>Sender: >To: >X-Original-Message-ID: <0d2901bf03a0$f2d32dc0$9acf69cf@pacbell.net> >From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: An excellent article about me in LA Times >Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 12:47:18 -0700 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >Hello. > >Here is an excellent article from today's LA Times. > >If you are so moved, please write a letter of support to letter@latimes.com > >Take care. > >Enjoy, > >Peter > >=================== > >Los Angeles Times >Page A-3 >Monday, September 20, 1999 > >AIDS Patient Pins Hopes on Pot Ruling > >Medicine: A Laurel Canyon man says a court decision last week may save his >life. The U.S. appeals judges found that marijuana is legal for the >seriously ill. > >By MARY CURTIUS, Times Staff Writer > > For Peter McWilliams, a federal appellate court's ruling last week that >seriously ill people should be allowed to use marijuana with a doctor's >recommendation may be a lifeline thrown to a dying man. > For more than a year, as he has awaited trial on a variety of >marijuana-related charges, the AIDS patient has been barred by a federal >judge from smoking the medical marijuana he says he must have to survive. >McWilliams is hoping the decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court >of Appeals will persuade the judge to change his mind. > "I meet every single one of the conditions the judges set forth for >when a person should be able to argue a medical necessity defense for using >marijuana," McWilliams, 50, said in a telephone interview from his Laurel >Canyon home. "Nothing else works for me. I am in a life or death situation, >I am under a doctor's care and I have tried every available alternative." > McWilliams' attorney, Thomas Ballanco, intends to register those >arguments this week when he appears before the judge who freed McWilliams on >$250,000 bail. He will ask, yet again, that the book publisher be allowed to >smoke marijuana while he awaits trial. If U.S. District Judge George King >declines, Ballanco said, he will appeal to the same three-member panel that ruled that medical necessity is an acceptable defense in federal court. > Attorneys representing defendants in other federal marijuana cases >brought since Californians passed Proposition 215 said that they, too, plan >to mount appeals based on the 9th Circuit panel's decision. The state law >provides for patients with a doctor's recommendation to smoke marijuana for a variety of illnesses. > The stakes are especially high in McWilliams' case. > "I worry that he won't even make it to trial, much less through trial," >Ballanco said. > Diagnosed with AIDS in 1996, McWilliams said he tried every available >anti-nausea medication on the market before smoking marijuana to quell the >nausea caused by the combination of powerful drugs he must take to keep the >AIDS virus in check. Only marijuana, McWilliams said, made it possible for >him to keep the drugs down. > When he was arrested in July 1998, McWilliams had an undetectable AIDS >viral load in his bloodstream. But one of the terms of his bail was that he >not smoke marijuana. Another term was that he submit to random urine tests. > By last fall, McWilliams' doctor said, the publisher's viral load had >soared dramatically. > "Since he no longer had access to the drug, he reports frequent >vomiting," said Daniel Bowers, a family physician who treats about 250 AIDS >patients at his Los Angeles clinic. "He is not keeping down his pills and >his viral load has risen to above 250,000." At that level of viral presence >in the blood, McWilliams' immune system is highly compromised, his physician >says. > "He is stable at the moment, but statistically, we know that the longer >the viral load stays unchecked, the greater the risk that the condition will >deteriorate," Bowers said. > Ballanco has gone to court several times seeking to have McWilliams' >bail conditions altered so that his client can smoke marijuana. Each time, >the court has said it cannot authorize someone to break the law. > But in last week's decision involving marijuana clubs, the federal >appellate court said that a lower court erred in not allowing club operators >to offer the defense that smoking marijuana is a medical necessity for some >people. > U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer had ordered several Northern >California clubs closed last year after the federal government filed a >lawsuit alleging that they violated the federal Controlled Substances Act. >Since the 1996 passage of Proposition 215, federal prosecutors have >maintained that marijuana remains illegal under federal law. > Last week, the appeals court ordered Breyer to consider modifying his >order closing the Northern California clubs to allow them to sell marijuana >to seriously ill patients. > "The government . . . has yet to identify any interest it may have in >blocking the distribution of cannabis to those with medical needs," the >court said in a unanimous opinion. > "We're not going to have any comment on this week's 9th Circuit >ruling," said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los >Angeles, where McWilliams' case is being handled. Mrozek said McWilliams' >case is different from those of the closed cannabis clubs. McWilliams is >accused of financing several growers, his co-defendants, who the government >said were cultivating more than 6,000 marijuana plants to sell to marijuana >clubs. > "I've consistently characterized this as that of a commercial marijuana >cultivation operation. McWilliams was the money man," Mrozek said. > McWilliams denied that he was financing a marijuana growing operation >and said he will deal with the allegations in court. Until then, he said, >his primary focus is on staying alive. > He said he is now confined to a wheelchair, sleeps 18 hours a day and >rarely leaves his home. > "When your viral load is 250,000, Armageddon is being fought inside >you," he said. > > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: