Illinois NORML - #8 Patient Patients

Why is patience considered the most powerful and difficult spiritual practice? -
Because patience is the antidote to anger. When we're patient, we don't dance to the
jerky, ever changing beat of worldly circumstances. Instead, we think, speak, and act
in a measured way, as if to a steady, internal heartbeat - a tempo that comes from our
deepest, most secret being. When we achieve this degree of patience, how can we get
carried away by anger, much less rattled by petty irritations?

- From "Buddha is as Buddha Does" by Lama Surya Das

Cannabis not only helps people with diseases and many different medical conditions - it is keeping some patients alive. I am 44 years old and have lived with MS for about half my life. During that time I've learned to be a patient patient. I took the advice of my doctors and the pharmaceuticals they prescribed. In an effort to manage my symptoms, I took one drug after another only to find the next nightmare of side effects crushing. This is why they call me a patient - I am supposed to endure, and if I am patient enough, there will be relief and a better quality of life.

I smoked what we called "marijuana" while in college, and stopped entirely as I entered the work force. In 1998, after many failed pharmaceutical combinations, I smoked again for medicinal purposes. At that time, I noticed how it relieved my leg spasticity. MS causes the nerves to "misfire," making my legs twitchy and jumpy. The cannabinoids in cannabis eased this problem while also helping with my bouts of recurring insomnia.

It wasn't until I started eating cannabis brownies in 2004 that I noticed a number of additional benefits. I regained better control of my bladder and a "quieting" of the tingling and numbing pain - which is a constant symptom of MS.

I also found that activating the ECS with the cannabis brownies calmed me. For example, cannabinoids kept my nerves from overloading whenever I was in a crowded or loud place. Typically in these situations, my nerves would get too stimulated - which means my body would start to "crash," often resulting in tremors. It's similar to a computer crashing. By shutting the computer down it may restore the system: the way I restore is by finding a dark, quiet, calm space to "reboot" my system. These crashes were not just painful, they progressed the disease, as I could literally feel my nerves fraying.

Being an MS patient has taught me endurance. My ability to stand straight and tall or walk from place to place is dramatically improved with cannabis. My balance is more controlled and I can walk heel-to-toe. Without this medicine, I typically have to hold onto a walker while my locked-legs are dragged underneath as I lurch forward. With cannabis, on my best days, I can walk - heel-toe-heel-toe-heel-toe. My legs can relax when I stand. I'm able to start moving with a spry jaunt through my apartment. Compared to walking like the Tin Man wearing a suit of armor, I feel like I'm again in better control of my body.

Perhaps most importantly, since I started using cannabis brownies, my depression has ended. Depression itself makes MS worse by overstressing an already taxed immune system. The health of our immune system affects the central and peripheral nervous systems. Surrounding and protecting our nerve fibers, like a sheath of an electrical cord, is a fatty tissue called "myelin." Myelin helps nerve fibers conduct electrical impulses. In MS, myelin is lost in multiple areas, leaving scar tissue called sclerosis. When myelin is damaged, the ability of nerves to conduct electrical impulses is disrupted. This produces the various symptoms of MS. Recent science has shown that the endocannabinoid system actually helps myelin rebuild itself - a process called "remyelination." I guess that's why I'm less depressed.

In my journey I have learned a lot about patience. Although, the laws in most of the country make this medicine illegal and difficult to obtain, I am patiently waiting to be able to access cannabis as easily as the pharmaceuticals that failed to help the MS.

I want you to see my story as one of discovery and healing. Not all stories work out that way. Many patients before me have endured the consequences of cannabis prohibition; people have lost and are continuing to lose their lives. While we wait for the laws to change, patients have been dragged through the legal system and have been denied access to their medicine. One noted example is Jonathan Magbie - a 24-year old who died in 2004 while incarcerated in a Washington DC jail. He was serving a ten day sentence because he told a judge that he couldn't stop using cannabinoids. Magbie was a quadriplegic patient and he smoked cannabis to ease the painful symptoms of his paralysis. At age four, while exiting a school bus, he was struck by a drunk driver. The accident left Magbie paralyzed from the neck down, stunting his growth and relegating him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Magbie's healthcare should have been an obvious concern to the court. He was incapable of moving without the aid of a chin-operated wheelchair and required a tracheotomy tube, a pulmonary pacemaker, and a ventilator at night in order to breathe. Since he was not provided a ventilator in his jail cell, he contracted pneumonia. He had difficulty speaking above a whisper and was forced to bang his wheelchair around in order to get the attention of the corrections officers. Magbie's movement apparently irritated the guards, so they locked him inside an infirmary cell without access to a panic button. The guards did not check on Magbie until the next morning when they found him dead.

Dying alone in a jail cell is a long way from the day Magbie had his picture taken with POTUS 40, Ronald Reagan. We need much more than feel good pictures from our political leaders - we need new cannabis laws. I fear the day that I would be arrested and denied access to my medicine. No patient person should have to endure such injustice - in the name of justice.

Search Terms

CBs, myelin and remyelination: CBs and pain: Jonathan Magbie, Colbert King, and Reagan: 1998-Present DC Medical Cannabis.

Research and Selected Readings

2009: Congress Allows DC to Implement 1998 Medical [Cannabis] Law, December 9, 2009.

2009: Targeting CB2 Receptors and the Endocannabinoid System for the Treatment of Pain, P. Anand, et al, Brain Research Review, April 2009, 60(1):255-66.

2008: CB2 Cannabinoids Receptors as an Emerging Target for Demyelinating Diseases, Angel Arevalo Martin, et al, British Journal of Pharmacology, January 2008, 153(2):216-225.

2006: Endocannabinoid Mechanisms of Pain Modulation, Andrea G. Hohmann and Richard L. Suplita II, American Association Pharmaceutical Scientists Journal, November 2006, 8(4):E693-E708.

2005: A Searing Portrait of Abuse, Colbert I. King, Washington Post, November 26, 2005.

2003: Therapeutic Action of Cannabinoids in a Murine Model of Multiple Sclerosis, Angel Arevalo Martin, et al, The Journal of Neuroscience, April 2003, 23(7):2511-2516.