Illinois NORML - ILLINOIS: Would the US Government Rather You Go Blind than Smoke Cannabis?

The war against cannabis is a civil war. Nowhere is this more apparent than when politics and medicine clash. In the civil rights war, the opponents of integration, the segregationists, used state power to undermine reform of America's educational system. Today, the drug warriors are using federal power to undermine medical cannabis reform.

Salim Muwakkil, senior editor of In These Times and noted columnist for the Chicago Tribune, referred to the drug warriors as the American Taliban in a 2002 essay. He got it right.

It is not coincidental that the war on drugs, officially so-named by the Nixon administration, developed along with the opposition to integration in the South. By claiming that cannabis is a Schedule 1 drug with no medical value, the federal strategy of complete marijuana prohibition contributes to the suffering of thousands of patients: for the American Taliban, morality trumps health.

They've got it backwards.

Not everyone knows that the federal government has been growing cannabis in Mississippi for decades or that the federal government ran a medical cannabis compassionate use program that was open to patients from 1977 to 1991. In 1992, with applications on the rise from AIDS patients applying to the program, it was abruptly shutdown by President Bush Sr. In February of 1992, the nation's ten legal cannabis smokers blasted the Bush bureaucrats for "turning the promise of compassionate care into a cruel bureaucratic con game played against desperately ill Americans."

At the time, the patients called it "medical terrorism".

Like more than half of the other states in the union, Illinois has a medical cannabis law that focuses on the doctor's ability to do research with patients. Tucked quietly away and left unenforced since 1971, section 11 of the Illinois Cannabis Control Act (CCA), titled "Research with cannabis", permits and protects the research-use of medical cannabis in Illinois. The General Assembly recognized more than 30 years ago that cannabis had special properties that warranted a medical research section. But nothing has ever been done. The program was officially door matted in 1984 when it was placed under the control of the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.

But the law remains.

Brenda Kratovil needs Section 11 enforced. She suffers from secondary glaucoma brought on by a cornea transplant in 1979 for the disease lattice corneal dystrophy. She has had a total of eight cornea transplants and a series of laser surgeries. For decades, Mrs. Kratovil used the most common medication for glaucoma, eye drops, until her body became toxic because of them. Her doctors told her to never use them again.

These doctors include her family physician and a Chicago area glaucoma specialist. They have examined her condition and performed initial tests on the usefulness of her medicine. They have concluded that cannabis, given her medical condition, is the only medicine she can use to control her ocular pressure.

Section 11 of the CCA states that the Department of Human Services, with written approval from the Illinois State Police, "may authorize the possession, production, manufacture, and delivery of substances containing cannabis."

The law also states that the department "shall issue without unnecessary delay" the authorization for the medical research with cannabis when a physician certifies that cannabis "is necessary for the treatment of glaucoma, the side effects of chemotherapy or radiation therapy in cancer patients or such other procedure certified to be medically necessary."

A few minutes with Brenda Kratovil and you realize the war on medical marijuana is a pathological farce. Cannabis is medicine for many Americans, and the health issues that individual's face, along with the choices they must make, should not be limited or exacerbated by law enforcement. Health is a human right.

When a glaucoma patient's ocular pressure reaches 65 to 70, the pain and trauma induces vomiting. I've seen Brenda in this condition: she vomits, cries, and survives in anguish, incapable of a normal life. Her medicine is smoked cannabis, and it is the only thing between her and blindness.

No matter how long the federal government wages war against the medical use of marijuana, the fact remains: it is medicine.

Should I tell you about the police raid where they allegedly found 2 grams of cannabis? That's right; five drug task force officers tore up her house, unsettled and berated her children, and allowed the drug dog to urinate in one of the bedrooms. Reportedly, a police drug informant said there were "pounds of marijuana" in Brenda's house. The police didn't find any pounds of marijuana, but they took the Kratovils' $300 in cash anyway. Drug money they called it.

Or should I tell you about the raid where the police took some plants, left her without any medicine, and didn't even arrest her until three months after the raid. They deliberately made her wait, pressuring her for information on drugs and deliberately increasing the stress in her life. They never considered the fact that she was a patient: all they saw was a criminal.

The stress did plenty of damage. Dr. Tessler, Brenda's family doctor for more than 23 years, gets emotional when asked about the raids: he knows exactly how much sight she lost because of them.

Brenda's family has been through the raids as well. Jim, her husband, has been with Brenda for sixteen years, and he's been through it all. In talking with their teenage son and daughter, they wonder aloud why the state would do this to their mom.

The Illinois Lake County State's Attorney is currently prosecuting Brenda. Her alleged crime: marijuana possession. Her defense: she doesn't want to go blind.

So which would you choose: vomiting, pain, and blindness or the absence of all three?

Rhetorical question.

End the rule of the American Taliban.

At the request of Brenda Kratovil and Dr. Michael Savitt, a glaucoma specialist, Illinois NORML has asked the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse to enforce Section 11. They haven't been receptive to our inquiries, and they haven't shown any compassion for Brenda's medical emergency.

You can help Brenda and Dr. Savitt by writing to the Department of Human Services, Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, and tell them to enforce state law and allow Dr. Michael Savitt to research Brenda Kratovil's glaucoma treatment. Mrs. Kratovil wants to keep her eyesight, and I find it unimaginable, not to say indefensible, that the Department of Human Services wants her to go blind. By enforcing state law, the Department can provide a degree of legal protection for this unique person.

Write to the Director, Melanie Whitter, the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, 100 W. Randolph St., Suite 5-600, Chicago, IL 60601-3224 about Brenda's case.

Ask them to have a medical doctor and glaucoma specialist look into Dr. Savitt's request and Brenda's condition. So far they have refused this request.

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