Posted on 07/25/2003 3:38:43 PM PDT by Wolfie
Woman Reimbursed for Stolen Pot Plants
When Tammy VanBuskirk of Hilo discovered her four medical marijuana plants stolen in May, she did what most people would do in case of a theft: She reported the crime to police.
Then she filed a claim with her homeowner's insurance company. VanBuskirk hasn't heard from the police since May. But about a week ago, she heard from the insurance company.
American Reliable Insurance Co., of Scottsdale, Ariz. sent her a check for $2,040.31. The paperwork with the check noted, "Pot plants policy limit $500 per plant."
The extra $40.31 was for miscellaneous expenses, VanBuskirk said.
The biggest plant was 7 feet high and 8 feet wide, she said. She didn't intend to grow a whopper when she planted it in her garden.
"It just kept getting bigger every day," she said.
VanBuskirk, 57, said two male suspects came over the wall at the back of her yard one afternoon and swiped some of the plants while being watched by the 7-year-old son of VanBuskirk's gardener.
They came back the same evening and swiped the rest.
"I felt, and I still do feel, so violated. I don't feel safe anymore," she said.
VanBuskirk said that she enjoys her marijuana medicine, which is legal with a state medical marijuana card, but it's not as if she wants to be a pothead.
"I'm not a person who was ever into drugs or alcohol," she said. "I'm a reverend. I marry people."
Living on Whidby Island in Washington in the mid-1990s, she was diagnosed first with diabetes, then with glaucoma, a disease in which pressure builds inside the eyes, killing nerve cells and causing blindness.
Although doctors warn that glaucoma does not usually cause pain as a warning signal, VanBuskirk says the disease is painful to her.
"Glaucoma does cause pain. Anything that's killing nerve endings in your body has to be uncomfortable," she said.
Her daughter, on the board of the Washington State Hemp Initiative, recommended marijuana to her.
VanBuskirk also takes standard prescription medicines twice a day.
After a year of using marijuana in Washington, her doctor told her there was no further deterioration of her vision. He said he did not know if the marijuana was really helping her or if she just thought it was helping.
When VanBuskirk moved to Hilo four years ago, she did not tell her new doctor that she was using marijuana.
VanBuskirk has been advised to take marijuana every two hours. She smokes it in a tiny pipe.
The instructions on her marijuana from the Green Cross Patient Co-op in Washington say, "Cannabis. Do not drive or operate machinery while using this medication."
"We know that it can impair you a little like any medicine that relieves pain," she said. "I control it. It doesn't control me."
Lady, you're a ditz.
Woman Reimbursed for Stolen Hot Pants
I may be the only one that finds this amusing. Or maybe not. :)
Bush's drug nazis will probably bust American Reliable for conspiracy to traffic in marijuana.
Yeah, what is she thinking, taking prescribed medication?
"The dose of marijuana necessary to produce a clinically relevant effect in the short term appears to produce an unacceptable level of undesirable side effects such as euphoria, systemic hypotension, and/or dry eye and conjunctival hyperemia in the majority of glaucoma patients in whom the drug has been carefully studied."National Institutes of Health Report, page 12
"Presently, there is no scientifically verifiable evidence that marijuana or its derivatives are safe and effective in the treatment of glaucoma. The availability of a wide variety of alternative treatments that do not have marijuana's psychoactive and other specific side effects argues against the use of marijuana for treating glaucoma. Marijuana offers no advantage over currently available glaucoma drugs and indeed may be less effective than these agents." The National Eye Institute, Fact Sheet on the Therapeutic Use of Marijuana for Glaucoma
"...it’s well known that smoking marijuana can reduce pressure within the eye, a hallmark of the disease. But the drug may also reduce the blood supply to the optic nerve - the last thing a glaucoma sufferer needs - and it doesn’t seem to prevent blindness. Even if marijuana could save eyes, smoking it enough would take extraordinary effort. ‘In order to substantially reduce eye pressure,’ says Dr. Harry Quigley of John Hopkins University’s Wilmer Eye Institute, ‘you’d have to be stoned all the time.’" (Can Marijuana be Medicine?, Newsweek, February 3, 1997)
Finding - The American Academy of Ophthalmology Committee on Drugs presently finds no scientifically verifiable evidence that the use of marijuana is safe and effective in the treatment of glaucoma.
"Although glaucoma is one of the most frequently cited medical indications for marijuana, the data do not support this indication. High intraocular pressure (IOP) is a known risk factor for glaucoma and can, indeed, be reduced by cannabinoids and marijuana. However, the effect is too and short lived and requires too high doses, and there are too many side effects to recommend lifelong use in the treatment of glaucoma. The potential harmful effects of chronic marijuana smoking outweigh its modest benefits in the treatment of glaucoma. Clinical studies on the effects of smoked marijuana are unlikely to result in improved treatment for glaucoma." Institute of Medicine -- 1999 Report
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