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Lothar121

Breast Cancer Has Made Me A Criminal
Lynda Gorov | Boston Globe | 05/02/06

At 9 O'CLOCK on the night of my first round of chemotherapy, exactly six hours after I left the oncologist's office wondering what all the fuss was about, my stomach tumbled into my knees, my knees refused to work altogether, and I crumpled to the floor in a clammy, shivering heap.

I lay there until dawn, at one point vomiting on myself, at another crying that I'd rather die of cancer than undergo chemo again. I was hot. I was cold. My shoulders wouldn't stop shaking. My legs wouldn't move at all. Huge hallucinations rolled over me.

In the morning I was stunned to realize I was still alive. But there was my 2 1/2-year-old daughter, poking me with her toe, wondering whether we could dance. I made my way to the stereo and made myself a vow: I'd do whatever necessary to avoid having her find me on the ground again.

First call was to the doctor, who promised to fine-tune my protocol and adjust my pre-chemo meds. The second was to a friend I thought might have a marijuana connection. I had read enough, and written some, about the medicinal uses of marijuana to believe it might keep me from suffering so in three weeks, when I was scheduled for my second poison drip. Not to mention that months of treatment loomed.

A day or two later, a manila envelope with nothing but my initials on it was delivered to me, free of charge. I stuck the gift deep in the freezer without even opening it. I didn't need to then. But I needed the option. For one of the few times since I had been diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer, I felt a sense of control.

Maybe someone who hasn't been there can't understand my willingness to break the law. Sure, a number of states, including mine, have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana. But the Drug Enforcement Administration refuses to go along. It sees me as a criminal. Then again, none of the Supreme Court justices who ruled that medical marijuana users could be arrested despite those state laws stopped by to see how skinny I'd gotten or to retrieve me from a bookstore when I wasn't able to walk another step without retching.

That was left to D., one of my more conservative friends. She was the one who had warned me: Do not get high, or you'll be sorry. She was not, however, telling me to forgo marijuana. The forbidden leaf had, after all, seen her through her own chemotherapy. Now my own unfortunate turn was at hand, and she was encouraging me to smoke until the nausea passed but to stop smoking before any paranoia set in.

''Trust me," she said dryly, ''cancer and thinking too much are not a good mix."

And now the Food and Drug Administration has said cancer and cannabis don't mix at all. The federal agency recently announced that ''no sound scientific studies" support the medicinal use of marijuana, a finding contrary to a 1999 review by scientists from the Institute of Medicine. That highly regarded panel confirmed what many sick people already knew: Marijuana makes the nausea bearable during chemotherapy and can keep AIDS patients without appetites from wasting away. Proponents of its use called the FDA ruling political, as opposed to scientific or, say, humane.

Within weeks of starting chemo, I was down a dozen pounds, not so much queasy as unable to eat. Of course, since I live in Los Angeles this was considered by some a perk. ''You're so teeny," women would tell me. ''Yeah, well, I have cancer," I'd reply, running a hand through my shockingly good synthetic wig. ''Oh, sorry, but . . . you're so teeny."

My oncologist, however, wasn't as thrilled about my size, especially with my cell counts so dangerously low that any cut and every sneeze put me at risk. Alone with her in the examination room, the scar from my lumpectomy still raised and raw to her touch, I asked about marijuana use in cases like mine. The doctor didn't scoff. She did say I needed to stop losing weight despite having eliminated dairy, sugar, and alcohol from my diet in a cancer-fighting frenzy.

So I dug into the freezer for the manila envelope. I undid the clasp and removed a fat bud of seriously stinky marijuana. I remember standing in the kitchen thinking, I have to save the life of my daughter's mother, and whose business is that but mine?

Lynda Gorov is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.

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dedbr

when it gets right down to the grit, wouldn't we all do the same?

Wouldn't we all break the law instead of suffer the indignity of the "cure" provided by the doctors for this disease? Of course we would.

And finally, when enough of us have had enough, the DEA will start one of it's raids on a "store" and they will be forced to leave. Not with guns or violence, but with the simple fact that one by one, the agents are going to look at their boss and say, "Enoughs, enough, chief. We're going to leave these people alone from now on. Come on, let's go back to the office..."


I hope so, anyway. I know there has to be some decent people in the DEA. We just need to get them in positions of power so the changes that need to be made can be made.


Somewhere in Ded Land.....

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Toking Jedi

Boy, I wish that could be true. If people in the government followed their own consciences more often, instead of simply following orders like soldiers in the military, our legalization situation might be better.

Yeah, right, like that's gonna happen. The reason they're not in a position of power is exactly the same reason they'd be so great for the job. Speaking out gets you sacked in today's administrations, as a certain Colin Powell found out.

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dedbr

Don't take away all my dreams, son.


I think Colin Powell found out that he was made out to be the fall guy on the UN testimony, and he didn't like it, so instead of getting stuck with that mess he just resigned.

Maybe the only honorable one of the bunch, huh?


Somewhere in Ded Land......

Dalamar49

The decision my mother made after facing blindness through glacoma was similiar. She had lost her job, her drivers license and was barely surviving off of welfare. She smoked marijuana and was soon cured, returned to work with her new drivers license.

Is she a criminal?

Who cares! Do what you have to to survive.

 

LibertyLover

Those decent people in the DEA are going to be predominantly similiar in ideology to the cops on this forum. They won't do jack to help out the sick and the dying because it's their job not to, and the "law" doesn't say there is any such right.

dedbr

The DEA is basically working for big tobacco, big coffee, big alcohol, and big pharma thru the Federal government, or something along those lines.


Whatever happened to "free enterprise"?

It was formed by Nixon. How wrong can that be?

Their code is probably to lie about it......

Somewhere in Ded Land.....

LibertyLover

Ayuh. But their primary employer is the federal government. There is vast amounts of wealth produced by prohibition, but the real gain is in the government's powers.

I've tried arguing this with Republicans who insist we have a free market. I point out that in America the government subsidizes corn that is grown with subsidized water that is used to make subsidized milk. Yep, that's a free market, just like people getting busted for pot is freedom.

dedbr

"free enterprise", you just can't talk about it, or get caught doin' it....

Down home they call it gardening.