Medical Marijuana - Where I stand

The town of Crested Butte, CO held a public hearing last night to discuss the continued existence of several dispensaries in town.  I was supposed to attend and speak before the Council, but was too ill to do so.  Since no one heard what I'd wanted to say, I reproduce it here for you:

My name is Tim, and I have AIDS. I tested positive for HIV in 1988, and was diagnosed with “full-blown AIDS” in 1989. At the time, I was told my prognosis was 'death in two or three years,' as that was the norm back then; that was twenty-two years ago. I'd smoked marijuana (maybe) three times in the ten years before my diagnosis, but it quickly became a big part of my treatment plan as my symptoms progressed.

I also suffer from Bipolar Disorder, Chronic Pancreatitis, and chronic Sciatica from a ruptured disc. The latter two are extremely painful conditions often requiring Morphine or Demerol for pain relief. Marijuana helps alleviate some of the worst aspects of all of these ailments. In the vast majority of cases where this plant is invaluable to the patients' well-being, it's acquisition and use is illegal, making it necessary to turn to some local, anonymous, usually-shady grower/dealer, or to the “black market” for treatment.  I did that for many years—not realizing that I was supporting the international drug trade—and all too often I would receive very-low-end “product” that did little-to-nothing to ease my discomfort; sometimes it wasn't even pot. Though it hasn't happened to me, I've had friends share their horror stories about some of the “bad weed” they'd bought; one friend got some that was laced with “angel dust”! One never knows where the next bag of weed came from, much less what's in it.

With the advent of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, all of that changed completely. I was able to procure—for the first time, legally according to the State of Colorado—medical-grade marijuana that was safe and clear of hard-core street drugs, and that actually helped, and did so consistently. For the first time in my life, I was able to treat myself with real medication whose only side-effects were tiredness (with some notable exceptions), and significantly-increased appetite (i.e., “the munchies”)—absolutely vital in the treatment of AIDS, due to a life-threatening (and all too often fatal) condition called “AIDS Wasting Syndrome.” I have endured this condition—as well as a related one known as Lipodystrophy—for over twenty years now, and I've watched it end the lives of a number of very close friends during that time.

AIDS wasting is defined as:

“the involuntary loss of more than 10% of body weight, plus more than 30 days of either diarrhea, or weakness and fever [or, in my own experience, “all of the above”]. Wasting is linked to disease progression and death. ...[Despite a dramatic decrease in incidences since 1996], wasting is still a problem for people with AIDS, even people whose HIV is controlled by medications. ...Part of the weight lost during wasting is fat. More important is the loss of muscle mass. ...AIDS wasting and lipoatrophy can both cause some body shape changes.”

There are three main factors that cause wasting in AIDS patients: ⁴

• Low food intake
• Poor nutrient absorption
• Altered metabolism

To clarify:

• Low appetite is common with HIV. ... It can be difficult for some people with AIDS to eat when they're hungry. Drug side effects such as nausea, changes in the sense of taste, or tingling around the mouth also decrease appetite. Opportunistic infections in the mouth or throat can make it painful to eat. Infections in the gut can make people feel full after eating just a little food. Depression can also lower appetite. Finally, lack of money or energy may make it difficult to shop for food or prepare meals.
• Healthy people absorb nutrients through the small intestine. In people with HIV disease, several infections (including parasites) can interfere with this process. HIV may directly affect the intestinal lining and reduce nutrient absorption. Diarrhea causes loss of calories and nutrients.
• Food processing and protein building are affected by HIV disease. Even before any symptoms show up, you need more energy. This might be caused by the increased activity of the immune system. People with HIV need more calories just to maintain their body weight.

In twenty-two years, the only medication/substance that countered these horrific symptoms is “Marijuana.” It enabled me to survive those early days, because I chose to fight back with any weapon at my disposal, and marijuana was one of my strongest. It made me eat when I would have let myself starve to keep from vomiting again, or sitting on the toilet for another hour with diarrhea. Marijuana helped lessen the frequency of these events by making me so hungry I had to eat, to give my body something to fight back with: FOOD.

Medical Marijuana must remain available to those of us who depend upon it for our very survival; to insist that there is no medical benefit to using this most-beneficial plant is to ignore reality. We need you, as our representatives, to see the clear benefits of medical marijuana for those of us who would suffer intolerably without it, or risk our lives in an effort to acquire it through less-than-honorable means. Others have spoken to the financial aspects of this issue; I wish to speak to the aspects that relate to the right of us all to “the pursuit of happiness.” Life in agony is not such a pursuit; leave us, please, the right to 'pursue happiness' by the only real avenue we have left to us.