KIND BUD

UNCLE SAM'S MEDICAL POT PROJECT IS LIGHT ON RESEARCH, HEAVY
ON COMPASSION

Each Month, The Federal Government Sends George McMahon 300 Joints,
Free Of Charge

LAKE PALESTINE, TEXAS -- George McMahon knows he hasn't got much time
to live. On this spring day, he sits in his car beside a crowded
beach and opens a shiny metal canister filled with marijuana
cigarettes. McMahon casually presses a large joint between his
wrinkled lips, then lights it.

He's not in Amsterdam or Greenwich Village, but in rural Texas, home
to Bible thumpers, Bush whackers, and a prison system renowned for
zero-tolerance sentences and assembly-line executions. Even so, he's
not concerned about legal repercussions. He can smoke pot in any
state of the union without being arrested or prosecuted.

Afflicted with a rare neurological disease, George McMahon, age 50,
is the fifth United States citizen to receive legal medical marijuana
from our federal government. He gets 300 joints a month, courtesy of
the little-known Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program, run
since 1978 by the Food and Drug Administration.

The U.S. has a long history of allowing the use of experimental
pharmaceuticals, whether an unproven root bought in a health food
store or the once-shunned thalidomide recently given to blood cancer
patients like Geraldine Ferraro. But progress toward legitimizing the
palliative power of pot stopped cold last month, when the Supreme
Court ruled unanimously that "marijuana has no medical benefits
worthy of an exception" from the Controlled Substances Act. In their
ruling, the justices made no mention of Uncle Sam's own pot farm at
the University of Mississippi, nor of the machine-rolled joints sent
free of charge to sick people like George.

For now, the program continues because, officially at least, it's
considered a research project. In theory, the feds are supposed to be
collecting data on the therapeutic effectiveness of marijuana, but
George says the agencies supplying him have never sought much
information on that. "I am just so pleased to be able to use what
they send me legally," McMahon says. "To be relieved of some of the
pain and still be within the law means so much."

The FDA's "compassionate" approach hasn't been available to many. The
agency implemented the program under Jimmy Carter, following a
lawsuit by Robert Randall, a glaucoma patient who demanded that the
government acknowledge the medical necessity of his marijuana use. He
was soon joined by cancer patients and people with multiple sclerosis
or spinal cord injuries, who smoked federal pot for relief from
nausea, pain, and muscle spasms.

But as the AIDS epidemic swelled, so did the number of applicants.
Overwhelmed officials in the Bush administration stopped accepting
applications in 1992, throwing hundreds of requests in the garbage
and forcing the chronically or terminally ill to break the law by
seeking their medicine on the black market.

The government agreed, however, to continue supplying the 34
patients, like George, who had already been accepted. Today, only a
half-dozen remain.

His pain momentarily quieted, George steps onto the green grass and
limps toward the rickety wooden dock that reaches into glistening
water. He suffers from an obscure disease known as Nail Patella
Syndrome, a poorly understood genetic condition. NPS can attack major
organs, including the kidney and liver, disrupt the immune system in
ways that are difficult to comprehend, and cause bones to be
deformed, become brittle, and easily break. It affects the joints,
limits mobility, and causes chronic pain, muscle cramps, and spasms.
Some NPS patients also have serious immune system complications from
the disease, which is incurable.

George winces slightly as a cool breeze carries a cloud of marijuana
smoke toward the lake. Although he's well-acquainted with pain, he
lived without a concrete diagnosis for many years. As a child, George
contracted colds and the flu frequently. Muscles in his arms didn't
develop normally, and lifting weights did not help. He was constantly
breaking bones, especially in his hands and wrists, and he lost all
of his teeth by the time he was 21. He felt exhausted and could stand
for only a few minutes without experiencing unbearable pain. Spells
of nausea, fever, chills, and night sweats were common for him. He
suffered from hepatitis A and B and tuberculosis, and there were
times when his pain was just constant-whether he was walking, lying
down, or sitting up.

The herb has brought McMahon the relief he couldn't find in
traditional pills, and with fewer side effects. "Most people don't
know that I'm sick unless I tell them," he says. "The marijuana has
really been that effective in controlling my symptoms. I don't need
statistics and research. I am living proof that marijuana works as medicine."

Efforts to get data gathered in the "investigational" pot project
proved fruitless. Various FDA representatives promised to answer
questions and look up reports, but none did.

Paul Armentano, spokesperson for the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws, says that's not unusual. "If you ask the
officials involved in the program to see the research they've
collected over the last 20 years, they'll claim they don't have any,"
says Armentano. "They'll claim that they're keeping these people in
the program out of compassion."

For people like McMahon, the true goal-to relieve suffering-seems
obvious, as does the need to grant the relief to all who need it. His
own medical history includes 19 major surgeries, seven of them
performed in one week. Throughout his life, he has been prescribed
morphine, Demerol, Codeine, Valium, and other sedating medications.
He has been rushed to hospital emergency rooms on at least six
occasions with severe drug-induced conditions, including respiratory
and renal failure and hallucinations. The medications did little for
his chronic pain and spasms, and he was both mentally and physically
incapacitated.

Convinced that using small amounts of pot daily helped ease his
discomfort better and without life-threatening side effects, McMahon
smoked marijuana illegally for 20 years. Finally, he found a doctor
in Iowa, where he lived at the time, who took a special interest in
helping him get marijuana legally. He put McMahon through an
investigation protocol and a spastic pain evaluation. Then McMahon
contacted the people in Iowa senator Charles Grassley's office, and
was pleased at their willingness to help.

After yet more tests and stacks of legal paperwork, George received
his first shipment of marijuana from the National Institute on Drug
Abuse in March 1990. These days, he goes to a designated pharmacy,
where he picks up the medicine in the form of joints, stored in a
silver tin with a prescription tag.

McMahon keeps his monthly supply with him at all times. As a general
rule, he tries to be discreet, in hopes of not offending people or
appearing to kids as a recreational pothead. "I cope with the pain,"
he says. "Some days are better than others, but if I go more than a
few hours without my medicine, I can get myself in trouble."

Sometimes, though, he lands in a jam by taking it. McMahon says few
cops seem to be aware of the program. On one occasion George and
Margaret, his wife of 30 years, were attending a Virginia conference
sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, where he intended
to contradict the agency's specious claim that marijuana was
addictive. George had meandered away from the main crowd to smoke his
medicine, when he was approached by two police officers, one of whom
began hitting his fingers, trying to knock the joint out of his hand,
yelling at him to put it out.

"He called me a motherfucker, called my wife a fucking bitch, and
told me to shut my fucking mouth," he says. "They tried to get us to
leave by intimidating us. They treated me like a criminal. I am not a
criminal. It was one of the worst feelings I've ever had."

Despite the intensity of his daily struggles, McMahon describes
himself as a "regular family man who has had to make wide
adjustments." His voice and appearance are rugged, the heavy toll of
years spent at manual labor, for mining companies and large farming
operations. Today, he lives quietly on disability insurance at his
modest home in an East Texas gated community, and enjoys spending
time with his three adult children and seven grandchildren.

He has a certificate of heroism for participating in the President's
Drug Awareness Program in 1990, signed by former first lady and
prohibition advocate Nancy Reagan. McMahon is a reluctant hero, and
he expresses gratitude to his family, particularly his wife, who has
seen the difference cannabis makes. "If he did not receive the
marijuana," Margaret says, "George would probably be dead by now from
all the other narcotics he would be taking for pain."

In addition to struggling for survival, McMahon is fighting for the
decriminalization of medical marijuana. Since government weed
contains only a moderate level of the intoxicant THC, McMahon remains
lucid and eloquent. He has traveled the country, speaking with
university students and faculty, legislators, physicians, and law
enforcement officials-all while smoking 10 joints a day.

The recent Supreme Court decision to ban the Oakland (California)
Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative from distributing medical pot set the
campaign back, even as it exposed the government's hypocrisy.
According to legal documents, the compassionate program that helps
George McMahon was a cornerstone of the cooperative's cause.

NORML's Armentano says the ruling shows the limits of a
state-by-state approach toward legalizing marijuana. "The Supreme
Court's decision shows that there are no shortcuts in the game, so
efforts should be directed toward Congress," he says. "While the
decision is unexpected, it is definitely no shock."

Few expect the federal government to start zealously enforcing the
law. Consider the ramifications if officials began arresting and
incarcerating tens of thousands of patients, breaking apart the
families of sick and dying people, and using our tax dollars to
prosecute, imprison, and provide medical services to these patients.
Politicians want to avoid front-page photos of MS patients with
spasmodic arms handcuffed to wheelchairs while relatives sob in the background.

Recent polls indicate 70 to 80 percent of the public approves of
medical marijuana being used by the general population. Yet when
decriminalization advocates push for reform, the government counters
that there simply isn't enough research to warrant the
reclassification of a potentially dangerous drug. This call for
evidence operates in a circular fashion, as the drug laws themselves
have prevented the accumulation of much data. Legitimate scientists
who seek to perform controlled studies on cannabis face a daunting
bureaucratic gauntlet. Additionally, officials have repeatedly
ignored the findings of their own commissioned research panels, which
argue that marijuana is a relatively safe substance and has medical
applications.

Meanwhile, as attorneys and pharmaceutical executives play politics
and debate where to draw the line, sick and dying people like George
McMahon continue to be arrested.

George extinguishes his government roach as a blazing sun descends
behind him on the lake. It seems unreasonable to him that our nation
locks patients in prison, strips them of their voting rights,
confiscates their property, and destroys their families, all because
it seeks to eradicate a natural herb that has no fatal side effects,
was used medically for thousands of years, and is less harmful and
addictive than tobacco or alcohol. "I want people to know that I am
just a normal guy," he says. "I'm not an activist, but I do believe
that every sick patient in America should be able to make these
personal choices without going to jail."

The writer is George McMahon's longtime friend and a fellow advocate
for medical marijuana. The two plan to put a portion of the proceeds
from this article toward promoting the cause through Patients Out of
Time (www.medicalcannabis.com), an organization McMahon helped found.

Additional reporting: Taron Flood