Three and a half years ago, on my 62nd birthday, doctors discovered a mass on my pancreas. It turned out to be Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. I was told I would be dead in four to six months. Today I am in that rare coterie of people who have survived this long with the disease. But I did not foresee that after having dedicated myself for 40 years to a life of the law, including more than two decades as a New York State judge, my quest for ameliorative and palliative care would lead me to marijuana.

My survival has demanded an enormous price, including months of chemotherapy, radiation hell and brutal surgery. For about a year, my cancer disappeared, only to return. About a month ago, I started a new and even more debilitating course of treatment. Every other week, after receiving an IV booster of chemotherapy drugs that takes three hours, I wear a pump that slowly injects more of the drugs over the next 48 hours.

Nausea and pain are constant companions. One struggles to eat enough to stave off the dramatic weight loss that is part of this disease. Eating, one of the great pleasures of life, has now become a daily battle, with each forkful a small victory. Every drug prescribed to treat one problem leads to one or two more drugs to offset its side effects. Pain medication leads to loss of appetite and constipation. Anti-nausea medication raises glucose levels, a serious problem for me with my pancreas so compromised. Sleep, which might bring respite from the miseries of the day, becomes increasingly elusive.

Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep. The oral synthetic substitute, Marinol, prescribed by my doctors, was useless. Rather than watch the agony of my suffering, friends have chosen, at some personal risk, to provide the substance. I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately needed sleep.

This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue. Being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I am receiving the absolute gold standard of medical care. But doctors cannot be expected to do what the law prohibits, even when they know it is in the best interests of their patients. When palliative care is understood as a fundamental human and medical right, marijuana for medical use should be beyond controversy.

Sixteen states already permit the legitimate clinical use of marijuana, including our neighbor New Jersey, and Connecticut is on the cusp of becoming No. 17. The New York State Legislature is now debating a bill to recognize marijuana as an effective and legitimate medicinal substance and establish a lawful framework for its use. The Assembly has passed such bills before, but they went nowhere in the State Senate. This year I hope that the outcome will be different. Cancer is a nonpartisan disease, so ubiquitous that it?s impossible to imagine that there are legislators whose families have not also been touched by this scourge. It is to help all who have been affected by cancer, and those who will come after, that I now speak.

Given my position as a sitting judge still hearing cases, well-meaning friends question the wisdom of my coming out on this issue. But I recognize that fellow cancer sufferers may be unable, for a host of reasons, to give voice to our plight. It is another heartbreaking aporia in the world of cancer that the one drug that gives relief without deleterious side effects remains classified as a narcotic with no medicinal value.

Because criminalizing an effective medical technique affects the fair administration of justice, I feel obliged to speak out as both a judge and a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease. I implore the governor and the Legislature of New York, always considered a leader among states, to join the forward and humane thinking of 16 other states and pass the medical marijuana bill this year. Medical science has not yet found a cure, but it is barbaric to deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering.

Gustin L. Reichbach is a justice of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on May 17, 2012, on page A27 of the New York edition with the headline: A Judge?s Plea for Pot.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Gustin L. Reichbach
Published: May 17, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

Medical marijuana advocates have a message for Democratic leaders and federal prosecutors with an eye on political office: Don?t mess with pot. Pushing back against a federal effort to stem the proliferation of medical marijuana operations, one of the nation?s largest drug policy groups claimed credit Wednesday for the defeat of a former federal prosecutor who was the early favorite to win the Democratic primary for Oregon attorney general.

As interim U.S. attorney, Dwight Holton called Oregon?s medical marijuana law a ?train wreck? and oversaw efforts to crack down on medical marijuana clubs and grow operations that he said were fronts for illegal marijuana sales. Federal prosecutors have led similar crackdowns in other states that have legalized marijuana for medicinal use.

?Drug war rhetoric and tactics will not be tolerated,? said Jill Harris, managing director for the campaign arm of Drug Policy Alliance.

Retired state appeals court judge Ellen Rosenblum said she?d make marijuana enforcement a low priority. She easily defeated Holton with the help of Harris? group and its allies, which chipped in at least a quarter of Rosenblum?s total campaign cash.

?What we?re hoping, and what we assume, is that any U.S. attorney who?s thinking of running for statewide office in a Democratic Primary anywhere in the country is going to think twice now before adopting a highly aggressive posture toward the medical marijuana law,? said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director Drug Policy Alliance and its campaign branch, Drug Policy Action.

Rosenblum downplayed the role of the marijuana vote in her victory in a brief interview following her victory Tuesday night. With most votes counted, she defeated Holton 64 percent to 36 percent.

?There?s lots of issues that played into my victory, and that may well be one of them,? Rosenblum said of the surprising emergence of medical marijuana as a defining issue.

About 55,000 people are registered marijuana users in Oregon.

Sixteen states allow people with a doctor?s recommendation to use marijuana, an issue that has long been a source of tension with the federal government. Federal officials have said some state medical marijuana laws are being used as cover to grow and sell pot for the black market. Law enforcement agencies have cracked down on some pot growers, dispensaries and clubs in several states, including California, Colorado and Oregon.

Campaign finance records show Rosenblum raised $600,000 through May 9, including $80,000 from Drug Policy Action and $70,000 from John Sperling, Chairman of Apollo Group Inc., who has financed medical marijuana campaigns nationally. Oregon has no caps on campaign contributions.

Citizens for Sensible Law Enforcement, a local organization working on a ballot measure to legalize marijuana, spent another $40,000 to boost Rosenblum, much of it on radio ads attacking Holton over marijuana.

?We?re glad to have played a role in her victory,? said Bob Wolfe, one of the organization?s directors. ?But I do think Dwight?s defeat is directly related to his stance on marijuana.?

Holton declined to comment. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Published: May 17, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Associated Press