Pot As Painkiller Creates Controversy Medical Marijuana OK In Some States, Despite Feds?

ST. PAUL -- Lynn Nicholson has spent a great deal of her life in more pain than most people could imagine.

When she was 10 years old, she and a friend were playing in the attic of her family’s house in Minneapolis when the floor gave way. The two girls fell 8 feet and crashed onto the floor below.






Lynn landed on the hard floor. She stumbled up to get help, but her back was so hurt she wasn’t able to balance herself and tumbled down a flight of stairs.

The falls compressed seven of her vertebrae and put her in the hospital. When she was brought home she couldn't even get out of bed.

"My mother said, 'Look, either you're going to get up and walk to the bathroom or you're going to pee on yourself, and you're going to get awful hungry if you don't get up and walk down to the dinner table,'" Nicholson recalled.

Although the pain never fully went away, Nicholson said she just learned to grin and bear it. She became a downhill skier and took survival trips to northern Minnesota, sometimes slinging a canoe on her back while portaging between rivers.

In 1975, she moved to Israel by herself when she was 16 and lived there for six years, becoming a dual citizen and serving several years in the Israeli military. She eventually moved back to Minneapolis, got married and had two children, who are now 18 and 20.

One day in the mid-1990s, she woke up after remodeling her kitchen and found that her back had given out. Her life has never been the same since that day.

She’s had 10 back surgeries and spent three years in a body cast. She’s been on a long list of painkillers and had to check herself into a detox facility in an effort to get off them. She received steroid injections in her back, which she said her doctors told her caused steroid-induced diabetes. She was prescribed the painkiller Fentanyl, of which a possible side effect according to some studies is tooth decay, and had to have all of her teeth pulled.

She put on more than 200 pounds, has trouble getting around and sometimes has to use a wheelchair and stair lift.

In order to help with the pain, Nicholson smokes marijuana. She said she does it because it does not produce the negative side effects of her prescribed painkillers, like addiction and tooth decay.


Nicholson said some of her doctors have recommended to her that she smoke, and others have shrugged their shoulders when she told them. None, she said, ever told her to stop.

The problem is that Nicholson lives in Minnesota, where doctors are not allowed to prescribe marijuana, so what she is doing is illegal. It's something that the former Hebrew teacher is not proud of.

"I don't like doing things that are illegal," said Nicholson. "I'm a mother. I don't believe in teaching my children to do as I say not as I do."

Nicholson soon may not have to break state law anymore. The Minnesota Legislature is close to passing a bill that would allow smoked marijuana to be prescribed by physicians.

State Laws May Change

The bill was passed by the state Senate last year, and Republican representative and co-sponsor of the bill Chris DeLaForest said he believes the bill has enough support to pass the House. But Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said he will veto the bill because of opposition to it by law enforcement organizations.


"In my world, I don't think we're going to be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys," said Bob Bushman, president of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, when he testified before the Senate in 2007.

DeLaForest said he believes Pawlenty could still be swayed to sign the bill, which would make Minnesota the 13th state in the country to pass a medical marijuana bill that is in direct defiance of federal law.

Other states, such as New York, Illinois and Rhode Island, also have medical marijuana bills currently under consideration by their state legislatures.

The federal government has classified marijuana a Schedule 1 drug, defining it as having no accepted medical benefit, and the DEA has raided numerous medical marijuana dispensary operators.

It's an issue that has many times pitted the federal government vs. state governments, law enforcement organizations vs. health organizations and popular opinion vs. politicians.

"It's the states' decision whether or not to legalize medical marijuana, in my view. It's not the federal government's job," said DeLaForest. "And so I see this as an issue of the states in some way asserting their rightful authority under our constitution to regulate the health, welfare and safety of their people."

A 2005 Gallup poll found that 78 percent of Americans support the lawful use of medical marijuana.

Is Marijuana Medicine?

The American College of Physicians, the Institute of Medicine, the American Public Health Association and dozens of other health and medical associations support the use of medical marijuana.

On the other end, the Bush Administration, including the Drug Enforcement Agency and Food and Drug Administration, and dozens of major law enforcement organizations oppose its use. The DEA has called for further studies into the delivery of smoke-free THC, the major psychoactive component of marijuana.

A synthetic THC drug, Marinol, has been available with a subscription to patients since 1985, but advocates argue that smoked marijuana is the most effective means of delivery.

An article in the May 2003 issue of The Lancet Neurology, which was cited by Marijuana Policy Project executive director Rob Kampia in testimony before a congressional subcommittee in 2004, stated that oral delivery "is probably the least satisfactory route for cannabis" because it "makes dose titration more difficult and therefore increases the potential for psychoactive effects."

The DEA states on a page of its Web site titled "Exposing the Myth of Smoked Medical Marijuana" that marijuana use contributes to crime, claiming that nationwide, 40 percent of adult males arrested in the United States tested positive for marijuana at the time of their arrest, although it does not state what study those statistics are based on or over what time frame it refers to.

The Minnesota County Attorneys Association and the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association oppose the bill.

"Marijuana is not a medicine," said MCAA President James C. Backstrom in an e-mail. "Medicine in this country requires the approval of the FDA before it is used to ensure the safety of Americans. Numerous studies and medical organizations, as noted in the MCAA position paper, have concluded that marijuana has no proven medical value."

Among the organizations cited was the American Medical Association, which recommends that marijuana remain a Schedule 1 drug, but has called for further studies including the delivery of smoke-free TCH.

The DEA also says on its Web site that supporters could use medical marijuana to advocate broader legalization of drug use.

DeLaForest is one of 17 state representatives co-sponsoring the bill and only one of two Republicans. He said he finds the arguments of opponents of medical marijuana baseless.

"There's no evidence that medical marijuana has caused an uptick in drug use, or drug-related violence or the like. It just isn't there," said DeLaForest.

DeLaForest said he does not support decriminalization of marijuana, but doesn't buy into the argument that medical marijuana could lead to a broader legalization of drugs.

"(California) legalized medical marijuana over 10 years ago," said DeLaForest. "There is no movement in the California Assembly or the state government to decriminalize marijuana in California. It just hasn't happened."

The Marijuana Policy Project, which has been lobbying congressmen in Minnesota and across the nation to pass medical marijuana bills, is in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana.

"Marijuana is a safer substance on every level than alcohol or tobacco," said Neal Levine, director of state campaigns for the MPP. "Maybe taxing and regulating marijuana is probably a more mature way to deal with it and better for society. But as far as Minnesota goes, and the Minnesota legislation, if we are going to have a war on marijuana, the least we can do is pull the sick and the dying off the battlefield."

That's a proposition that would make Nicholson happy. Because she must get marijuana through the criminal market she doesn't always have access to it and must continue to rely on the painkillers.

"My life would change because access wouldn't be an issue anymore," said Nicholson about the potential of the bill passing. "And I wouldn't feel like a criminal, and quite honestly, I don't like being a criminal in my children's eyes."