Part III of a four-part series on the medical use of marijuana
By: Mark Hoult, The Community Press (CN ON), 09-12-08

Medical marijuana users face continued uncertainty

Although fewer than 3,000 Canadians are licensed to use medical marijuana, it's estimated that between 400,000 and one million people in the country use cannabis as medication. The following is the third in a series of articles about the use of marijuana to treat medical conditions.

Trent Hills - Alison Myrdon has been fighting the encroachment of multiple sclerosis since she was first diagnosed at the age of 13.

When she was a young woman doctors warned her she would be in a nursing home by the age of 40. But at the age of 45, Myrdon has defied the prognosis and carries on fighting the degenerative disease, with the help of what she and thousands of other Canadians now regard as nature's wonder drug cannabis, more commonly known as marijuana.

Myrdon is a retired corrections officer, now living in Burlington, who is also a member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), an international organization that believes in the regulated legalization of drugs. Her odyssey from corrections officer to medical marijuana user and impassioned public speaker has been one involving both pain and discovery.

Myrdon also suffers from a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, or tic douloureux, which results in intense facial pain. "It is excruciating, a violent pain in the face," Myrdon said in an interview with The Community Press.

After being diagnosed, Myrdon visited numerous doctors and tried numerous pain killers including cocaine and heroin. Nothing worked. And she suffered from the effects of the medication as well as the neuralgia, losing 11 pounds in one week. "Finally I stopped and said, 'no more,' " she said.

Like many medical marijuana users, Myrdon didn't know much about the drug and was afraid to try it. But one day she woke up to discover a friend had left some marijuana on her pillow. The friend convinced her to try it, and she began doing extensive research on the plant's medicinal benefits. Myrdon obtained her first prescription for medical marijuana in 1989 and soon became one of the first 20 people in Canada to obtain a licence under the federal government's new medical marijuana access regulations. She has gone on to become an outspoken advocate of medical marijuana use, speaking across North America about the medicinal benefits of cannabis and promoting its legalization and regulation.

Myrdon has also launched a website, The Medical Marijuana Mission, "to give voice to people who have medical marijuana licences." Like other licensed users she greatly emphasizes the benefits of smoking marijuana as an alternative to traditional medications. She has discovered that for many conditions, including her own, marijuana is either a more effective treatment, or produces fewer debilitating side effects than traditional pharmaceuticals, including the highly addictive pain killer morphine.

Myrdon describes the effects of marijuana on her MS and tic douloureux as "tremendous." The marijuana has replaced dozens of pills, and lowered her doses of morphine. Now she prefers to fight her battle with a combination of vitamin and cannabis therapy, augmented by Omega 3 and other essential fatty acids from fish oils. The combination has been more than effective, she said. Rather than being confined to a nursing home, she is able to get out of her wheelchair and walk with the help of a cane.

"I can even get up and dance, depending on the strain of marijuana," she said, stressing that it's not always possible to obtain the kind of marijuana she needs because, as an illegal substance, "it is being held hostage on the black market."

Myrdon has one of the largest prescriptions for medical marijuana use in the country. She is allowed to grow 137 plants, and smokes about two-and-a-half pounds of cannabis each month. But she and other licensed users live with constant uncertainty because of marijuana's illegal status and the stigma that hangs like a pall over its use. So ingrained is the negative attitude that the federal government grows the marijuana it sells to licensed users in an underground cavern, instead of outside or in a greenhouse, Myrdon observed.

In Trent Hills, medical marijuana user Wendal Grant uses about up to five grams of marijuana every day to relieve the symptoms of the Crohn's disease he developed five years ago. He also is familiar with the stigma associated with marijuana, and the uncertainty of being a licensed medical marijuana user. The process of obtaining a legal exemption and a license is long and involved, and even finding a doctor to support the application can be difficult, Grant said.

Some physicians are skeptical, but most are simply leery of having their names associated with a substance that remains illegal, despite the federal government program for medical marijuana use, he stated.

Medical marijuana users must fight to prove marijuana gives them relief from pain, nausea, incontinence and other symptoms of their disease, and they must fight to obtain the support of the medical community, Grant said. And licensed users must also be ready to allow the police into their homes to ensure they are not growing and using more marijuana than is specified on their licenses.

"Can you imagine someone coming into your house to make sure you are not abusing your prescription medication?," he asked.

For Myrdon, Grant and other medical marijuana users the only solution to their dilemma is controlled legalization. "We support a controlled and regulated situation, the same as exists for alcohol," Grant said.

2004 H.U.M.A.N.: Hemp Users Medical Access Network - Toronto Medical Marijuana