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Ohio Taxpayers take it on the chin again
by Michael Boop
December 18, 2006

To whom it may concern,

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am being forced to make a very difficult choice. I must decide whether to remain loyal to my ideals, family, and responsibilities or to make my own health care a priority. I am a user of medical marijuana, which is illegal in my state, and I am currently being prosecuted by the courts for using marijuana to supplement my narcotic pain relievers. Because I have Degenerative Disc Disease, a progressive and extremely painful malady, I am compelled to choose whether to stay in Ohio, where I have lived for 42 of my 45 years and where all of my friends and family ties are, or leave for another state which allows medical care for my condition. I have been raised to always answer for my mistakes and to learn from them, but I don't feel like this is my mistake and I'm finding it difficult to see a learning point in all of this. If given the choice to do it all over again, I believe I would proceed along the same course as I have chosen. I have spent the last 13 years under typical ,legal medical care; taking the medications, doing the tests, letting the doctors perform any procedure that they deem pertinent to my continuing care. Throughout all of this, I have kept a good, positive attitude concerning my condition. I have complained very little and always accepted the pain and infirmity that my disease has caused as a test of my faith in God, which has never wavered. I simply find this situation hard to deal with and understand at times.

Why does the U.S. government continue to supply the surviving members of its' original marijuana study group with marijuana each month if marijuana has no medicinal value? Why is marijuana still considered a schedule 1 narcotic (very addictive, no medicinal value) when it is actually a schedule 3 narcotic (non addictive, with proven medical benefit)? Why is marajuana considered to have no medicinal value, while Marinol (THC, the active ingredient in marijuana in tablet form) is considered very beneficial? Why have 11 states made medical marijuana available to it's ill and suffering population while the other 39 states have not? Why don't current studies showing the medical benefits of marijuana ever get released to the general public? Why do marijuana arrests get front page coverage in the newspapers and on news programs, but positive benefits do not even get mentioned. Why are millions of Americans left suffering when there is an answer to their pain and anguish? Why does our government continue to mislead and lie to the general population about the medical benefits of marijuana? Why, after more than 60 years of prohibition and billions of tax dollars spent in a losing war against marijuana, does the government persist in throwing good money after bad? Why does our government spend millions of dollars each year incarcerating marajuana users and those that facilitate it's usage by the disabled an dying? Why are cigarettes (a schedule 1 narcotic, by definition) and alcohol still sold without a prescription when they are both deadly, yet marijuana ( an extremely benign substance) is prohibited. Why not deal with marijuana like tobacco and alcohol and regulate and tax it instead? Why should I have to choose between proper medical treatment and home and family?

I spent 1993 to 1996 essentially bedridden and intoxicated by medications that I was prescribed for Degenerative Disc Disease. I was unable to raise my daughter or maintain my household without assistance. I was in constant, unbearable pain. Then I discovered medical marijuana. I was able to lower my dosage of prescribed medications, and my constant pain was reduced to a manageable level. I have been able to keep this pain in control for over ten years without increasing my pharmaceutical consumption. Now the courts of Ohio want me to return to that pain and stupor because of an arbitrary and unfair law. Ohio had a medical use defense law until 1997, when a handful of politicians, not a medical degree among them, fast tracked it out of existence behind closed doors, just like criminals. Maybe they were ashamed. Ashamed of the fact that they had just condemned the ill and dying of Ohio to a living hell on earth. Ashamed of the fact that they let their ignorance and false beliefs rule their actions instead of facts and compassion. Ashamed of making a bad decision. I am being prosecuted because I refuse to return to my former half-life of twilight and misery. I have an extremely clean police record and bother no one, yet I am persecuted as if I were a dangerous criminal.

Since I am disabled and on Social Security, I cannot afford an attorney, so the court has appointed a public defender to my case, at the taxpayers' expense. Since I can no longer use my medicinal marijuana, my back pain has increased to the point where special care at a pain management center is required, and at the minimum will require a variety of nerve blocks and nerve ending dissections and burning, also at the taxpayers expense. I now require several MRI examinations, which are very expensive, but are the only diagnostic tools that can show the extent of my injury. Because of unmanageble pain since being forced to quit using medical marijuana, my back will probably require further surgery at a cost of approximately $20,000.00. All of these procedures will be paid for by medicare and medicaid I.E. the taxpayers of Ohio. In order to prosecute me for less than a 1/4 of a gram of marijuana, the State of Ohio taxpayers and Medicare will have to pay somewhere in the area of $25,000.00. This does not include any rehabilitation or handicapped adaptations to my home, for which the taxpayers will also pay. My driver's license will be suspended for 6 to 12 months, even though I was not operating a motor vehicle at the time of discovery, causing me great and undue hardship. My fines at maximum will be $400.00 for possession of marijuana and paraphernalia, but these fines will probably be suspended due to my disability, plus whatever reinstatement fee Ohio requires to get my suspended drivers' licence back, around $400.00, which will also cause me undue hardship. Do you think the taxpayers of Ohio deserve such unfair treatment? Do you believe that a handicapped individual should be punished just for trying to receive some relief from pain and suffering? Do you believe that I should be forced to live my life from my bed in a semi conscious stupor, always in great pain?

I am asking you, the members of our states governing body, to step in and call a halt to this type of strongarm tactics against the disabled and ill of Ohio. It is unfair and unforgivable to put suffering people through more torment for the sake of looking strong to the public and promoting political agendas. Why not let the voters decide. The latest polls show that a marked majority of all Ohioans favor the legalization of medicinal marijuana. Compassion is the issue, not politics, and Ohio voters are nothing if not compassionate. A voter initiative is nearly impossible to perform by those of us that use medical marijuana because many, like me, are extremely limited in the amount of activity that we can perform. Door to door acquisition of signatures is beyond the physical and financial capabilities of most disabled and dying peoples. Human beings as a whole hate to see suffering in others, to feel less would be sub-human. Is this the impression that the Ohio judicial body and legislation wishes to convey to the rest of the nation and the world? If we wish to have Ohio continue to be viewed as a forward looking and progressive state, health care of it's citizens should become a priority, not the prosecution of the disabled and infirm for mererly seeking relief from their anguish. Tormenting the ill is akin to torturing a caged animal, it is cruel and inhumane, yet we continue to punish those who are only trying to live with a modicum of comfort. Please make our lives worth living and allow the use of marijuana for medicinal use. It's the right thing to do.

Michael Boop
Cridersville, Ohio