Montel Williams: Fighting for Your Life Shouldn't Be a Crime

Fighting for your life shouldn't be a crime
Talk-show host Montel Williams tried many different medications to dull the pain from MS, but the only thing that has worked for him has been marijuana. That makes him a criminal in Illinois.

By Montel Williams
Published February 14, 2005

You may know me as a television talk-show host, but I am also a criminal. My crime? Using the medicine that has allowed me to live a normal life despite having multiple sclerosis.

Being diagnosed with MS in February 1999 felt like a death sentence. I wondered what the future held for my family and me. Would I cease to be self-sufficient and independent?

I always took excellent care of my body. I worked out, followed a healthy diet and looked the picture of health. What I was hiding was the mind-numbing pain that seared through my legs as if I was being stabbed with hot pokers. I doubted my ability to function as a husband, father, son, brother, friend, talk-show host and producer. I honestly couldn't see a future.

My doctors wrote me prescriptions for some of the strongest painkillers available. I took Percocet, Vicodin and OxyContin on a regular basis, two at a time, every three or four hours. I was knowingly risking overdose just trying to make the pain bearable. In my desperation, I even tried morphine.

These powerful, expensive drugs brought me no relief. Instead, they made me nearly incoherent. I couldn't take them when I had to work because they turned me into a zombie.

Yet, even with all the drugs, I couldn't sleep. I was agitated, my legs kicked involuntarily in bed, and I found myself crying in the middle of the night.

Worse, these drugs are all highly addictive. I did not want to become a junkie, wasted and out of control. I spiraled deeper into a black hole of depression.

In "Climbing Higher," my book on living with MS, I write in detail about how I became suicidal and twice attempted to end my life. I was in severe mental and physical pain, getting little sleep and feeling completely spent. Someone suggested that I try smoking a little marijuana before going to bed, saying it might help me fall asleep.

Skeptical but desperate, I tried it. It was like a miracle. Three puffs and within minutes the excruciating pain in my legs subsided.

I had my first restful sleep in months. When I awoke, the sheet and blankets weren't on the floor and my legs had taken a break from their nightly kicking.

Marijuana is classified by the federal government as a Schedule I drug, meaning that--like PCP, LSD and heroin--it is considered unsafe to use under any conditions, including medical supervision. Physicians are not allowed to prescribe it. But 99 percent of marijuana arrests are made by local police under state law, and states can choose not to arrest medical marijuana patients.

Last year, Montana and Vermont joined the list of states that protect medical marijuana patients from arrest under state law, bringing the total up to 10--one-fifth of the U.S.

But in Illinois, I'm still a criminal.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, released a two-year study of marijuana that showed it was effective in combating the muscle spasms associated with MS. Canada, Great Britain, Israel and Netherlands also have conducted studies on marijuana and found that it can help people suffering from certain forms of cancer, AIDS, MS and Tourette's syndrome by relieving symptoms such as pain, nausea, loss of appetite, muscle spasms and tics. Patients struggling for life and dignity against illnesses like MS, cancer or AIDS should not be treated as criminals.

It is time to take politics out of the debate. It is time for government-sanctioned research into the medicinal effects of marijuana and time to heed the research already available. It is time to change marijuana's classification so that physicians can prescribe it.

And while we await that rescheduling--which must be done at the federal level--states can and should act now to protect patients under state law. Just such a bill, House Bill 0407, is under consideration by the Illinois House.

In the eyes of the law, I am a criminal. But because of medical marijuana, I am still alive and living a far more productive, fruitful life than before. And that shouldn't be a crime.

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TV Talk show host Montel Williams is the author of "Climbing Higher."



Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

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Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Montel Williams
Referenced: Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base
http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/marimed/
Referenced: The Illinois Medical Cannabis Act (HB 407)
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocTypeID=HB&DocNum=407&GAID=8&SessionID=50&LegID=14741
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Montel+Williams