420 Girl - Teri Heede

[420RedHead]

Teri Heede pulls out 25 orange, prescription pill bottles from a cloth bag hanging from the handles of her red motorized scooter. Then an inhaler, and, from another bag, empty cranberry juice jugs filled to the top with disposable interferon shots. This used to be Heede's life living with multiple sclerosis (MS), pills in the morning, afternoon and evening. Pills to quell the side effects of her other pills. Shots Monday, Wednesday and Friday and frequent trips to the doctor. She's a 55-year-old retired computer engineer who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. She had grown accustomed to having no energy, being violently ill for weeks on end, and losing some of her motor skills. But 10 years ago, she quit the pills and shots and opted for something she says finally worked, medical marijuana. Today, Heede spends her days out of bed, she just finished volunteering at a Makakilo polling place for the fall elections. She gets by with Aciphex (for acid reflux), occasionally a few Tums and medical marijuana. "Nothing works like this," she says, holding up a small Tupperware of peanut butter cookies made with cannabutter (butter infused with cannabis). She even lets me smell them, the peanut butter overpowers the skunky marijuana-laced butter they were made with. "I don't get high. This is not a Cheech and Chong moment," she says. Heede likens using medical marijuana to taking St. John's wort or any other herbal supplement. It doesn't bother her that it isn't federally recognized. She says marijuana helps her more than any of the FDA approved pills ever did.

 

[420RedHead]

Teri Heede, pictured, is one of Hawaii's 12,000 registered medical marijuana patients. "Marijuana keeps me walking and keeps me moving," said Heede. Heede has suffered from muscular scoliosis for more than twenty years. One day, the debilitating condition stopped her in her tracks. "I fell at work, and I literally could not get back up," said Heede. After tiring of taking multiple medications and injections, Heede turned to marijuana for relief. "I traded all my pills and needles for pot. If you had a choice, would you rather eat a cookie or take a shot?" asked Heede. Like most other marijuana patients, Heede has to grow her own medicine. She said her seven allowed plants are sometimes not enough. "With only seven plants you're going to have to go to the black market to buy more, because you're not able to grow enough on your own," stated Heede. Hawaii is one of 20 states and districts that allow medical marijuana, but one of the only ones without a dispensary for patients to buy their pot. "A dispensary is really a crying need. Many of the more than 10,000 patients are asking for it as their number one concern," said Pamela Lichty with the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii. Providing marijuana to patients is one of the issues expected to be brought before the state legislature in the New Year. - ABC TV Honolulu

 

[420RedHead]

Teri Heede pulls out 25 orange, prescription pill bottles from a cloth bag hanging from the handles of her red motorized scooter. Then an inhaler, and, from another bag, empty cranberry juice jugs filled to the top with disposable interferon shots. This used to be Heede's life living with multiple sclerosis (MS), pills in the morning, afternoon and evening. Pills to quell the side effects of her other pills. Shots Monday, Wednesday and Friday and frequent trips to the doctor. She's a 55-year-old retired computer engineer who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. She had grown accustomed to having no energy, being violently ill for weeks on end, and losing some of her motor skills. But 10 years ago, she quit the pills and shots and opted for something she says finally worked, medical marijuana. Today, Heede spends her days out of bed, she just finished volunteering at a Makakilo polling place for the fall elections. She gets by with Aciphex (for acid reflux), occasionally a few Tums and medical marijuana. "Nothing works like this," she says, holding up a small Tupperware of peanut butter cookies made with "cannabutter" (butter infused with cannabis). She even lets me smell them, the peanut butter overpowers the skunk-y marijuana-laced butter they were made with. - Honolulu

 

[420RedHead]

Teri Heede is one of the approximately 8,000 people in the state of Hawaii who has received a physician's recommendation to legally grow and use marijuana. Medical marijuana, or cannabis, as medicinal users and advocates prefer to call it, is a hot-button issue. For example, October 2010, Senator Will Espero established the Medical Cannabis Working Group after Governer Linda Lingle refused to convene a medical marijuana task force, even though it had been approved by the Legislature. The group released a report in February detailing statewide program recommendations. Last legislative session, about 20 bills were introduced to expand the program, none passed. Medical marijuana has also gained national attention. In July, the Department of Veterans Affairs formally allowed its patients to use medical marijuana in states where it's legal, and California voters opposed the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, better known as Proposition 19, which aimed to legalize and tax marijuana. - Honolulu

 

[420RedHead]

After conducting a nearly two year review of the medical literature, investigators at the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine affirmed, "Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation. Except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range tolerated for other medications." Nevertheless, the authors noted cannabis inhalation "would be advantageous" in the treatment of some diseases, and that marijuana's short term medical benefits outweigh any smoking related harms for some patients. Predictably, federal authorities failed to act upon the IOM's recommendations, and instead have elected to continue their long-standing policy of denying marijuana's medical value. - Teri Heede pictured

 

[420RedHead]

Currently, more than 60 U.S. and international health organizations, including the American Public Health Association, Health Canada and the Federation of American Scientists, support granting patients immediate legal access to medicinal marijuana under a physician's supervision. Several others, including the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association support the facilitation of wide scale, clinical research trials so that physicians may better assess cannabis' medical potential. In addition, a 1991 Harvard study found that 44 percent of oncologists had previously advised marijuana therapy to their patients. Fifty percent responded they would do so if marijuana was legal. A more recent national survey performed by researchers at Providence Rhode Island Hospital found that nearly half of physicians with opinions supported legalizing medical marijuana. - Teri Heede pictured

 

[420RedHead]

Fourteen years after NORML's initial petition in 1986, the DEA finally held public hearings on the issue before an administrative law judge. Two years later, Judge Francis Young ruled that the therapeutic use of marijuana was recognized by a respected minority of the medical community, and that it met the standards of other legal medications. Young found, "Marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record." Young recommended, "The Administrator transfer marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II, to make it available as a legal medicine."