>>> Part 10 of 28...
this patient if it were legal to do so.  Other patients in the Denver  
area smoke marijuana for the same purpose.  This patient's doctor, and  
nurses with whom he comes in contact, understand that cancer patients  
smoke marijuana to reduce or control emesis.  They accept it. 
         30.  In late 1980 a three year old boy was brought by his  
parents to a hospital in Spokane, Washington.  The child was diagnosed as  
having cancer.  Surgery was performed.  Chemotherapy was begun.  The  
child became extremely nauseated and vomited for days after each  
chemotherapy treatment.  He could not eat regularly.  He lost strength.   
He lost weight.  His body's ability to ward off common infections, other  
life-threatening infections, significantly decreased.  Chemotherapy's  
after-effects caused the child great suffering.  They caused his watching  
parents great suffering.  Several standard, available anti-emetic agents  
were tried by the child's doctors.  None of them succeeded in controlling  
his nausea or vomiting.  Learning of the existence of research studies  
with THC or marijuana the parents asked the child's doctor to arrange for  
their son to be the subject of such a study so that he might have access  
to marijuana.  The doctor refused, citing the volume of paperwork and  
record-keeping detail required in such programs and his lack of  
administrative personnel to handle it. 
         31.  The child's mother read an article about marijuana smoking  
helping chemotherapy patients.  She obtained some marijuana from friends.   
She baked cookies for her child with marijuana in them.  She made tea for  
him with marijuana in it.  When the child ate these cookies or drank this  
tea in connection with his chemotherapy, he did not vomit.  His strength  
returned.  He regained lost weight.  His spirits revived.  The parents  
told the doctors and nurses at the hospital of their giving marijuana to  
their child.  None objected. 
                                  - 21 - 
They all accepted smoking marijuana as effective in controlling  
chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting.  They were interested to see  
the results of the cookies. 
         32.  Soon this child was riding a tricycle in the hallways of  
the Spokane hospital shortly after his chemotherapy treatments while  
other children there were still vomiting into pans, tied to intravenous  
bottles in an attempt to re-hydrate them, to replace the liquids they  
were vomiting up.  Parents of some of the other patients asked the  
parents of this "lively" child how he seemed to tolerate his chemotherapy  
so well.  They told of the marijuana use.  Of those parents who began  
giving marijuana to their children, none ever reported back encountering  
any adverse side effects.  In the vast majority of these cases, the other  
parents reported significant reduction in their children's vomiting and  
appetite stimulation as the result of marijuana.  The staff, doctors and  
nurses at the hospital knew of this passing on of information about  
marijuana to other parents.  They approved.  They never told the first  
parents to hide their son's medicinal use of marijuana.  They accepted  
the effectiveness of the cookies and the tea containing marijuana. 
         33.  The first child's cancer went into remission.  Then it  
returned and spread.  Emotionally drained, the parents moved the family  
back to San Diego, California to be near their own parents.  Their son  
was admitted to a hospital in San Diego.  The parents informed the  
doctors, nurses and social workers there of their son's therapeutic use  
of marijuana.  No one objected.  The child's doctor in San Diego strongly  
supported the parent's giving marijuana to him.  Here in California, as  
in Spokane, other parents noticed the striking difference between their  
children after chemotherapy and the first child. 
                                  - 22 - 
Other parents asked the parents of the first child about it, were told of 
the use of marijuana, tried it with their children, and saw dramatic 
improvement.  They accepted its effectiveness.  In the words of the  
mother of the first child: ". . . When your kid is riding a tricycle  
while his other hospital buddies are hooked up to IV needles, their heads  
hung over vomiting buckets, you don't need a federal agency to tell you  
marijuana is effective.  The evidence is in front of you, so stark it  
cannot be ignored."  [footnote 6] 
         34.  There is at least one hospital in Tucson, Arizona where  
medicinal use of marijuana by chemotherapy patients is encouraged by the  
nursing staff and some physicians. 
         35.  In addition to the physicians mentioned in the Findings  
above, mostly oncologists and other practitioners, the following doctors  
and health care professionals, representing several different areas of 
expertise, accept marijuana as medically useful in controlling or  
reducing emesis and testified to that effect in these proceedings: 
               a.  George Goldstein, Ph.D., psychologist, Secretary of  
Health for the State of New Mexico from 1978 to 1983 and chief  
administrator in the implementation of the New Mexico program utilizing  
 >>> Continued to next message...
___
 X Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 X
--- Maximus 3.01
---------------