Posted on 11/01/2003 9:04:19 AM PST by Loyalist
CREDIT: Jonathan Hayward, The Canadian Press
Don Appleby died of his injuries suffered in an Oct. 12 explosion while he was trying to make a concentrated oil using marijuana and butane.
Don Appleby's fight against the aids virus that was sapping him was made more difficult by a tragic paradox. While the Ottawa man was one of the few Canadians who could legally smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes, he could rarely afford it due to his minuscule disability pension.
In the end, he was killed in the struggle to produce the drug that was helping him survive.
On Oct. 12, Mr. Appleby was in the bathroom of his Blake Boulevard apartment, trying a dangerous method to get some use out of the non-smokable parts of his marijuana plants.
By injecting butane into a plastic container with the plant in it, he hoped to make a concentrated oil he could use. Friends suspect he then tried to light a joint, igniting an explosion that blew the bathroom door off its hinges.
Residents of the apartment above his heard the explosion, and rushed him to the Ottawa Hospital's General campus. It's where he remained in intensive care since the incident, and where he died Thursday morning.
Ron Whelan was Mr. Appleby's close friend, and was living under the same circumstances. He said yesterday that Mr. Appleby never should have died the way he did.
Both 44, they received about $900 a month on disability, not nearly enough to pay for both marijuana and food. While the government would pay for the $1,500-$2,000 of aids medication Mr. Appleby needed, they wouldn't pick up the cost of the marijuana. Nausea was a side-effect of the pills, and without the drug, he couldn't keep them down.
Forced to buy marijuana himself and pay rent, his friends say Mr. Appleby was reduced to scrounging through dumpsters to find the food he could no longer afford. He would go searching behind restaurants late at night so nobody would see him. At the same time, he wasn't shy about asking people with marijuana gardens to help him.
"You do what you have to do to survive, whether it's beg, borrow or steal," Mr. Whelan said. If one had a bag of dry macaroni from the food bank, he would often go to the other's place to share.
Mr. Appleby decided to try and save some money by growing his own marijuana, and after two failed gardens, things were starting to work out for him. Still, the cost to grow was still high. With no other source of medicine, he resorted to the butane method. He never recovered from the burns that covered 75 per cent of his body and his scorched lungs.
Mr. Whelan said although Mr. Appleby experienced difficult times in the past, he really blossomed after meeting people similar to him. He loved participating in marijuana rallies, and helping others.
"The world needs more people like Donny," he said. "He was there for the underdog, and it's a terrible loss for everyone who knew him."
Mr. Whelan said he doesn't blame the government for what happened to his friend, but said it should take more responsibility and provide for people like him.
© Copyright 2003 The Ottawa Citizen
Wrong. I did read it -- but this tells me nothing about whether this is a viable solution. Do you think from some butane manufacturers' perspective there may be drawbacks with selling a product with these impurities? Neither you nor I know enough about the butane industry to know why companies use certain formulations to their products and what benefits these formulations provide. This seems to me like the people who support fingerprint activation on guns without understanding the whole issue.
I said "voluntary" because that's the way I'd like it to be. I'd prefer that over "government mandated".
Right, but then this doesn't solve the problem.
BTW, your reference to dual-use technologies/products? Tell me you weren't referring to bongs. Nothing "dual-use" about the way they were being marketed, was there?
I mean all dual-use technologies: hemp, pipes, allergy medication, etc. Please tell me the principle you use when deciding that butane should be legal but hemp should not. Or why butane should be legal, but there should be controls on how much allergy medication one can buy at one time. It's not logically consistent. In your words, why should would-be hemp farmers or allergy sufferers be punished because of the actions of a few dopeheads?
Well, we don't have a "problem" yet, probably because we don't have a lot of hemp. IF it did become a problem, and IF manufacturers didn't voluntarily add impurities (at the request of the government), then we go to Plan B, mandatory.
"why should would-be hemp farmers or allergy sufferers be punished because of the actions of a few dopeheads?"
Punish a "would-be" farmer? ellery, sometimes I just don't know about you. You can't punish a would-be anyone -- what is, is.
And as far as allergy sufferers, they are inconvenienced, not punished. There are many, many, prescription drugs that are only available in a 14-day or 30-day supply.
Prescription Claritin-D, 30 day supply? OK. Over-the counter Claritin-D, limited to 30 pills? Fascism! I'm being punished!
99.9% of the die hard Libertarians on FR blamed the tragedy on the paint thinner
Really? 99.9%?
Somehow, I’m positive that you couldn’t back that statistic up with proof in 99.9 years.
You really lie in an exceptional amount of your posts. And you never seem to be embarrassed about it.
You're punishing the farmer, by not letting him or her cultivate a crop that happens to be dual use. So the principle on which you're basing your judgement that butane should not be criminalized is that it's not a widespread problem yet?
You really lie in an exceptional amount of your posts. And you never seem to be embarrassed about it.
Where is LeRoy today? Taking up the slack up for him? After all, the time I am posting this reply is normal business hours on a normal business day(Monday, 11/03/03). And take a casual look through LeRoy's postings and it is usually banker's(lobbyist) hours 9-5, M-F.
Is LeRoy in the woodshed? Getting whacked by hemp plants for bringing such dishonor to the Tommy Chong cause.
BTW, every time I posted the link that was posted in reply #36 of this thread, on subsequent pro-potter threads, it was the paint thinner's fault and not the marijuana's. And no I can't give you scientific proof, only anecdotal, since going through the million or so threads on FR would take some time and since I don't have a grant from an anti-marijuana lobbyist group, it isn't worth my time.
I will let lurkers on FR make up their own minds on my veracity.
BTW, I knew you were lying. Thanks for the confirmation.
For the interest of full disclosure, LeRoy did post a reply to me on a thread that is now in LeRoy's most favorable habitat, the smokey backroom, while I was writing my reply #308 of this thread.
But you are correct there is no joy in the pot lobbyist town called "NORMLville".
It was that damn butane that caused Appleby's death and not their wonderweed, in their opinion.
Huh???? Sheesh LeRoy, think before you hit the keyboard will ya.
Oh don't worry it will and a thread will be posted on FR by NORML's informal political arm, The LP.
It will be dripping of sadness over the evils of butane.
Not the Gestapo---the local authorities.
What about marijuana labs????
There is no such thing---but Don Appleby had no right to endanger others as he did.
Right here (for another 25 minutes). It's so touching that you missed me---but be aware that I'm happily married.
Why would I take any joy in this man's death? Do you?
It was that damn butane that caused Appleby's death and not their wonderweed, in their opinion.
The proximate cause was his own stupidity.
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