Just
What Did the Doctor Order:
how Measure 67 works by legal and semantic loopholes
Last week No. 1 and No. 500 went to a show at Harvey's
Comedy Club. It was 500's idea--she'd gotten a bunch of
tickets and invited her friends along. Nos. 257, 258 and
498 were there, too, laughing heartily when comic Ron
Osborne poked fun at the idiosyncrasies of stoners.
As the evening wore on, however, No. 500--otherwise
known as Madeline Martinez--shifted in her chair, struggling
against the pain that plagues her from degenerative
disk disease. She wondered whether she and No. 1--Jeanelle
Bluhm--would have a chance to go out to Bluhm's van
to light up a bowl and self-medicate. But she wasn't
sure it was kosher.
"I'm so new to all of this," she says.
On Nov. 10, Martinez, a 48-year-old former prison guard,
became the 500th person to receive official permission
from the state to break federal drug laws and use or
grow marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Her story illustrates the huge gap between what was
predicted about Measure 67 and what turned out to be
the reality, as well as how patients and doctors are
working their way through the new law.
A year after Measure 67 went into effect, the anticipated
evils of Oregon's medical-marijuana law are certainly
not evident.
During the 1998 campaign, opponents claimed that pot
dealers would use the law as a means to legitimize their
illicit ways. Cops would be forced to make judgments
on who was a real patient and who an impostor. There
would be a few notorious "pot doctors" who would, with
a wink and a nudge, recommend marijuana to "patients."
People would mock law enforcement, openly smoking marijuana
on the streets. Children would see this example and
begin the steep descent into the bowels of drug addiction.
One of the most outspoken opponents of the law was
Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Noelle. While he notes
that the cards have been available only six months,
he concedes that so far things are going well.
"We assumed we would see a lot of abuses...and we could
all jump up and say 'nyah, nyah,'" he says. "We haven't
seen it."
Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schrunk, who
didn't oppose the measure, agrees that from a law-enforcement
perspective, the measure's proponents were right.
"The rhetoric in the campaign was that only the really
sick would use it," he says. "It would seem Oregonians
are acting responsibly."
The state of Oregon began issuing registration cards
on May 1 of this year. As of mid-November, the number
issued stood at 530, and Kelly Paige, who heads the
medical-marijuana program, receives several new applications
per day. Three hundred and eighteen of the cards are
for patients, including one 16-year-old with cancer.
The rest are for "caregivers," people sanctioned to
grow marijuana for others. "We didn't know if doctors
would be reluctant to turn over information or if some
of the things law enforcement was worried about would
happen," says Paige, whose office was created to administer
the new program. "Everything's going so much better
than we thought it would."
Since the law passed, a network of patients has created
an active support system where veteran pot activists
welcome neophytes like Martinez into the fold. Grow
rooms are sprouting up in the basements and spare bedrooms
of homes across the state. The Oregon Medical Association
has issued guidelines for physicians who don't want
to stand in the way of their patients who want to use
marijuana, and more than 225 doctors have given the
green light.
"It's been an astronomical year," Bluhm says.
It's not perfect, though. Some patients are put off
by the annual $150 fee to get a card. Others cannot
find a doctor willing to sign off.
Martinez had her share of obstacles.
She began using medical marijuana last year to control
the pain that seizes her back and shoots down her legs.
An open-faced woman whose warm smile comes easily, she
says the physical demands of being a state corrections
officer in Frontera, Calif., left her with a permanent
disability. After seven years on the job, she left with
a full pension in 1995 and moved to Oregon.
Before she started using marijuana, she says, she was
on 2,400 milligrams of Motrin every day, which tore
up her stomach. When the pain got too intense to bear,
she would take 10 milligrams of Flexril, a muscle relaxant
with the nickname "Gumby drug," because it makes patients'
limbs feel rubbery. Good for pain. Bad for doing anything
other than staying in bed.
To Martinez, that's a day lost. She has four grandchildren
and a 70-year-old mother who need her attention. So
she tried marijuana. She smokes two to three bowls a
day, which keeps her pain in check without knocking
her out. While she still occasionally turns to the pharmaceuticals,
it's rare.
The self-medication was effective, but it had a nasty
side-effect: fear.
She was mortified at breaking the law, so much so that
she would smoke only in her Milwaukie bedroom with the
blinds and door closed. Her anxiety infected her entire
family, from her husband, Rafael, to her two twentysomething
children. And even though she knew it was unlikely she
would get busted for the 1/8-ounce bags she bought through
the black market, the messages from the drug war rang
in her head.
"I felt like I was one of the people I locked up. Other
than my job, I'd never been near a jail," she says.
"And I couldn't have my grandchildren over because I
didn't want to jeopardize them if something should happen."
Measure 67 brought Martinez hope, but not immediate
relief. Like many people, she knew nothing about how
the law worked or how to get started growing her own
supply. She contacted the Oregon Health Division, and
Paige helped her with the law.
It was Stormy Ray, a legendary figure in medical marijuana
circles, who helped her with the rest. Ray is a multiple
sclerosis patient from Ontario and was one of the chief
petitioners on Measure 67. She is the hearthstone of
the patient network and runs the medical-marijuana hotline.
She is adept at calming patients' fears and easing them
into the system.
After talking to Ray, Martinez and her husband went
last summer to the Eugene Hempfest, where Ray was working
in a booth.
"I just had to meet this woman face to face," Martinez
says. "I was so moved by her."
Neither Martinez nor her husband had ever experienced
anything like the hempfest.
"We went into culture shock," Martinez says. "We looked
so straight and narrow--we stuck out like a couple of
narcs." While the tie-die, drumming and naked dancers
were shocking to her, she says, she was driven by her
belief in the healing properties of the herb. After
meeting Ray, she entered into a tight circle of patients
and growers with the expertise to teach her how to grow
her own supply.
Once she was armed with knowledge, however, Martinez
still needed a stamp of approval from a doctor. She
had to go through three different Kaiser doctors before
she found one who would agree to sign the note the Oregon
Health Department needed to get her a card.
Today, Martinez and her husband are making plans to
start their first grow. It costs between $1,000 and
$2,000 to buy the lights and ventilation systems necessary
to grow the seven plants legally allowed to patients.
She says she and Rafael--who, as her caregiver, also
has a card--plan to start growing by the end of November
and hope to have a harvest by their 30th anniversary
in February.
"It's like preparing for a new baby," she says, "like
we're getting the nursery ready."
In spite of difficulties in finding sympathetic doctors
and the challenge of getting supply, most parties agree
that implementation of the medical-marijuana law is
going smoothly. For her part, Martinez has begun to
spread the word about medical marijuana with the evangelical
zeal of a true convert. "It's time for patients to come
out of the closet and not be afraid," she says.
Just
What Did The
Doctor Order?
With everyone celebrating the success of Oregon's year-old
medical-marijuana law, it's easy to forget that using
pot for any reason is still illegal under federal law.
Measure 67 is working only because the feds are looking
the other way. Last year, the Oregon Medical Association
sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking whether
the federal agency would come after doctors. It still
has not received a response.
To keep doctors from being arrested for pushing an
illegal substance, Oregon health officials engaged in
a linguistic dance.
Doctors cannot write out a prescription for medical
marijuana or even recommend that it might help.
Instead, they must simply state that the patient has
a symptom covered under the medical-marijuana law. As
an indicator of how normalized medical marijuana is
quickly becoming in Oregon, both the Health Division
and Kaiser Permanente have come up with forms for physicians
to use. The Kaiser form says, "The patient has demonstrated
inadequate or unsatisfactory symptom relief from other
forms of therapy and has expressed a desire to try marijuana
for medical purposes."
Other doctors can obtain a similar form from the state
health department or simply write a note to the same
effect.
According to Jim Kronenberg of the OMA, "It's semantical,
but if it gets doctors and patients what they want and
keeps them out of trouble, that's fine." (PW)
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Willamette Week | originally
published December 1,
1999
