Apr 10, 2010 – An Interview With Sarah Lovering

Despite having a secure job as a consultant at Ernst & Young, Sarah felt a calling to get involved in the marijuana law reform movement. In spite of a significant pay cut, she took a job at the Marijuana Policy Project, and hasn’t looked back since. Sarah is also a user of medical marijuana. After being disappointed with various prescribed antibiotics to treat her MRSA, a serious skin condition, she began to use topically applied cannabis, which provided her with much more effective relief.

Could you tell us your age and occupation?

Sarah: I’m 31 and am a fundraiser for the Marijuana Policy Project.

What led you to work at the MPP? Did your personal experience with medical marijuana influence your choice?

Sarah: When I started working at MPP, I had never used marijuana medically (only recreationally). My desire to work in the drug policy reform movement can be traced back to high school, when I first started to encounter drug use among my peers. I saw my peers who used alcohol make really bad and, sometimes, dangerous choices, like driving drunk or jumping into bonfires. And yet, my marijuana-using peers, who were more likely to be found wrapped up in stimulating conversation or preparing a delicious meal, were told by both the law and society that their drug of choice was unacceptable. That seemed so arbitrary to me, and the utter failure of marijuana prohibition became increasingly frustrating to me. I was working as a consultant at Ernst & Young when I finally decided to take the plunge and try my damndest to get into the marijuana reform movement. It took several tries, but I eventually got a job at the Marijuana Policy Project. I took a 50% pay cut, but I’ve never looked back. It was what I had to do.

Not long ago, the MPP played a hand in persuading the American Medical Association to reconsider the classification of marijuana as a Schedule I substance — what’s next for the MPP? Are there any other exciting projects that you can tell us about?

Sarah: Yes. Wow, where to begin?

California: Over the past year, MPP has worked closely with California NORML, DPA, and other advocates to ensure successful hearings and advocacy for A.B. 390, which would legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana. MPP will be working hard to build upon the success of A.B. 390 (and its successor bill, A.B. 2254) and to gain further support for taxing and regulating marijuana in the state as citizens prepare to vote on the “Tax Cannabis” initiative.

Arizona: MPP is about to successfully finish our signature drive to place a medical marijuana initiative on the November 2010 ballot, which would make the signature drive one of the earliest to be completed in the history of the state.

Nevada: Earlier this year, MPP submitted finalized initiative language to the Secretary of State to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol. Three weeks later, we emerged from the 15-day challenge period unchallenged. This is an indication that opposition to the initiative is not strong within the political establishment. Nevada will be one of the first states in the nation to tax and regulate marijuana.

South Dakota: MPP helped draft a medical marijuana initiative for the November 2010 ballot and has been providing guidance to activists on the ground throughout their just-completed signature drive.

Illinois: Illinois’ medical marijuana bill made its way to the House floor, but we are still working to garner the 60 votes it needs to pass. The Senate already passed the bill last year, so this could be the year it heads to the governor, who has publicly said he’s open to signing it.

These are just some of our projects – check our Web site for more information on what we’re doing to end the waste and injustice of marijuana prohibition.

Could you give us a little background on your medical condition (what is it, how did it come about, how does it affect your day-to-day life, etc.)?

Sarah: I use medical marijuana topically, to both treat and prevent skin infections caused by MRSA, methicillin-resistant staph. MRSA is most often manifested as skin infections – usually in hair follicles. It can look kind of like a spider bite or a pimple. Left untreated, these infections can become very serious and could get into one’s blood stream, where it becomes a much more serious condition leading to hospitalization and, potentially, death.

Back in early 2006, I started noticing that I was having frequent skin infections – a hangnail or a scratch on my toe would become a big deal. And I was having these red bumps appear on my legs that looked like spider bites. They itched and sometimes turned into bad infections. During one spell of the spider bite-looking bumps, I went to a dermatologist who told me that I had a staph infection. She prescribed me a 10-day course of antibiotics and sent me off like that was that. I found out two years later, after a long struggle with those skin infections, that her files actually showed that she’d diagnosed me with methicillin resistant staph (MRSA), a form of staph that is resistant to a whole class of antibiotics. She never told me that. She never told me what MRSA was, what signs of continued problems with it might look like, how to protect people around me from it or any other non-antibiotic methods of treating it. (The over-prescribing of antibiotics by doctors in general is probably the very reason people like me – otherwise healthy and active – are getting MRSA in the first place.)

As a result, it took me a long time to understand that the infections I was getting were all related. In the meantime, I had several different doctors prescribe me boatloads of antibiotics (including Keflax and Rifampim), one of which I had a severe allergic reaction to (Sulfamethoxazole), one which severely disrupted everything normal and healthy happening in my GI tract (Clindamycin).

It wasn’t until I saw an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. that I learned that I had MRSA. She immediately recommended that I get off of antibiotics and switch to weekly bleach baths. That was a major improvement, but I still occasionally had breakthrough infections, especially if I couldn’t take a bleach bath (e.g., I was a Burning Man).

My salvation came in September 2008 when I read an article about a group of researchers who had discovered that topically applied cannabis killed MRSA. I immediately ran out and gathered together everything I needed to make a cannabis tincture. It was ready in about 30 days (I can make it even quicker now) and I haven’t used a single antibiotic for my skin since then. I spray it on my skin in the areas where staph typically lives on many people – even those who show no sign of infection, including all your pits and crevices (knees, arms, in between the toes, and groin). If I ever have a sign of an infection coming on, I spritz the affected area, usually somewhere on my legs, and voila – in a day it’s disappearing and no pharmaceuticals were necessary.

Has medical marijuana proved to be a more effective alternative than the medication you have tried?

Sarah: Oh my god, no doubt. Only one of all the doctors I saw actually cared about my health and the health of the community I interacted with. She was the one who urged me to get off antibiotics and taught me about MRSA. I haven’t seen her since I discovered read that study and made the tincture (I moved from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles), so I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to her about it. I should call her and tell her about it.

Are there any particular strains of marijuana that are especially helpful in relieving the symptoms of your condition?

Sarah: Not that I know of. I make my tincture from vaporized cannabis, all of which (in my household) is sativa. But I doubt it would matter.

How do you apply your medical marijuana?

Sarah: I use both an alcohol and a glycerin based tincture. The glycerin one has a bit of a lotion effect, which is nice. But it can be a bit sticky, too (and doesn’t spritz nicely, the way the alcohol one does), so sometimes I prefer the alcohol tincture.

Thanks, Sarah!

Source.

March 8, 2010 -I’ve never been a big fan of illegal drugs, let me say that up front right now. I hate to even take aspirin for a headache. However, after some careful reading on the subject, aided and abetted by some of my older pot-head friends, I am changing my mind about just why legalizing pot is an idea whose time has come. There are a lot of very good reasons – moral, ethical and economical – why this should be done now and as soon as possible.

Currently, the Controlled Substances Act does not recognize the difference between medicinal and recreational use of marijuana. For a surprisingly large number of Americans, though, marijuana is just like any other prescription; it’s a way to escape from chronic pain. And, given the stupidity of the FedGov law as it is currently written regarding sale and possession of pot, even patients who obtain marijuana legally in their state can face federal prosecution.

Cannabis has been used to treat HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, cancer, chronic pain, arthritis and pains associated with aging. Something else that pot helps with is asthma prevention, and it also eases glaucoma. Especially for older Americans, cannabis can be the best prescription for their pain. Something else that people overlook with pretty appalling regularity is that being in chronic pain also robs a person of not only the will to eat, but also the will to live. “Marijuana munchies” is not just a figure of speech; using marijuana to help control chronic pain also helps to ease the truly horrific estivation that comes with being a victim of the diseases mentioned above. Using pot makes you hungry. When you’re hungry, you eat. When you eat regularly, you tend to live longer. That’s one of the best side effects that I personally can think of for a non-addictive drug. SO, you’re zoned out for a while. A person using narcotic painkillers is just as zoned, and the narcotics kill appetite.

In a study conducted for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, doctors found that nicotine was far more serious than marijuana on many levels. So, if marijuana were objectively and fairly compared with the effects and side effects of many other prescription drugs, it would become clear just how beneficial of a substance it is. Other countries are recognizing the benefits of medicinal cannabis as well. Canada, Chile and the Netherlands have decriminalized or legalized medical marijuana, and countries such as Australia and Belgium are conducting trials on the benefits of medical marijuana. It’s time for the United States to shed its stereotypical view of marijuana and recognize the many medicinal benefits.

Morally speaking, using pot is a LOT less bad for the person using it than smoking cigarettes. It’s a LOT better than drinking. Ethically speaking, anything that relieves pain and suffering without making the person taking the drugs worse in a good many ways is good. Then, too, there are the economic benefits.

I can just hear the squawking now. ECONOMIC BENEFITS?

Yes, ECONOMIC BENEFITS. Let me repeat that: MONEY. Lots of money.

The late, great Milton Friedman, the Nobel Laureate, former Reagan advisor, and esteemed scholar associated with the very conservative Hoover Institution, was among hundreds of important economists who argue that pot should be legalized and taxed, and that the income from such taxation could generate billions in new revenues and billions more in enforcement savings. If you live in California, what would you rather have? Pot smokers whose cases are tying up the legal system? Or better health care and roads thanks to a marijuana tax? The economic case for legalizing marijuana is as compelling as it has ever been and, in a time of great changes in the interaction between government and the governed, it would not be the worst thing in the world to have a serious national debate on the topic.

Currently over 100 million Americans have used or have admitted using pot. Thinking people do their own research, and, many times, have concluded that the laws against marijuana are arbitrary. It has been proven that legalizing will cost taxpayers far less than we have to pay currently in order to keep marijuana illegal. In fact, Portugal legalized marijuana in 2001 and it has since proven effective, in that crime rates and drug use among youth have significantly decreased. In fact, most who supported legalization were middle-aged citizens, rather than young adults.

So, who’s really holding up the legalization of pot? Aside, that is, from the FedGov and the National Drug Czar, that is?

Well, for one thing, cigarette companies and Big Pharma; my guess is that they’d be the ones most concerned. Big Pharma does NOT want people to have access to benign naturally occurring substances that provide much the same relief, without side-effects or breaking the bank that their reconstituted synthetics might provide. Think about it: sell a carton of 200 joints for $50.00, and throw out the narcotics. Might cost the drug companies a bit, wouldn’t you think? The FDA has recently claimed that there are no medical benefits to marijuana use. However, at the same time, the FDA has approved synthetic versions of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active ingredient in marijuana, for use in high-priced prescription drugs. Surprisingly, the FDA also lists marijuana to be as dangerous as heroin & PCP. If nothing else, this would convince me that the so-called experts are either stupid, blind, or, in all probability, so deep in Big Pharma’s hineys that the agency heads are actually eating breakfast, lunch and dinner out of Big Pharma’s stomach.

Why bother with a cheaper, more cost-effective REAL substance when you can make a synthetic for 5 times the price? Where’s the benefit to the general public in *THAT*?

Also, let’s not forget that the tobacco industry won’t just step aside to let a brand new business take over the market. Should marijuana become legal, who do you think will first start the mass manufacturing? My guess of Marlboro is a good one. Camel is a decent choice, too. Only problem that I can see with this is that all cigarettes have additives, including an extra jolt of nicotine to keep you puffing. What’s to stop the tobacco companies from doing the same thing with a commercially marketed joint?

“Stoned” Joe Camel, anybody?

And then, of course, there’s the FedGov’s interest in keeping the War on Drugs going. The only violence associated with pot is the extreme violence used by Mexican drug traffickers to get it into this country. Legalize pot, and one of their most lucrative markets is gone. The DEA and other agencies have grown fat over the last 30 years fighting their phony “war on drugs.” Trillions in tax payer dollars have been doled out to agencies to wage their war. The so-called “war on drugs” has become a massive government funded industry that jealously guards its funding. Any talk of legalizing pot sends the bureaucracies into an uproar as they foresee dramatic funding cuts, and fewer thermal gizmos that detect leafy green plants in someone’s backyard. We can start by playing the war on drugs game a lot smarter. We can stop the stupid, hysterical silliness and legalize pot. Then, and only then, MAYBE the DEA can focus its attention on real drugs like meth, cocaine, crack, heroine, ecstasy, and the growing prescription drug problem.

Marijuana should be legalized, taxed, and fall under the same rules as alcohol. That means 21 and up to buy it. Those under 21 found with it should be ticketed as they are for alcohol. Those found to be driving under the influence of marijuana should be given DUI’s as they would have been had they been drinking.

The horrific violence of Mexican cartels, which make perhaps as much as 75 percent of their money from marijuana (in Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard’s estimation), the budget meltdown in California, overcrowded prisons and overstretched law enforcement, all of these should be factored into legalization. In April of 2008, Representative Barney Franks co-sponsored, with Ron Paul, the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008, which would have lifted federal penalties for possessing 3.5 ounces or less. That bill never made it to committee. However, Frank and Paul introduced another bill that did reach the committee stage: the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009, which would end the ban on cultivation of non-psychoactive hemp. “I think people have gotten more skeptical of government intervention,” Frank said. “And I think people have seen the ineffectiveness of the all-out-war approach to all this.”

“Change we can believe in – and it all starts with just a TINY bit of common sense. Source.