No More Vicodin For Me

That's right no more Vicodin for me. No more Flexiril either. You might ask why would someone who has taken Vicodin and Flexiril as a part of a pain management regiment for about eight years make such a drastic decision. Three letters is all the answer you need, DEA! If I want to continue with this very successful drug regiment I have to prove that I am not using cannabis.

What does the DEA have to do with a persons lawful and longtime use of two widely prescribed drugs. Simple. DEA controls whether or not a physician can prescribe scheduled narcotics. Don't play by their rules and they take away your prescription pad. Where are those Republicans in Congress who don't want bureaucrats telling doctors what to do. They are of course lined up squarely behind the DEA. Afterall it is their 40 year Drug War. Yes of course Democrats have supported the Drug War also, but that is pure political survivorship. Speak out against the Drug War and watch your political career go in the dumper.

It works like this the DEA has issued a series of guidelines/regulations that doctors who are certified in pain management have to adhere to. The guidelines are suppose to insure that illegal narcotic users don't also receive prescription pain killers such as Vicodin. That is fine. We don't want people dying because they shot up heroin then took four extra strength Vicodin. However, doctors I have spoke to are in agreement, cannabis does not negatively interact with these drugs.


Initially these regulations had doctors bringing patients in once a month to get new prescriptions. At that time most are made to provide a urine sample. That drug test has to show the proper level of the drug you are taking and no other drugs, including over-the-counter medicines like Tylenol. Tylenol is counter-indicated with Vicodin because along with the 5mg of Hydrocodone in Vicodin there is also 500mg of Acetaminophen the active ingredient of Tylenol. Too much Acetaminophen will surely damage a liver. This policy changed but not all are in agreement that the change has been effective. The Washington Post reported on the change back on Sept. 7, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/06/AR2006090601756.html



Up to here I'm fine with. They will also look for "street drugs." Here is where it gets sticky. I recently had one of these tests. It reported that I had Dilaudid (Hydromorphone Hydrochloride) in my system. Both my doctor and pharmacist agreed that this is Vicodin in its metabolized form. In other words the urine tests that most people take do not completely identify what drug you took. They test for how much of the metabolized drug is in your system. The policy breaks down for me because they are not doing a thorough chemical analysis identifying which drug had been ingested. Yet let there be just a trace of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and BAM you are out of pain management.


Therefore despite wide spread belief that Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) does not negatively impact the metabolizing of either Vicodin or Flexiril, medical marijuana patients are not allowed opiates like Vicodin, if the patient tests positive for THC. This is true even in states where medical marijuana is allowed. Here's a kicker, as I am researching this topic I learned that Felxeril (I have seen Flexiril spelled both ways) is not effective on muscle spams caused by neuro-muscular disease. SO my case is a chicken or egg situation. Are my muscle spasms caused by over use or by the residual paralysis from polio, in other words post polio syndrome.


Where does this leave me? It leaves me where I have been for far too many years. It leaves me playing "Lester Burnham" in "American Beauty" and hoping the new kid next door sells pot. Worse it leaves me going to bars that my mere lack of "ink" makes me suspect. Worse it makes me a target for being ripped off. It leaves me having to choose between breaking the law and having pain relief or not breaking the law. I have to choose between Vicodin and Flexeril that has undesired side-effects like constipation and breaking the law to use cannabis, which has none of the undesirable side effects.

I once appeared on "Viewpoint" on Retirement Living TV. The producers loved one quote of mine from the show. "I have the right to be as pain free as possible..." I still believe that more and more each day. Today I met someone I'll call "Al." Al is a paraplegic who needs methadone to combat his constant pain. He will be discharged from the "pain manager's" practice if he tests positive for cannabis just one more time. The DEA is making the "what do I want to take for my pain medicine opiates or cannabis" and making it a question of being willing to break the law or not. It should be simply do I want to take opiates or do I want to use cannabis. Of the doctor's I have spoken to on this issue most are unwilling to express support of cannabis use because of the smoking issue. For that reason they are reluctant to come right out and say "If the law changes then I will recommend to my patients the use of cannabis." They are actually more likely to voice support for ending treating drug addiction as a criminal matter rather than a health matter. Do you have to make this choice? Should anyone have to make this choice? For me the answers are yes, and absolutley NO!

Pot City, USA

Last night the A&E network ran the documentary Pot City, USA. The documentary highlights the conflict in Humboldt County, Ca. The conflict lies in California's Compassionate Use law that allows patients to use and grow cannabis for medicinal purposes and the illegal growing of marijuana for profit. What a stroke of programming genius. Of course, they had no way of knowing that on the day the show would air, the Obama Administration would issue new guidelines to U. S. Attorney's regarding the use of federal funds to arrest and prosecute patients in the 13 states that now have Compassionate Use laws.

The town of Arcata has a problem they want to support California's Prop 215 law. What they don't want is the people moving to their town and by extension Humboldt County to grow pot for sale to anyone not just medical marijuana patients. Growers are coming to towns like Arcata because of liberal grow laws. Their business is driving up rents on houses, which makes it harder for renters to stay in their homes. One couple had their rent for a two-bedroom home go from $950.00/month to $1,900.00/month. Landlords are having a problem because their tenants are destroying their properties because of a variety of problems. Not the least of which is hydroponic grows that are done in secret trap all the excess moisture in a small area and mold begins to grow everywhere. Some landlords have had fires in their properties because growers have overloaded the existing electrical system with grow lights.

Medical marijuana patients have always had the support of the town of Arcata. However, that support is eroding because of the illegal grows. The Arcata Eye, the local newspaper was a strong supporter of the patients living in Arcata. They now increasingly have to report crimes involving violations of Prop 215. The editor says he used to report crimes as benign as a stolen garden hose that he took a page from Shakespeare and did so in verse. The editor now reports on raids by the Humboldt County Drug Task Force.

I have seen other documentaries on this subject. They are right to point out the problems arising from on one hand being able to legally grow up to 99 marijuana plants for personal medicinal use and/or to function as a caregiver and supply other patients with the medicine they need. So far, though the solution to the problem ends up being one lone person at the end of the show pointing out the obvious solution.

What is that obvious solution? Legalize marijuana for use by all responsible adults. So why doesn't America legalize marijuana? Boy, that post might set a record for longest blog post ever, since there are so many different answers. Primarily the answer lies in the political discourse of the day that has come to the forefront during the "debate" of healthcare reform. The opposing side lies, than when questioned, they tell the same lie, than when they are challenged with the truth they lie louder. What is the lie the opposition tells? The same lie that William Randolph Hearst and Harry Anslinger told back in the 1930's; Marijuana is a dangerous addictive drug that acts as a gateway to other "harder" drugs. This is patently false. Marijuana users don't try other drugs because of some component in marijuana. They do so, when they do, because like the candy at the checkout counter at say a hardware store the supplier of illegal cannabis also has other illegal drugs to sell. Marijuana users however, do not tend to go to sellers dealing in other drugs anymore because that is asking to be there when the DEA comes barging in to arrest the guy for selling cocaine or heroine.

One lie I have always thought totally obscene is that "X" percentage of people in jail for drug use started using illegal drugs by first using cannabis. I love writing on the internet because as editor I can say "BULLSHIT!" People who use cannabis usually begin with either nicotine and/or alcohol as in cigarettes and beer.

For landlords living in states where renters are turning their properties in to grow factories the answer is even simpler. Inspect your properties. When growing up, my folks owned four rental properties, which the inspected every few months. I used to be a renter. When we first moved in our landlord came around a couple of times a year. After three or four inspections, they told us it is obvious that, to you this is your home. They then made us the promise that we could live there as long as we like and they would keep the rent as low as they could. Our rent went from $590.00 to $850.00 a month over the course of nineteen years. When we moved out other renters in our court were paying up to $2,000.00 a month. Not for the reason rents went up in Arcata, but because Maryland is one of the most expensive states in the Union to live.

Landlords can also amend the standard rental lease they got from Staples to prohibit the growing of cannabis. Just like, they can prohibit or allow pets. This way they can evict tenants for violating the lease. It would also make it easier to recover damages in a civil suit. If they truly support medical marijuana laws, they could come to an agreement with their tenant as to the number of plants and the manner in which they are grown with the same simple amending of the pre-printed lease. Each party initials the change and every body’s rights are protected.

I have been through the legislative process of trying to pass a medical marijuana law in Maryland. The opposing testimony before the committees considering the bill came from ONDCP. Their argument boiled down to, if the FDA has not approved it as medicine than states should not allow the medicinal use of cannabis. I'll leave it to the reader to judge the validity of that argument. Know this however; the FDA says they want to conduct studies on the efficacy of cannabis as medicine. DEA is blocking that research through foot dragging on issuing licenses to possess cannabis for scientific research.

The senators and delegates questions frequently focused on how do we keep medical marijuana use separate from recreational use. They fear exactly what is happening in California might happen in Maryland. The answer I believe is the patients will keep it separate. States are fooling themselves if they think grow houses do not exist in every state in America. They do. It is just that when you have compassionate use laws, illegal growers flock there because they think they know that it is safer than in other states. DO NOT kid yourself. What happens in medical marijuana states is growers get sloppy and greedy. They feel less pressure to hide their activities. In Arcata, landlords actually advertise properties as suitable for "grow house." Then they raise the rent through the roof.

This argument is coming to a head. There is a simple two-step answer and it falls on Congress to enact it. First, pass a federal compassionate use law. Second after that, law has been in place for a few years come back and pass a bill in the spirit of the repeal of the alcohol prohibition. Legalize marijuana use for adults over the age of eighteen. When we repealed prohibition because of the crime that prohibition created, crime especially murder went down. We were in essence saying that in America you have the right, to chemically alter your perception, so long as you do so in a responsible manner.

News From Patients Out of Time

I first learned about Patients Out of Time from Irv Rosenfeld. Don’t get me wrong, Irv’s story as one of the last living federal medical marijuana patients is compelling. Even reason enough to pass a medical marijuana law for everyone. However, Patients Out of Time is a unique organization in the battle for the right to use cannabis medicinally.

Patients Out of Time is an all-volunteer organization. No one is paid a salary to run Patients Out of Time. This is not true of other pro-pot organizations. I was, prior to the recession, a member of both Americans for Safe Access and Drug Policy Alliance. They worked with me when I testified before committees in both houses of the Maryland legislator. They are great organizations. However, Patients Out of Time is demonstrating the power of volunteerism through its continuing educational programs.

Patients Out of Time has recently announced an online education program for MD’s and RN’s to earn Continuing Education Units or Continuing Medical Education credits. “This is CME and CEU credits for them, cheap!,” according to my friend Al Byrne a Patients Out of Time volunteer. The 2008 Patients Out Of Time Fifth National Clinical Conference On Cannabis Therapeutics is now online. The UCSF School of Medicine site is hosting it at http://www.cecity.com/ce-bin/owa/bel?cc=CECA&aid=14422.For more information and to register please contact Patients Out Of Time 1472 Fish Pond Rd., Howardsville, VA 24562, Telephone (434) 263-4484 or on the Internet at http://www.medicalcannabis.com. The cost for laypeople will be around $150.00. Professional’s costs are higher.

Patients Out Of Time is also announcing their Sixth National Clinical Conference On Cannabis Therapeutics. Warwick, Rhodes Island is the host city. The conference begins on Tax Day April 15th 2010 and runs through April 17th 2010. Patients Out of Time has lined up as featured speakers: Donald Abrams, MD, Raphael Mechoulam, MD, Lyle Craker, PhD, and Andrew T. Weil, MD. Conferences are held every two years.

As with the online 2008 conference, the University Of California San Francisco School Of Medicine will be offering Continuing Medical Education credits for physicians and Continuing Education Units for nurses attending. This forum will also be available for credit on line at a future date.

Using the Internet to its fullest Patients Out of Time will soon be posting the 2006 conference on line this fall. That will make the Forth, Fifth and Sixth versions of the National Clinical Conference On Cannabis Therapeutics available on line for professional and laypersons alike. Patients Out of Time is a great volunteer organization for medical professionals. It is also a organization for patients in need of information about the medicinal use of cannabis. You can larn more at their website http://www.medicalcannabis.com/.

Deanie's Blue Inkblots "Cleaning Out the Closets of our Minds

 

WOW talk about being dead-on. We have spent the last several months preparing to and moving in with my mother-in-law. She has Parkinson's and recently had a brain tumor removed. Add to that my own personal health battle and my daughter's health problems and the sum total of stress is incredible.

 

On the top of the stress is my mother-in-law's grief over having to get rid of "stuff." Most of it old and stored away in the basement. Stuff stored along side can goods marked with dates like 1/98 or 7/88. Then there are her clothes. She is furious that while she was recovering her daughters went through her clothes and gave away her old clothes. Some of the clothes still had the tags on. Why give them away? Because they were size ten to twelve and she is a size eighteen to twenty (I'm being polite). She will never be a size ten again. Through all of this, she keeps saying the same thing, "I have to have time to grieve." Grieve for out of style clothes that are way too small anyway. Grieve for can goods that would probably kill her if she ate them. Grieve for kitchen gadgets that were a rip off when she bought them through QVC.

 

So how much stuff was there to deal with? Well during the first phase we filled an industrial size roll-off dumpster. When that was full we helped fill up the contractor's dumpster. We gave away 12 lawn & leaf trash bags (you know the really big ones) full of clothes. The second phase we packed two of those drop-off storage pods to the brim. When I say we I really mean my wife since she is the only one around here that is not disabled. For our part we filled one pod to the brim and threw away, a couple of trash cans full of stuff we no longer wanted or needed. Was her house a huge McMansion - far from it. No, it is a Rob & Laura Petrie style rancher, which she has lived in for going on fifty years.

 

We understand that her life is inextricably changed. What she is refusing to accept is that so is ours. She grieves that not every room in her home is hers anymore. We get that. What she doesn't get is that she gave up rooms. We gave up our home to come live with her so she could be safe. It was our kids’ only home; now it belongs to someone else. We, or more to the point I gave up something very dear to me – my cats. She was only going to allow them to move in with her if they were made to live in the basement. Because of their age they were probably put down shortly after arriving at the SPCA. She has not once offered any expression of understanding or appreciation for the sacrifices we have made.

 

 

We never gave a second thought about jumping in and doing the right thing. Dementia is hard to deal with especially when hurtful things are said. My poor wife has had to endure such hateful comments as, “Now that we live together there are things I don’t like about you.” Or, “I don’t trust you, you only moved in here so you could steal my money.” She has accused her of being a drunk because she has a coule of beers when she gets home from work. For the first three weeks we lived here my cried herself to sleep. Spike Lee told us to “Do the right thing!” He told us it would be hard. What we didn’t know was just how hard. Hopefully as our houses become more fully merged she will understand that what we are doing is because we love her – not her money.

Deanie's Blue Inkblots

Time to Legalize Drugs? - Nicholas D. Kristof Blog - NYTimes.com

There was a companion piece to this on Sunday by Mr. Kristof, "Drugs Won the War" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinion/14kristof.html?_r=1. It is good to see prominent editorialists stating this opinion. Many more of us have come to the same conclusion, for the same reasons years ago.

Through the courtesy of my friend at Drug Policy Alliance here are some more editorials in recent days. I have not read these as of yet but it is important that they're are being published. There are some esteem people who believe it is time to end the drug war. Even Walter Cronkite has a documentary available on line where he looks deep into the cost of the drug war and question its lack of results. If this was a shooting war with another country that had gone on for forty years, well the American people would never stand for it.

1)    AlterNet: Ethan Nadelmann's Speech at America's Future Now Conference; Posted on June 12, 2009, Printed on June 12, 2009 - I became active in drug reform after hearing Ethan speak at Johns Hopkins Bayview Campus in Baltimore back in 2006.

2)      Chicago Tribune: Feature on Kathie Kane Willis: (From Heroin
Addiction to Leader in Reform Movement) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-confession-bd-14-jun14,0,4399112.story

3)      Albuquerque Journal: DPA op-ed on Overdose Crisis and Solutions
to Problem http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/152214189251opinionguestcolumns06-15-09.htm

4)      AlterNet: Will Marijuana be Taxed and Regulated in CA? Ballot
Initiative in 2010

People are rethinking the drug war for a variety of reasons. 1st is the ineffectiveness of the policy. We spend billions on interdiction, arrest, trial and incarceration. Yet it is my opinion that there has not been a net result of even one drug addict prevented. Yes some people have avoided becoming a drug addict or even a drug user. But for everyone they have prevented there is more than one new user to take their place.

Another reason is because the drug laws have been unfair for many years. Depending on where you live being caught with marijuana could me jail time or a slap on the wrist with sometime in drug abuse "classes." Here the offender is basically forced to take in all of the same "Reefer Madness" (Tell Your Children) propaganda that was disproved as fast as it made the rounds back in 1936. Some states it has the same affect as a jaywalking ticket. The courts are still addressing the issue of sentence fairness between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

It is time to stop listening to the likes of General Barry McCaffrey the former Drug Czar. I recently heard him on MSNBC saying that legalizing marijuana because it would be a money maker for the government was liberal 1970's thinking. He went on to say it was stupid or silly or some other derogatory adjective. His argument basically that drugs are like communism and should not be allowed in America.

Despite how some tend to describe us I am not some lone stoner. I am politically active as well as leading a full life. Someone recently has a post blaming the government for the tragic deaths of some teenagers (If memory serves) who died during a high speed chase by the police. I know first hand the tragedy of a sudden death of a young person. But I draw my line at defending the acutely indefensible action of running from the police. Never break two laws at the same time. If you are going to use cannabis than you have to be certain to follow all the other laws; particularly traffic laws. The young people that died in that tragic accident were wrong when they chose to run instead of facing the reality of the situation. If you are under the influence and possessing cannabis and you see the red lights of a police car. You loose; pull over and deal with the situation.

The drug war like it or not is being look at as a drain on our federal budget. It represents something in excess of a trillion dollars in total cost. If we stop spending money on the drug war than lawyers, court clerks, paralegals, will all be out of a job and that's not all . All around the courthouses I used to work in there were other businesses that depended on the courthouse being there. There were drugs stores, restaurants and lunch counters, and convenience stores. It could mean in the future a decrease in the number of guards needed for our prisons and jails.  This is obviously not likely, even if the percentage of people being incarcerated goes down the size of the population is probably going to increase.

America as a nation needs to recognize that people will do drugs. Just like we learned that people will drink. People do and will continue to smoke despite the health consequences. This is why it is fruitless to try to prohibit these activities. Harry Anslinger did say one thing right as America's first "drug czar." He reportedly once said something like how am I supposed to police a weed. The drug misuse issue is often described as insidious or a scourge. This is why just saying no even if not saying no means jail, just saying no does not address the problem. America at this point has become the mother screaming at her children, "No, ...no, no, no...didn't you hear me I said NO, ...NO, NO, NO, don't you dare do that...NO!!!

 

Time to Legalize Drugs? - Nicholas D. Kristof Blog - NYTimes.com

Norm Stamper: One Cop To Another: Don't Arrest Phelps for Bong Photo

Do not arrest Michael Phelps. Do not support any company that pulls their endorsement deals because of this incident. Once again the voice of reason rises from the front line of America's War on Drugs. The idea of arresting a young man so "out of control" that he accomplished a physical feat that no other swimmer could is absurd by definition. The time is here that those who oppose the legalization of marijuana recognize that most users of marijuana fulfill life's obligations. They get up in the morning, go to work, do a flawless job at work, come home make dinner for their family, and have dinner together as a family. The difference is this. Many of those who support the "War on Drugs" pop open a beer or prepare a mixed drink as soon as they are home. Those who use cannabis retire to a more private part of their home to smoke cannabis. If it were my house and I could without risking arrest take a toke or two I would then be the one cooking dinner.  Even now thirteen states have taken the first step in opening the eyes of the American public that marijuana is not this evil substance that it is made out to be. Those states are recognizing the medicinal abilities of cannabis. It starts state by state, which means it starts with people speaking up and calling for a reevaluation of the historic failure of the last half of the twentieth America's War on Drugs. Michael Phelps has done nothing wrong, the law is wrong.

Norm Stamper: One Cop To Another: Don't Arrest Phelps for Bong Photo

Daily Kos: Oh What a Day!

This is the diary I wrote yesterday while I was watching the Inauguration Ceremony. Millions worked harder than I to get President Obama (boy that sounds good) elected. Still  I did what I could to elect a man I thought uniquely qualified to be president at this time. In earlier blog entries I told of my experiences volunteering for the Obama campaign. Simply put they were rewarding. It was a far more diverse a group than those on other campaigns I have volunteered with. So I hope you enjoy. Change of presidents is only one part of bringing change to America. The second part is for all of us to participate in our democratic government. If we all do that then change will truly have to America.

Daily Kos: Oh What a Day!