September 24, 2004

Too much, or not enough?

The person who posted a comment to my previous post is correct:

* Moderation is the key

* Too much of anything can be harmful

This creates difficulties for some medical marijuana patients, who also must worry that:

* Too little is not enough

* Too little will not help

It is sometimes a fine line that must be walked. Due to the high cost of good marijuana, and the low cost I pay for Marinol due to health insurance and government programs, I will sometimes mix and match. This helps me cut down my costs while continuing to give me the medical benefits.

Although I prefer marijuana because of the many reasons I've stated in other posts, Marinol can make a few hits of marijuana last a lot longer. It is difficult, however, to time the doses properly, and I don't always receive the results I need.

In addition, Marinol only works for a portion of the symptoms that medical marijuana treats. Many conditions, such as seizures, are controlled by another ingredient in marijuana, cannabidiol, which is not in Marinol. The ingredient in Marinol, THC, instead can increase seizures. Not a good idea.

By carefully controlling my marijuana doses, and mixing it with Marinol, I have cut my weekly marijuana costs in half.

Also, moderation is another key. A few hits or bowls of good quality marijuana may help alleviate your symptoms, but if you continue smoking all day or night, then it's not medical any longer. It could be recreational, but if you're doing it out of habit, and you're not having fun, then I suppose it isn't even recreational any longer.

Less really is more.

Posted by Kroeme at 1:36 PM | Comments (9)

August 30, 2004

Heave Ho

Yesterday afternoon I took a nap, and woke up to hear that most-dreaded question "what do you want for dinner?" I really hate that question, and rarely have an answer. When you have no appetite it's like asking a drowning man what color suit he wants to wear.

Well, thanks to my partner, he told me to go smoke a bit, and that seemed to help. Yet every five minutes I'd hear the "I'm hungry" chant. It takes more time to smoke up an appetite, usually it takes me at least half an hour after smoking before I really feel hunger.

Well, that's at least better than Marinol, which takes about 90-minutes for me to feel hunger.

This morning, while walking my dog at 5 am, I suddenly, and without warning or nausea, had dry heaves. This is generally a bit embarrassing in public, but at 5 am there wasn't much public to notice, so that part wasn't a problem. I really have no idea why I started dry heaving. If there was something in my stomach, it wouldn't have been dry, so no mess, no fuss. Just very uncomfortable, and it made me a bit dizzy, and then my dog looked up at me with his "what the heck are you doing?" look.

If it continued, as it sometimes does for several hours, I would have smoked, and might have missed work because of it. However, it ceased before I returned home, and I was able to have my breakfast of coffee and oatmeal without a problem.

I generally will do everything I can to avoid smoking in the morning before work. I don't want to drive to work high. I don't want to be high at 5 am. I don't want to be at work high. But, it's certainly better than some of the alternatives.

Posted by Kroeme at 12:42 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2004

Parental Support

A friend at work began asking me questions this week about medical marijuana for her friend's 19-year-old son, who was diagnosed with Leukemia.

Leukemia, for those who don't know, is a cancerous blood condition that is treated with chemotherapy. Because of some recently FDA-approved anti-emetics, he had very little vomiting and nausea during his initial treatments. His nausea is now increasing, with his appetite being non-existent.

This is a fairly common experience for some of the other cancer patients I've known. The initial treatments cause very little nausea, but this increases over time. His parents are now concerned enough to consider medical marijuana.

As he's young, and has already experimented with marijuana to the extent that he enjoys it, he's an excellent patient for marijuana therapy. For the elderly who have never experimented with marijuana, the effects can be frightening at first, and this treatment is therefore not always recommended.

I printed some articles out for him and his parents from the website www.MedicalMarijuanaProCon.org, and gave him the phone number for the local medical marijuana club. Now it's up to him and his doctor to decide if this is a treatment they should attempt. As he's 19, his parents do not legally have a say, but many patients of that age do still want their parents to be involved, and physicians and marijuana clubs should permit the parents to be included in such a situation.

For patients of any age, having one's parents involved and supportive of the marijuana treatment makes a big difference. Parental and/or spousal support for any serious illness can make the difference between success and failure.

Posted by Kroeme at 11:46 AM | Comments (2)

August 23, 2004

The Genie is Out

Law enforcement claims that the medical marijuana laws "muddle" the waters, making their jobs confusing and complicated. This is true, but it is not the fault of the patients. The original patients, tired of years of court battles and being told by judges to "change the laws," did so. The U.S. government and the state governments have dropped the ball, and allowed the genie to escape from the bottle. Can it ever be put back?

In California, approximately 100,000 people have obtained letters from physicians giving them permission to use medical marijuana. Approximately 40,000 of those letters were written by about six physicians.

If you do the numbers, and know that each of these physicians charge about $200 for a letter, then you can see that signing medical marijuana letters can be a very lucrative practice. These physicians do not need to wait for medicare or any insurance reimbursements as none of these visits are covered by insurance or medicare. The patients bare the cost.

What does this mean? Does this mean that a few doctors are getting rich off medical marijuana, and the patients pay through the nose for physician letters, and for the cannabis? Some say so.

Thanks to both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the genie is now out of the bottle. It's doubtful that it will ever be put back in.

In the mid-1990's when medical marijuana was first approved in just a few states, the government had a small window of opportunity to keep it small and organized. This would have entailed either legalizing it for a small class of patients, or re-opening the Compassionate IND Program that still, and has since the 1970's, sent out about 300 marijuana cigarettes to a handful of qualified patients. The criteria was very narrow, permitting only the very seriously ill to apply. The program was closed during the Bush Sr. administration, and no new patients may apply. Approximately eight patients are still receiving the monthly allotments.

When Prop. 215 first passed in California, everyone was on pins and needles waiting to see what the federal government would do. Many surmised a huge crackdown, and still others felt that the feds would go after those clubs that were issuing membership cards to anyone with a letter, no matter the condition. As no large crackdowns materialized, medical marijuana advocates became emboldened, and the letter-writing mills kept on rolling.

Just last week nearly 20,000 marijuana plants were seized by the DEA from an outdoor grow purported to be for medical marijuana patients. The DEA estimated the crop at about $80 million, which is fairly accurate. The main grower, a "minister" with no real church, and about a dozen others, were arrested.

The grower, Eddie Lepp, claims that for a $500 donation to his ministry, he will grow six plants for a patient. Normally, six plants, if they generate a pound each, will be worth approximately $24,000. Most people do not need six pounds of pot a year. At $500 for six plants, a patient could easily use what they need, and sell the rest on the black market, making upwards of $10,000 annually. That's a pretty good deal, if you can get it.

One of his farms was raided by the DEA two years ago, and he has filed a $67 million lawsuit against that organization. Some surmise that this is the reason they raided his farm this year. Perhaps it is, but without any real government guidelines or oversight, all one needs to do now is produce a letter from any doctor willing to charge you $200 (or more!), and poof, you're a legal medical marijuana patient.

Does the government prefers the muddied waters? It's beginning to seem so.

Posted by Kroeme at 1:32 PM | Comments (1)

August 17, 2004

Breaking it down

After resorting to Marinol for several days, I finally broke down and shelled out $200 for half an ounce of high quality marijuana. I was tired of the Marinol headaches. They're not terribly bad, just mild annoyances that last for much of the following day, and feel akin to a light hangover.

Getting marijuana after not using it for several days gave me the opportunity to observe it from a clearer perspective. What does it do, and how it does it are a mystery to many.

The smell is the first thing one notices. How does one describe a smell? Good marijuana can smell similar to a skunk, yet it generates a feel-good sense that one receives from smelling a luscious chocolate cake, fresh-baked bread or a juicy steak hot off the grill. The smell dissipates with time, so a strong smell lets you know that what you're smelling is fresh.

The feel of the cannabis is also telling. Fresh cannabis is soft, and cannot be easily broken apart. Some are also sticky to the touch, but only the freshest are still sticky, and extreme stickiness can often hinder the use of cannabis by making the rolling of joints difficult. Since I don't usually use a joint, this isn't a concern of mine. I use a pipe as I feel that joints waste more cannabis than pipes.

Everyone has different preferences for preparation. For me, I go the quick and simple way. I drop a bit into a coffee grinder, one or two quick bursts of the grinder, and the cannabis is chopped sufficiently to put into my pipe, but not small enough to fall into the hole and be sucked into my lungs. Since I use a glass pipe, no screen is used. For those who use other pipes with screens, grinding the cannabis down to a finer grain may be preferred.

I use the incremental method of smoking cannabis. With a lighter, I briefly touch one far side of the pipe with the flame, and inhale a small amount. I hold this briefly in my lungs (contrary to opinion, long holds in the lungs are not necessary). As I smoke the bowl, with each touch of the flame I move it periodically across the bowl. This helps conserve some of the pot.

After two hits, I start feeling a relaxation in body. Of course, this may be psychological, but nevertheless, it occurs. As I smoke, I feel more and more of my body relax, and similar to a good glass of wine after work, the cares of the day tend to slip away. Eventually, as this continues, the relaxation spreads to my stomach, and I begin to feel my stomach relax and unwind. If I'm in the midst of severe nausea, this is the point at which my vomiting will cease. After about one bowl of cannabis, the nausea soon concludes, and I feel -- normal.

By the time I finish my first bowl of cannabis, I'm feeling relaxed, joyous and calm. The tension of the day is gone, the nausea is at bay, and I'm ready to begin thinking about food. I'm not hungry yet, but by now I'm confident that I will be able to eat soon. It's at this point that I'll either begin fixing dinner, or venture out to acquire it. This is the nexus between being pleasantly "buzzed" and darnright high.

After I return from the hunt, or have started dinner cooking, I'll begin my second bowl. By the time I'm about half done with this, I'm hungry and will gobble down my dinner with gusto. The remaining half bowl is retained for after supper, and it somehow helps me further relax and digest my food without stomach pains. It's at this point that I can take the 20 or so pills for dessert. Yummmm.

Posted by Kroeme at 10:38 AM | Comments (2)