Cash was diagnosed with brain cancer prior to his second birthday, and had to undergo major chemotherapy. Cash’s condition became very serious. He hadn’t eaten in 40 days and was very near death. His father tried medical marijuana, which allowed Cash to eat, fight, and endure the chemotherapy, and he was even declared cancer-free for a little while. It sounds like the tumor has come back now, sadly, but at least Cash has cannabis as an option right from the start this time. Read more here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1383240/Boy-brain-cancer-cured-secretly-fed-medical-marijuana-father.html.

Storm was diagnosed with Multiple Synostosis Syndrome, which causes his bones to slowly fuse. It’s a terminal condition and very painful. Georgia, his mother, tried medical marijuana when he was 15 to ease his incredible suffering. Without marijuana, her son’s pain was so bad that he would literally scream for hours. Read more here: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/796638.

I feel I failed in getting my main point across, but I think it applies in all three of our cases: prohibition is failing our children, and medical laws only barely help.

Marijuana is clearly able to ease the suffering of many serious ailments, but as long as it’s even partially illegal, we won’t know exactly how best to administer it as a medication. For Storm, it works well when smoked, but he’s forced to the black market to get a strain that’s actually useful. This of course becomes costly and potentially risky, but the Canadian government has very limited medical marijuana laws (though they are better than ours in the United Stated, from what I’m gathering).

Mike, Cash’s father, lives in the U.S. and has to deal with the same problems I deal with. Though states have legalized medical marijuana, it’s still federally illegal. There’s very little research into the medical value of cannabis, how different strains affect different problems, which methods of ingestion work best, and so forth. And now that the Obama administration is attacking the dispensaries and growers, our children may not have any access to cannabis outside of the black market.

Tune in to the show tomorrow at 8pm: http://live.norml.org

This bill would effectively stop federal prohibition in much the same way alcohol prohibition was repealed, leaving it up to each state to decide what to do about marijuana. I urge you to contact your house representative to let him or her know how important this bill is to you.

Also, you can follow the NORML Facebook page for updates and general information.

I’m not expecting this to pass, but I sure would love to be proven wrong.

Recently, the federal government has been making a lot of threats to states with medical marijuana laws. In Montana, this resulted in a bill with the intent to cut the 30,000 people who previously qualified for medical marijuana down to just 2,000. The feds seem to suddenly only believe that marijuana should be allowed for the terminally ill and those in intense pain that can be absolutely verified beyond the shadow of a doubt. The idea is to keep people from using the medical laws to partake in pot smoking.

I ask you to forget what you feel about personal use of marijuana for a little while. I am personally the victim of very strong morals about some issues, and I know how amazingly difficult it can be to not feel an intense rage toward people who do something I believe is wrong, even if I know my beliefs to be illogical. I believed so strongly that alcohol was “wrong” that I felt physically ill when I was 16 and found out a friend of mine had consumed alcohol on two occasions. She told me this to unburden her guilt, as she felt similarly about the situation, but I still couldn’t keep myself from telling her I was disgusted with her. I was thoroughly revolted that this otherwise good person had allowed herself to do such a horrible thing.

So please believe me when I say that I know how hard it is to change the core moral principles on which we were raised. But eventually I learned to stop worrying so much about how other people led their lives. I continued to silently judge drinkers and smokers, and especially “druggies” until I was probably in my mid-twenties. At some point I started meeting people who did all these things I loathed so much, and realized they were not bad people.

The point is, let’s consider those 30,000 medical users in Montana. I find it highly unlikely that 93% of them (the 28,000 we’re trying to remove) are in fact using medical marijuana as an excuse to simply get high. I’ll grant you some of those people are probably abusing the system. But how many others have to suffer in order to keep the abuse down? Why do we have to punish the innocent in order to serve justice? Why can’t we let the potheads just smoke themselves into idiocy if they want? As long as they haven’t actually hurt anybody else, why are we criminalizing the simple activity of smoking weed?

Let’s look at Alex’s situation. He is not terminally ill. There is no way we could prove that he’s in any significant pain because he cannot tell us, and his behaviors are still a mystery to every doctor we’ve ever seen. He will not qualify for medical marijuana if the feds have their way with Oregon. Alex should not have to suffer because we want to have ridiculously restrictive laws that are meant to keep people from abusing their own bodies.

I am hoping that California can once again make a strong push in 2012 to get some real cannabis reform. We need to stop telling people how to live their lives when the only damage they’re doing is to themselves.

Cannabis cannot kill. It doesn’t cause aggression of any kind. It doesn’t lead to violence. “Cannabis-related violence” is due to its monetary value, not due to an after-effect of use. By some accounts (even the U.S. government’s ) it has the possibility to be extremely beneficial for cancer patients.

Cannabis absolutely does have downsides. Excessive use definitely seems to lead to “oddness” in people. Getting high while there’s anything important to do (operate machinery, watch children at a pool, drive, etc) can be very dangerous indeed. But so can alcohol, cell phones, and even depression.

We have to stop criminalizing all the what-ifs — maybe a smoker will do something dumb, but we can’t throw them in jail “just in case”. We may as well try to pass a law that requires no less than 7 hours of sleep each night based on the fact that some people who don’t get enough sleep end up driving recklessly the next day. Laws are supposed to be there to protect our rights. So why do we punish pot smokers? Whose rights are they violating?

A fully regulated cannabis industry would create jobs. It would help sick people. It would drive the price of cannabis down, even if it were heavily taxed, making it far less profitable for criminals. It would generate revenue for the government. Not to be selfish, but it would make a world of difference for my little boy.

Is it really worth criminalizing it just to keep people from doing something that’s considered morally wrong? Is it really worth the deaths of so many in the drug wars just to keep some idiot from wasting his life away on the sofa?

Thursday he was a wreck most of the time I was there, and I left feeling very sad for him. I couldn’t seem to calm him down at all. Yesterday, he was a bit tired when I arrived, happy for a little while, unhappy for a little while, and never really had any smiles for me.

Today went a lot better. Part of that may have to do with us bringing him a wide variety of foods and candy. Part may have just been him getting out of whatever funk he’d been in. Part may be the magic of marijuana, though that’s hard to say for sure. I gave him a fairly small dose, and under normal circumstances I wouldn’t expect that amount to do much. I am just trying to get a little hash in him here and there in the hopes that longer-term use can help balance him out just a little.

Whatever the case, we got a bit of very happy video, and he was full of smiles. He did well in a car ride (both ways), spent a great deal of time at a school playground, and wasn’t even angry when we left him back at his home.

I keep saying I’m going to start making him hash, but time is going by far faster than I’d like. By the time I could be ready to make hash, it’s too late. My new job is far enough away that in order to get in by 8am, I have to be up by 6 or 6:15, and I don’t do well on fewer than seven hours of sleep. I get home around 6, but last week that only happened once due to visiting Alex two days, and dealing with new-job paperwork two days. This weekend I was supposed to start, but spent the time on other things due to my wife and youngest son visiting (they still aren’t moved up). I really only got as far as reading more in-depth hash-making information, buying a second bucket (apparently you shouldn’t use the hand mixer with the bags if you want to be sure they last a long time), and investing in a 20-pound bag of ice.

Maybe I’ll start next weekend. But during the week, I almost definitely won’t have time — I hope to visit Alex twice, talk to my mother (sorry I didn’t call this weekend like I promised) for the first time since I moved, do a phone interview with some people who contacted me, and try to figure out how to properly word the email to the state that says we won’t consider moving him to Portland unless they actually stabilize him first. Wish me luck.

I’m still pretty angry that we aren’t able to get him the medicine he needs other than by giving it ourselves. His current meds are bringing him relief, and that’s obviously our #1 priority, but I want to be able to give him hash more than once every couple days. That’s the stuff that really showed a lot of promise, has the potential to cut back his other meds tremendously, and seems to be very safe, even if the hype were true about MJ causing IQ losses (in Alex’s case, we’ll gladly take that risk over the risks of his current legal meds). So far as I can tell there are no long-term studies to show the effects of his current medications in a growing child. It’s ridiculous that we can’t use the medication we believe to be the best for his situation. Hopefully I can get going this weekend on making some hash to bring him (got the bags, got the bucket, got the trimmings), but it’s completely unfair to him (and us) that he can’t just be given a medication that is safe and effective.

The really bad news is the facility he’s at is meant to be short-term, and they’re pressuring us to get him out of there and into a long-term facility. Fine, we’re okay with that, we know it’s not his final home. But they’re pushing hard to get him up to Portland. As long as we have to administer his medications, that is NOT an option. We can’t likely get to Portland more than once a week, and that won’t work for medicating him properly. Even if I can medicate 3-4 times a week, that’s insufficient, but it’s certainly better. I told them we aren’t willing to put him so far away if they’re unwilling to medicate, and their response borders on “too bad”. They’re wiling to put him on a waiting list for a closer location to us, but they aren’t keen on keeping him at the short-term facility for much longer. Why? Because there are too many “crisis” situations that need the space more…. I’d love to see people in a worse crisis situation than our son. Even the kids currently there seem to be a lot easier to manage than Alex during his bad times.

And you know what’s really great? The cause of these crises is budgetary in nature. More centers are having to close the doors to kids like Alex because our state can’t balance its budget. And through all this, a measure that could help the budget a little bit is getting almost no attention: the OCTA! Fix the budget, help the sick people who can’t afford black market (read: “good”) marijuana, get cops dealing with real criminals. COME ON, OREGON!

We saw Alex this weekend, and it was by far our best visit ever. He’s happier than he’s been in a very long time. He only had one really serious meltdown, and it lasted only about ten minutes or so. And to be fair, it was my fault for trying to take him on a carousel ride “one more time” when I should have known better. Alex had been signing “more” for the carousel ride after two relatively fun rides, and so I took him on a third time, even though I knew he sometimes gets overstimulated. Even though he wants something, he may not really enjoy it if he gets too much. So not only did I ignore my usual cautionary response, but I even chose to be a little risky — instead of sitting him on my lap in the wagon, I hoisted him up on the horse, where he hadn’t had as much fun the prior day.

He completely freaked out, and they almost stopped the ride for him, but for my “no, no, he’ll be happy again soon’ comments. I was stupid, no doubt about it. He just had such a good visit that I was sure it was a temporary thing.

After hitting himself pretty badly for a while, and even biting me once, we got him to the car and the ride calmed him down very fast. So it was a bit rough, but definitely could have been a lot worse.

So a few key points here:

• We haven’t been able to get him in a car since we dropped him off at the foster care facility a few months ago, and that time we gave him his last little bit of hash to get him through the ride. This weekend’s car ride was not only safe, but incredibly happy. He loved it!
• We spent probably four or five hours with Alex over both days this weekend, and only ten minutes of that time was bad.
• Alex got to see his grandmother and brother for the first time since he left.
• Alex’s brother had a truly amazing time:
  • After Alex left us in February, his brother told us he was afraid of Alex, hated Alex, never wanted to see Alex again, hoped Alex was never happy again, and was glad we had “banished” Alex from the house.
  • During this visit, they played with each other a bit, and even hugged at one point. Alex’s brother said he had a lot of fun. He asked us at one point why he was feeling better about seeing Alex. In the mind of a five-year-old, Alex’s rage must have been terrifying. But today and yesterday, our two boys were able to be happy around each other again. To our younger son, it was so different that he didn’t understand it — but still enjoyed it!

All in all, an incredible trip. This one, like the last, ended in tears — but this time it was because we wished we could keep Alex happy like that all the time. If we could, he could come home.

The bad news

My wife talked with some people who represent kids and adults in situations like Alex’s. They told us it’s very unlikely they’ll get involved in our situation, as the federal laws are all but impossible to work around. Even though the state says marijuana is legal for somebody in an extreme situation like Alex’s, the federal government refuses to even admit that it has any legitimate medical use, period.

Additionally, Alex is now on some of the medicine we wanted to take him off of, including Risperdal and Ativan. I don’t like the side-effects of either medication, and I can’t find anything about their long-term effects on a developing brain. Marijuana is “too risky” because it’s got unknown risks. I’m betting that his current medications have equally unknown risks, but they’re not risky? I call BS on this particular marijuana myth.

The light at the end of the tunnel

In two weeks, I’ll be within an hour of Alex. It’s not the best situation, but I’ll be close enough to visit him more than once or twice a month. In fact, I’ll be able to squeeze in a minimum of one visit a week, and hopefully more like three. I may not be able to get him the best medicine for him (I still believe marijuana is the way to go compared to the stuff he is currently on), but seeing his dad more often will definitely help him immensely.

Within a few months, the rest of the family will move up. We’ll all be able to see Alex almost whenever we want. It’s not the same as having him in our home, but it’s a whole lot closer than today, where we have to drive 200 miles.

Before the critics pipe up:

• His average mood isn’t as bad as those depicted in the rage videos, but it should be noted that behaviors that are close to that level of intensity will happen multiple times in any given year
• The “best of” video shows behavior that is fairly rare – maybe a couple times a year would we see that level of happiness, and never for very long
  • But with marijuana, we were able to witness these joyous moments several times in a single month, and they lasted hours at a time!

Even on heavy meds, he never got the same duration of happiness as the marijuana made him. He was either a zombie or very quick to change from happy to raging, but never held a good mood for very long.

When reading a study, use your brain!

The Gateway Drug Theory is barely more than an unlikely possibility. Studies that prove marijuana influences substance abuse should be carefully scrutinized, as there are “hidden” factors that must be considered.

• Since the intense crackdown on pot in the late 1990s, pot prices have risen, making harder drugs like cocaine a lot more affordable.
• Most studies are based on young people in their teens and early 20s – arguably the most risk-taking demographic that exists. This makes it very difficult to determine if marijuana users who use harder drugs were actually affected by the use of marijuana. I’d like to see a study of people in their thirties and older who use marijuana.
• Some people even claim to have used marijuana to get off harder drugs, as the medicinal effects can help fight withdrawals.
• Most proponents of legalization state that it should have an age limit, and be regulated and taxed. This effectively nullifies any study that claims a link exists between adolescents and substance abuse, as that demographic still wouldn’t be allowed to have marijuana legally.
• The mere fact that marijuana is 100% illegal introduces variables — some people would try it if it weren’t for all the anti-pot propaganda, and those people are obviously not considered in any gateway studies; some users end up having much easier access to other illegal drugs because of the measures they have to take to get marijuana, and easy access to hard drugs is a known factor to increase substance abuse; a wise dealer would know that pot won’t hook a client, and offer his marijuana customers a small amount of something that will.

The common claim about brain damage is based on a study that essentially suffocated monkeys with marijuana smoke.

• The monkeys were given the equivalent of 20-60 strong joints (depending on what you read) daily. This is a huge amount of pot. People just don’t consume this kind of quantity.
• More interestingly, the study forced monkeys to inhale marijuana smoke and virtually nothing else for five minutes straight!
• This happened exactly once a day for the monkeys.
• By cleverly writing out the conclusion, it sounds pretty awful: monkeys exposed to X joints a day are significantly more brain-damaged than those not exposed. Clearly the monkeys would have reacted differently had the smoke been given to them over a ten-hour period!
• Let’s look at this from another perspective. I want to prove that drinking too much water is dangerous.
  • I get a bunch of healthy adults and split them into two groups: one gets the recommended amount of 8 cups (64 fluid ounces, or about 2 liters) daily. The other gets just a little bit more.
  • To make sure I can prove my point, I give the first group one cup (~235ml) every hour for eight hours. I give the second group 2.5 liters to drink first thing in the morning. They are required to drink it all within an hour, and have nothing else the rest of the day.
  • This regiment happens for 6 weeks.
  • When I publish my study, which group do you suppose will fare the best in terms of overall health?

Moral: always critically analyze the facts – find out how the research was done before believing any study.

Other facts of interest

• Marijuana, at a typical dose, has a calming effect in most users. Some get anxious or paranoid (though this more often happens in an overdose), but you never hear about marijuana causing rage or violence, because that’s just not how it works.
• Marijuana has very few side-effects that pose a risk to the user. Chronic smokers probably have lung problems, though not nearly as bad as chronic tobacco smokers, simply because you can’t smoke that much pot. Smoking 20 cigarettes in a day isn’t all that uncommon. For marijuana users, 20 joints of equal size in one day would be ridiculous. Smoking five joints of good marijuana is plenty (and even too much) from what I’ve heard (asking people I know as well as reading when we were researching the good and bad of marijuana for Alex).
• Along those lines, there are claims that smoking weed is far worse on the lungs than smoking tobacco. The worst claim I’ve seen “proves” that marijuana users smoking three joints a day are causing the same damage as 20 cigarettes. Even if that were true: marijuana isn’t nearly as addictive as nicotine, and a single joint in a day is plenty for a good number of recreational users.
• Marijuana doesn’t just get people high. People in chronic pain actually hit a point of simply feeling relief while still being able to function, which a lot of people don’t realize — and the same seems to be true of people like Alex in a state on constant anxiety or agitation.
• Marijuana is addictive, but far less so than alcohol or tobacco. The side-effects are so mild that even opponents admit it’s not much of a concern: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-addiction/201001/is-marijuana-addictive-you-can-bet-your-heroin (read the article, then the comments where the author states he never claimed it was highly addictive, just that it can be addictive by the clinical definition)
• Marinol is definitely not a good substitute. It’s missing the many cannabinoids that marijuana has, as it’s just pure THC. It’s only available in pill form, which is worthless to people like Alex – if it doesn’t taste good, he won’t eat it. This also makes it terrible for treating nausea associated with various ailments, as the patient can’t keep it down. Smoking or vaporizing marijuana is also much faster than ingesting Marinol, so people in intense pain can feel relief in minutes rather than an hour or two.
• Some people report crimes related to marijuana. Read those reports carefully – it’s often the case that the value of the pot is to blame, not the pot itself. When an ounce of a substance can fetch anywhere from $40 to $500 on the black market, it’s going to tempt people who are already willing to commit crimes for money. Imagine trying to outlaw diamond rings based on the fact that people steal and even kill over diamonds.
• There are a lot of different kinds of marijuana. One woman reports that her autistic child did well only with a particular strain. It isn’t “just pot”. The more Indica in a strain, the more you get the sleepy effect. Sativa, on the other hand, is good for keeping your mind active while under the influence. For a child like Alex, a careful mix of the two is probably necessary.

The first clip is when Alex was around 3 or 4 and first began his self-injurious behaviors. It’s actually pretty tame when you see what comes afterward, but it just tears my heart in two to watch, because he’s so little there, and back then we still got to see his happy times far more often than the sad.

The rest of the clips are very graphic. They are most definitely not to be viewed by anybody with a weak stomach, and probably not at work for any reason. Even people who know Alex well may find them horrifying. We only took video when things were at their worst (so we could prove we weren’t abusing him), so it’s no surprise the videos are so intense.

I would apologize for having posted such a disturbing video, but the truth needs to get out there. The nebulous risks that may or may not be associated with long-term marijuana use absolutely do not outweigh the risks of Alex’s intense behaviors. No legitimate reason for outlawing marijuana can justify putting a child through this kind of agony.

• Alex is a child with autism, seizures, and severe self-injurious behaviors
• We’ve tried many medications and talked to several specialists over the past several years, all with no luck
• Marijuana, approved in Oregon for his seizures, proved to calm Alex while also making him more engaged in the world around him
• We couldn’t keep a steady supply of marijuana, and Alex no longer can live with us
• His new state-run home will not give him marijuana even if we find a supply
• His behaviors are once again getting bad, and they’ve had to use physical restraints multiple times to keep Alex safe
• Our life is a living hell right now

OCTA

The OCTA (Oregon Cannabis Tax Act) was the first glimmer of hope in a while for us. We found out about this mid-April, about six weeks after Alex left our care. I’m all for personal cultivation and use of marijuana, because I believe it should be an individual’s choice. But more importantly for Alex and others like him, a doctor could prescribe a set dose. A pharmacy could fill it. Anybody who was willing could give Alex his dose. Even if the state-run facility still refused to officially do it, I think we’d have a much easier time convincing them to follow his doctor’s advice.

I’m certain Alex would be living a better life with a carefully measured dose of marijuana every day, and the right strain such that he calms down, but stays alert and focused.

Other benefits of the OCTA:

• The OCTA would keep the current DUII laws in place for people who abuse marijuana and drive.
• The OCTA would make it illegal for anybody under 21 to use marijuana (other than medically necessary uses), and better yet, would make it so a person convicted of selling to a minor would lose their right to possess, cultivate, and consume marijuana.
• As mentioned above, a doctor could specifically prescribe marijuana to patients. Today’s Oregon law makes it the patient’s responsibility to find a supply. In California, the law allows dispensaries, but those are still close to black-market prices from what I’ve read and heard. If prescribed by a doctor, a patient would get the medication essentially at a fair market value. Marijuana is very cheap to grow, so this would be a huge benefit.
• Marijuana legalization would cripple the black-market pot operations. By getting prices down to a reasonable level (pot can be grown in the wild for 1/10th to 1/100th of today’s black-market values), and getting quality marijuana in state-regulated stores, crime related to marijuana would all but vanish. But don’t take my word for it, take the word of the illegal growers in California worried about the impact to their bottom line: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36025681/ns/us_news-life/
• Medicinal benefits could get the research they really need. Some people say it can cure cancer when done right. Maybe it can and maybe it can’t, but it’s almost impossible to do a proper study when the MMJ laws are so flawed, and the legality is still so nebulous.
• Hemp production would allow for very cheap paper, fabrics, biofuels, and even food!