Dr. Jay Cavanaugh’s first dose of marijuana was given to
him by his mother ““ who had obtained it through a member of
her bridge club.
Clearly not your usual drug trade.
In 1995, Cavanaugh lost the use of both arms because of a nerve
disorder. He was literally wasting away, going from 180 pounds to
120 due to pancreatitis.
He needed something that would calm the nausea and allow him to
eat again.
He said, “My mom brought it home and said, “˜You go
upstairs and smoke, and I’ll start cooking.'”
Cavanaugh ““ the national director of the American Alliance
for Medical Cannabis, an organization formed to educate the public
about marijuana’s medicinal properties ““ has been
smoking his medicine for seven years.
“Medical cannabis got me off all the drugs they were
giving me for years,” he said.
“It’s been almost four years since I’ve used
any narcotic pain medication, sedative or
anti-depressant.”
Before falling ill, Cavanaugh was on the California Board of
Pharmacy, running drug and alcohol abuse treatment centers for 20
years.
Now, as an active supporter of the use of medical cannabis, he
has shifted his scientific and personal missions.
“I’m one of those “˜normal’ people. I
hadn’t smoked pot since I was in college back in the
’60s,” Cavanaugh said.
“I became a convert from my own personal experience. I
turned my background in the biological sciences around to
investigating this,” he added.
With the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996, physicians in
California could legally prescribe cannabis and oversee their
patients’ use.
“I’m not a doctor, but I believe Prop. 215 is a step
in the right direction,” said Allen Weinberg, a Los Angeles
attorney who has represented individuals prosecuted for their use
of medical cannabis.
“If there’s anything that can provide a sick person
with some relief, the doctor should be able to give it to
them,” he added.
The fight is far from over for Cavanaugh and the estimated
100,000 other Californians that use medicinal marijuana.
Proposition 215 does not specify how the marijuana is to be
obtained or what is considered a legal amount for a patient to
possess.
These ambiguities have brought clashes with law enforcement.
“I have friends in exile in Canada; I have friends right
now in federal prison; I have friends … who live under fear of
arrest for this simple act of treating themselves with a substance
that’s not approved by some,” Cavanaugh said.
“That’s not a good way to live. It’s bad
enough to be sick.”
Marijuana contains the toxin delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol,
better known as THC, which causes the “high” when
smoking the drug.
Other components of marijuana have also been shown to decrease
nausea, suppress inflammatory immune responses and increase
appetite.
But medicinal cannabis also comes with its share of potentially
dangerous side effects.
Marijuana smoke contains higher concentrations of many of the
same carcinogens found in tobacco smoke.
“When you smoke marijuana, you get exposure to those
carcinogens that increase the risk of cancer,” said Zuo-Feng
Zhang, a professor in the UCLA Department of Health and
Epidemiology.
A study conducted by Donald Tashkin, a professor at the David
Geffen School of Medicine division of pulmonary and critical care
medicine, found marijuana smokers to be prone to chronic
bronchitis.
“People who use … marijuana for therapeutic purposes
should take into consideration that there could be some harmful
consequences to the smoking of marijuana,” Tashkin said.
Unlike tobacco, marijuana has not been shown to cause chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease or emphysema, but both drugs cause
similar lung abnormalities when examined at the microscopic
level.
Research has found that the habitual smoking of marijuana
impairs the immune response to common microbes, increasing a risk
for opportunistic infection.
This can pose a threat for cannabis users with AIDS and cancer,
whose immune systems are already compromised.
Tashkin also found that injecting mice with THC accelerated the
development of lung tumor cells.
“Someone with cancer might inadvertently be hurting
himself by increasing the risk for the growth of his tumor, for
which he took the chemotherapy in the first place,” Tashkin
said.
The medical and legislative communities have remained hazy on
their positions on medicinal marijuana, slowing down the ability of
patients who need it to obtain it.
“A lot of doctors are not willing to recommend (marijuana)
for fear of repercussion from the medical community,”
Weinberg said.
Patients who use the drug for their medical conditions and are
hoping to influence legislation are also up against the cultural
stigmas associated with the drug.
“We give people toxic and addicting medications every day
in large amounts and don’t even balk at all, but when it
comes to treating illness with medical cannabis, all these red
flags go up,” Cavanaugh said.
For some patients, marijuana’s healing qualities are the
only thing allowing them to lead a normal life.
“I need to smoke when I go to a restaurant immediately
after I eat, just to make sure I’m able to eat that food and
not be in severe pain or throw it up,” said Ryan Landers, the
California representative for AAMC.
Landers has been an active lobbyist for medicinal cannabis since
1995, working with patients, speaking at city halls and evaluating
legislation.
He also has AIDS.
“Without marijuana, I would be very sick or dead right
now,” Landers said.
“It’s a powerful medicine that people are very much
prejudiced toward out of ignorance.”
Landers uses marijuana to combat the side effects of the
cocktail of drugs he takes every day.
“You take a handful of pills when you get up in the
morning, you throw them up, and you have to settle your stomach
just to take them again,” he said. “Marijuana is the
only thing that will really do it.”
Users of medicinal marijuana, however, need the drug for its
fast-acting potency as a therapy for muscle spasms and nausea
““ often the unpleasant side effects of their other
treatments.
“There’s no pill they can give me that will stop
that so instantaneously ““ two hits and you stop the process
of vomiting,” Landers said.
“Once you start taking marijuana, you don’t get
high. You build up a tolerance to it. It becomes like any other
medication,” he added.
There is a version of the active ingredients in marijuana that
has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ““
the drug Marinol.
Cannabis can also be vaporized, greatly decreasing the amounts
of harmful carcinogens.
These alternatives are widely used, but Landers maintains the
right for patients to obtain their medication.
“You watch (patients) go through this suffering, and you
know you’ll never let up that commitment to saving everyone
like them from suffering,” he said.
“It will keep them eating a little longer; it will keep
them suffering a lot less.”
But the opponents of decriminalizing marijuana extend beyond
legislation and hospitals.
“When it comes to people using cannabis, it’s big
entertainment, it’s funny. Whenever we finally get some
exposure, it’s so often done tongue-in-cheek,”
Cavanaugh said.
“That’s our biggest opposition ““ not being
taken seriously.”