bill would establish a board of medical professionals to ensure that deserving patients qualify for marijuana prescriptions. CCMC is also backing a city home rule petition to the state legislature to allow prescription of cannabis by Cambridge physicians.

"This is the way we're realy going to make a difference, because it's realy working," says CCMC organizer Jane B. Litwin. "Especially when you're dealing with the medical issues, people are very compassionate."

Litwin adds, however, that some of the people she has met in the course of knocking on doors collecting signatures have been unreceptive because of a knee-jerk fear of drugs. The media contributes further to their missconceptions, she adds. "We definitely run into a lot of prejudice," Litwin says. "We get absolutely no coverage at all, because we're not respected as an organization."

Because the HHS is phasing out its medicinal marijuana program, passage of the Senate bill and the Cambridge home rule petition would be largely symbolic, at least for now. But for those who believe in the cause, every little bit helps.

"People are ignorant," says Losis C. Harris, 44, of Mashby, who has staved off two bouts of cancer with joint in hand. "I still talk to people who think that you smoke a joint and the next day you're a heroin addict. More people like myself do have to start speaking out."

Harris says that her openness about her habit has unleashed a torrent of confessions from others who admit to finding themselves in circumstances similar to her own.

This, she insists, is not surprising. When Harris underwent chemotheraphy treatments her doctors prescribed traditional medicines, but "none of it worked," she says. "[But then] I would smoke a joint and I was fine."

"The government's really doing a criminal injustice to all these sick people...to me it's a total absurdity," Harris adds. "They spend millions and millions of dollars developing these chemicals when a tiny little seed does the same thing."

A cousin to marijuana, a pill called Marinol which contains marijuana's actived ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), has been available in the U.S. since 1985. But most doctors and activists agree that the substance is slower-acting and less effective when swallowed. Harris says that in her case, "marinol does absolutely nothing."

The Kennedy School's Doblin says that under some circumstances, "for some people [marijuana] is the best drug--better than anything on the market."

Dragging

But even in the face of such evidence, any government move to loosen controls on marijuana would inevitably be slow. Although the Food and Drug Administration spends approximately $450 million a year to study drugs, it has as of yet conducted no studies on the benefits of marijuana.

According to Kennedy School lecturer Mark A.R. Kleiman, co-author with Doblin of the Kennedy School study, the government's foot-dragging will continue to be at the expense of the public interest. "All of these issues could've easily been resolved five years ago with a little experimentation. This is really a case where the war on drugs has cost us something," Kleiman says. "If I were the czar--not just the drug czar, but the czar--marijuana would be available tomorrow.