Jack O'Brien lives in constant pain. The 54-year-old Laurel Lake man is tormented by shooting pains that travel along the nerves from his hands and feet all the way up to his head. It ruins his sleep. It has forced him to go on disability.
Sometimes, the pain is so intense that it feels like someone is hammering nails into his fingers. When an episodes strikes, the former Delaware Bay crabber breaks down into tears and shivers in a corner. When his wife, a massage therapist, is home, she rubs his hands and talks to him as they wait for the pain to ebb.
"I squeeze, I push, I cry and I pray," said O'Brien, a father of two.
O'Brien has lived this way for more than two decades, the long-term result of a birth defect caused by thalidomide, a medication his mother took during her pregnancy. Today, he said, prescription narcotics do little to ease the pain.
He has found only one drug that works, offering four to five hours of sweet relief, flooding his nerves with a coolness that quenches the flames.
For now, it's also illegal.
But that could change soon, as the New Jersey Legislature weighs a bill to legalize the medical use of marijuana. Though marijuana is outlawed by the federal government, 13 states have decriminalized its use by patients suffering from a range of serious illnesses such as cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't support the use of smoked marijuana for medical purposes. It contends there are no sound scientific studies supporting the medical use of marijuana. The federal agency also states there are approved medications available for many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana.
The state Senate this week approved the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine has voiced his support for the legislation. The bill still awaits a vote in the Assembly.
If passed, the law would allow chronically ill patients to petition the Department of Human Services to allow them to use marijuana. Physician certification of their condition would be required. Patients would be allowed to grow six marijuana plants or buy the drug at an alternative medicine center.
That would make marijuana easier to access for everyone, according to Daniel Meara, spokesman for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence New Jersey. The group opposes the bill.
A typical plant can produce one to five pounds of marijuana, Meara said, "far more than an individual would need." That's a concern for the council, which works to help individuals and their families affected by alcohol and drug addiction.
Eight of the 10 states with the highest percentage of young people who have used marijuana in the past month were states that allow for the possession and use of medical marijuana, according to the council.
"We have compassion for people with cancer," Meara said. "Clearly, we all know people in our lives who have had cancer, but we have to think about ... what's going to happen to that marijuana?"
But some patients and their caregivers say only marijuana helped.
Don and Gerry McGrath of Robbinsville, Mercer County, were among those who testified before a state Senate committee in support of the bill. When their son, Sean, was wasting away from the effects of powerful chemotherapy drugs, his team of doctors recommended he try marijuana.
By that point, his 6-foot frame had withered away from 148 to 97 pounds. He was going downhill fast.
"Once he tried the marijuana, it worked," Don McGrath said. "It was really the only thing that kept him afloat. By using the marijuana, he was able to take the other drugs and they became more effective."
He regained about 30 pounds before dying 18 months later at age 28. His parents believe marijuana extended his life.
During his final months, Sean came to live with his parents. His supplier brought his "medicine" to their home.
"He kept apologizing to us that he was putting us into this situation so that we could get arrested," said Gerry McGrath, a registered nurse. "It really made me angry, because this was not a party. This was not something he was doing for fun. He was struggling to stay alive."
Dr. Stephen Goldfine, chief medical officer for Marlton-based Samaritan Hospice, said his organization favors the legislation.
"It's another tool in our toolbox for patients who can't tolerate other (drugs)," Goldfine said.
Marijuana is especially helpful when managing neuropathic pain, he said. That's the same kind of pain afflicting O'Brien.
But because it's illegal, many patients won't take marijuana or even bring up the subject with their doctor.
"There's really a lot of guilt associated with it," Goldfine said. "You don't need to put guilt on top of the dying process."
If O'Brien could use marijuana legally, he said, he would smoke three joints a day. Immediately after taking the drug, his wife Leah said, he is able to sleep well, work around the house and think clearly because the fog of pain has lifted.
But because marijuana is illegal and because he is a born-again Christian, O'Brien struggles to battle the pain without it, allowing himself only sometimes to risk possible jail time by buying it.
"Every once in a while, the pain gets so intense," said O'Brien, "it just breaks me."
News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: The Daily Journal
Author: KIM MULFORD
Contact: The Daily Journal
Copyright: 2009 The Daily Journal
Website: Patients in Pain Eager for Legalized Pot
Sometimes, the pain is so intense that it feels like someone is hammering nails into his fingers. When an episodes strikes, the former Delaware Bay crabber breaks down into tears and shivers in a corner. When his wife, a massage therapist, is home, she rubs his hands and talks to him as they wait for the pain to ebb.
"I squeeze, I push, I cry and I pray," said O'Brien, a father of two.
O'Brien has lived this way for more than two decades, the long-term result of a birth defect caused by thalidomide, a medication his mother took during her pregnancy. Today, he said, prescription narcotics do little to ease the pain.
He has found only one drug that works, offering four to five hours of sweet relief, flooding his nerves with a coolness that quenches the flames.
For now, it's also illegal.
But that could change soon, as the New Jersey Legislature weighs a bill to legalize the medical use of marijuana. Though marijuana is outlawed by the federal government, 13 states have decriminalized its use by patients suffering from a range of serious illnesses such as cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't support the use of smoked marijuana for medical purposes. It contends there are no sound scientific studies supporting the medical use of marijuana. The federal agency also states there are approved medications available for many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana.
The state Senate this week approved the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine has voiced his support for the legislation. The bill still awaits a vote in the Assembly.
If passed, the law would allow chronically ill patients to petition the Department of Human Services to allow them to use marijuana. Physician certification of their condition would be required. Patients would be allowed to grow six marijuana plants or buy the drug at an alternative medicine center.
That would make marijuana easier to access for everyone, according to Daniel Meara, spokesman for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence New Jersey. The group opposes the bill.
A typical plant can produce one to five pounds of marijuana, Meara said, "far more than an individual would need." That's a concern for the council, which works to help individuals and their families affected by alcohol and drug addiction.
Eight of the 10 states with the highest percentage of young people who have used marijuana in the past month were states that allow for the possession and use of medical marijuana, according to the council.
"We have compassion for people with cancer," Meara said. "Clearly, we all know people in our lives who have had cancer, but we have to think about ... what's going to happen to that marijuana?"
But some patients and their caregivers say only marijuana helped.
Don and Gerry McGrath of Robbinsville, Mercer County, were among those who testified before a state Senate committee in support of the bill. When their son, Sean, was wasting away from the effects of powerful chemotherapy drugs, his team of doctors recommended he try marijuana.
By that point, his 6-foot frame had withered away from 148 to 97 pounds. He was going downhill fast.
"Once he tried the marijuana, it worked," Don McGrath said. "It was really the only thing that kept him afloat. By using the marijuana, he was able to take the other drugs and they became more effective."
He regained about 30 pounds before dying 18 months later at age 28. His parents believe marijuana extended his life.
During his final months, Sean came to live with his parents. His supplier brought his "medicine" to their home.
"He kept apologizing to us that he was putting us into this situation so that we could get arrested," said Gerry McGrath, a registered nurse. "It really made me angry, because this was not a party. This was not something he was doing for fun. He was struggling to stay alive."
Dr. Stephen Goldfine, chief medical officer for Marlton-based Samaritan Hospice, said his organization favors the legislation.
"It's another tool in our toolbox for patients who can't tolerate other (drugs)," Goldfine said.
Marijuana is especially helpful when managing neuropathic pain, he said. That's the same kind of pain afflicting O'Brien.
But because it's illegal, many patients won't take marijuana or even bring up the subject with their doctor.
"There's really a lot of guilt associated with it," Goldfine said. "You don't need to put guilt on top of the dying process."
If O'Brien could use marijuana legally, he said, he would smoke three joints a day. Immediately after taking the drug, his wife Leah said, he is able to sleep well, work around the house and think clearly because the fog of pain has lifted.
But because marijuana is illegal and because he is a born-again Christian, O'Brien struggles to battle the pain without it, allowing himself only sometimes to risk possible jail time by buying it.
"Every once in a while, the pain gets so intense," said O'Brien, "it just breaks me."
News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: The Daily Journal
Author: KIM MULFORD
Contact: The Daily Journal
Copyright: 2009 The Daily Journal
Website: Patients in Pain Eager for Legalized Pot
