Advocates
for legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes were celebrating
Thursday night.  Attorney General Eric Holder announced that raids
instituted by former President Bush on facilities in states where
marijuana sold for medicinal purposes is legal would cease.
Several
states, including California, have legalized marijuana for treatment of
pain with licensed facilities springing up to provide the drug to
patients.   President Bush ordered raids on these locations, usurping
state law.

President
Obama stated during his campaign that he would not oppose marijuana
being sold in legally licensed medical dispensaries for medicinal
purposes.

However, 
at least two raids have occurred in California since Obama took
office.  Holder said that Obama's campaign promise to stop the raids is
now "American policy."

For some terminally ill patients, marijuana provides pain relief when traditional pain killers such as morphine will  not.

I
can personally attest to the fact that morphine will not touch some
pain.  Just before Christmas in 2003, I began to have pain radiating
down my right leg.  By Christmas Day, I was hobbling, but the pain was
bearable.  On News Years Day, 2004,  I was in the emergency room in
such discomfort that I could not stand straight. The doctors started an
IV with a morphine drip.  It did not touch my pain.

After
x-rays,  they diagnosed sciatica, or a pinched nerve, and prescribed a
five-day dose of Vicadin.  It gave me just enough relief to function,
but by no means alleviated the discomfort.  A week later I was back in
worse condition than before.
This
time the doctors ordered a CAT scan,  once again putting me on a
morphine drip.  Again--absolutely no effect on the pain.. They also
scheduled an appointment for me at the Texas Back Institute, sending me
home with another prescription for Vicadin.  By this time the pain was
radiating all the way down even into my toes.
By
the time I kept my appointment at Texas Back, I was walking with a
cane.  As soon as the doctor looked at my scans, he told me why the
morphine would not touch my pain.   "You have a disc that  has
slipped,  causing compression on the large nerve that extends down your
leg.  This is nerve pain and morphine will not touch it." 
He
prescribed neurontin, an anti-seizure medication that has provided
relief for nerve pain in many patients.  It again allowed me to
function, but that was about all.  I still would have episodes of
excruciating pain.  At night, turning over was more than I could bear. 
I could only rest in one position.  If I varied that even a tiny
amount, the pain shot down my leg so badly that I could hardly stand
it.  Shifting from lying to standing was a major undertaking.
Over
the next six months, I underwent four different outpatient procedures
to inject cortisone into my lower back with less than successful
results. I also took physical therapy. 
The
only medication that kept me going was hydrocodone, which I had to take
four times a day.  My brother was dying during this period,
so  I was making trips back and forth from Dallas to Oklahoma City to
Houston to the MD Anderson Cancer Institute while trying to get through
the day on hydrocodone.
Finally,
in October the doctor scheduled me for surgery to do a spinal fusion. 
I actually was going to need two surgeries, one to do the fusion;
the second to insert rods around the fusion to straighten my spine.
Mu
broth died on November 13.  I went into the hospital one week later
for the first surgery.  The week following I had the other procedure. 
Though the doctors had warned me that the surgery does not help all
patients,  it did wonders for me. 
I
only wished I had had it done much sooner;  but I can attest to the
fact that morphine was absolutely useless when the pain would hit.  
So, if patients can get relief through marijuana that they cannot get
through morphine or other pain killers,  I am all for it--legally or illegally.