This is indeed bittersweet news as there are two likely policy outcomes. The first is that drivers will be subject to more and more roadside drug tests, however the secondary policy outcomes may provide some benefit for individuals and society: a) Current roadside testing is notoriously inaccurate and subject to challenge, b) Most testing today performed by law enforcement is urine or hair follicle testing (which only measures for inert metabolites from past drug use, not impairment or recent use), a roadside ’sobriety’ test that can detect very recent cannabis use (within a few hours) narrows the window of personal liability and criminality, and c) Many law enforcement personnel will agree in debate that the social controls created by legalization and regulation is ideally preferred to the international chaos, potential harm caused to police and ineffectiveness of prohibition–but the one inch of ground few police will yield on is driving while impaired.

Dozens of law enforcement officials, from patrol officers to heads of state police departments to state Attorneys General, have told me that they can not become converts to reform absent an accurate roadside test like they currently have for alcohol (which is an interesting and awkward way of acknowledging that current roadside drug tests police often give drivers are problematic)

Maybe, in time, the subset of American society that most vociferously opposes ending cannabis prohibition–the law enforcement community–will come to be sated by the satisfaction that similar to alcohol-impaired drivers, they’ll be able to fairly and accurately detect cannabis-impaired drivers.

After all, ask yourself this: When have you ever seen police or their industry associations (ie, Chiefs of Police Association, Fraternal Order of Police, etc…) publicly lobby in favor of bringing back alcohol prohibition and re-criminalizing alcohol consumption?

Have these law enforcement trade groups funded and supported public campaigns against impaired or reckless driving? Sure, and all the power to them! But, propagandizing that the producers, sellers and  consumers of the very dangerous drug alcohol (or for that matter, pharmaceuticals)  be considered common criminals, and a threat to society?

No. Americans will not (hopefully) ever see police and their trade groups seeking to re-vilify alcohol products.

What will it take to get the law enforcement community to finally support cannabis law reforms?

Our bittersweet friend…technology.

Device Offers a Roadside Dope Test

The system uses magnetic nanoparticles to detect traces of cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and methamphetamine.

By Alexander Gelfand
————————-

Later this year, Philips will introduce a handheld electronic device that uses magnetic nanoparticles to screen for five major recreational drugs.

The device is intended for roadside use by law enforcement agencies and includes a disposable plastic cartridge and a handheld analyzer. The cartridge has two components: a sample collector for gathering saliva and a measurement chamber containing magnetic nanoparticles. The particles are coated with ligands that bind to one of five different drug groups: cocaine, heroin, cannabis, amphetamine, and methamphetamine.

Philips began investigating the possibility of building a magnetic biodetector in 2001, two years after a team of researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC, first used magnetic sensors similar to those employed in hard drives to sniff out certain biowarfare agents. The NRL scientists labeled biological molecules designed to bind to target agents with magnetic microbeads, and then scanned for the tagged targets optically and magnetically. The latter approach used the same giant magnetoresistant (GMR) sensors that read the bits on an iPod’s hard drive. They quickly developed a shoebox-sized prototype capable of detecting toxins, including ricin and anthrax.

Philips initially developed both a GMR sensor and an optical one that relies on frustrated total internal reflection (FTIR)–the same phenomenon that underlies fingerprint scanners and multitouch screens. The company decided to go the FTIR route in order to exploit its expertise in building optical sensors for consumer electronics devices, says Jeroen Nieuwenhuis, technical director of Philips Handheld Immunoassays, the division responsible for commercializing the biosensor technology, which goes by the trade name Magnotech.

Moving to an optical detection method also allowed Philips to simplify the test cartridges that the device employs, making them easier to mass-produce, says Nieuwenhuis. With the current FTIR-based system, “we can make simpler cartridges in larger quantities more easily,” he adds.

Once the device’s sample collector has absorbed enough saliva, it automatically changes color and can then be snapped into the measurement chamber, where the saliva and nanoparticles mix. An electromagnet speeds the nanoparticles to the sensor surface, different portions of which
have been pretreated with one of the five target-drug molecules. If traces of any of the five drugs are present in the sample, the nanoparticles will bind to them. If the sample is drug free, the nanoparticles will bind to the drug-coated sensor surface instead.

The orientation of the magnetic field that first drew the nanoparticles to the sensor is then reversed, pulling away any nano-labeled drug molecules that may accidentally have stuck to the sensor surface but leaving legitimately bound ones in place. This last magnetic trick promises to reduce what Larry Kricka, a clinical chemist at the University of Pennsylvania who recently co-authored an article in Clinical Chemistry on the use of magnetism in point-of-care testing, calls “a major restraint in such assays”: the unintentional capture of molecular labels on the test surface, a leading cause of both false positives and false negatives. Kricka is not involved with Philips but does serve as a consultant to T2 Biosciences, a Cambridge, MA, firm that promotes a magnetic biosensor based on MRI technology.

During the analysis phase, a beam of light is bounced off the sensor. Any nanoparticles bound to the surface will change its refractive index, thereby altering the intensity of the reflected light and indicating the concentration of drugs in the sample. By immobilizing different drug molecules on different portions on the sensor surface, the analyzer is able to identify the drug traces in question. An electronic screen displays instructions and a simple color-coded readout of the results.

The test takes less than 90 seconds and can detect drugs at concentrations measured in parts-per-billion using a single microliter of saliva.

The sensor is capable of even greater sensitivity–it has been used to detect cardiac troponin, a commonly used indicator of heart attack, at concentrations 1,000 times lower.

Philips plans ultimately to enter the healthcare market. It is working on a platform capable of testing blood as well as saliva and is seeking partners that can help expand its testing menu by providing it with additional biomarkers.

Other researchers have built experimental devices to magnetically detect a wide range of biomolecules in minuscule samples of blood or saliva at extremely low concentrations. Often this involves using microfluidic or magnetic forces to quickly shepherd the magnetically labeled molecules through scanners–though a group at the University of Utah has even built a prototype in which a sample-laden stick is swiped across a GMR sensor, like a credit-card through a reader.

The combination of high sensitivity, low sample volumes, miniaturization, speed, and ease of use has raised hopes for a handheld biosensor that could perform sophisticated tests with high accuracy.

“Everyone’s trying to get there,” says Kricka. “The question is who’s going to win?” With Philips set to introduce its drug tester in Europe by the end of the year in partnership with the British diagnostics firm Cozart, the consumer electronics maker appears poised to take the prize.

Published Tuesday, August 04, 2009 @ Technology Review.

]]> http://blog.norml.org/2009/08/12/prohibition-hi-tech-tool-just-another-anti-marijuana-silver-bullet/feed/ 82 http://blog.norml.org/2009/07/07/pain-clinics-test-patients-for-marijuana-use/ http://blog.norml.org/2009/07/07/pain-clinics-test-patients-for-marijuana-use/#comments Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:26:58 +0000 Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director http://blog.norml.org/?p=1054 By Dale Gieringer, Director, CA NORML

Like many medical marijuana users, Kristin Redeen needed additional prescription medications for her severe chronic pain. For seven years she had been treated at a private pain clinic in the Central Valley, where a doctor maintained her on Percocet, a semi-synthetic opioid. One day Kristin was unexpectedly asked to submit a urine sample.  

“They already knew about my medical marijuana use,” says Kristin, who contacted California NORML. “I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.”

When the test  came back, Kristin was informed that the clinic would no longer renew her prescription because she had tested positive for an illegal controlled substance. Her doctor at the clinic cited legal concerns, claiming –falsely– that DEA regulations forbid giving prescription narcotics to users of marijuana or other illegal drugs.

Kristin was cut off from her Percocet and began suffering seizures. She finally found a physician who was willing to prescribe her another opioid, Vicodin, but only at low doses insufficient to relieve her constant pain.

Kristin is one of a growing number of medical marijuana patients discriminated against by pain clinics. “I must have heard of 25 cases this year,” says Doug Hiatt, an attorney in Washington state. “It’s Jim Crow medicine.”

NORML has received a surge of complaints within the last six months.  Many medical marijuana users report that they can’t find a clinic willing to take them on.  Others, like Kristin, have been abandoned by clinics that suddenly adopted aggressive drug-screening policies.

Clinics say they are legally compelled to drug-test chronic pain patients so as to avoid liability for overdoses and diversion of prescription drugs, particularly opioids such as oxycontin –which have nothing to do with cannabis.

Chronic pain patients have good reason to object to being denied medical access to cannabis. Chronic pain is the leading indication for medical cannabis use, accounting for 90% of the patients in Oregon’s medical marijuana program.   More than 60 studies have shown cannabinoids to be effective in pain relief, according to a compilation by the International Association of Cannabis Medicine which includes four controlled studies of smoked marijuana by California’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.

Studies indicate that cannabis interacts synergistically with opioids in such a way as to improve pain relief [1, 2].    California medical cannabis specialists consistently report that patients are able to reduce use of opioids –typically by 50%– when they add cannabis to their regimen.  Cannabis can therefore be seen as a gateway drug leading away from opioid addiction.  Nevertheless, patients are being pressured to stop using cannabis if they want to get prescription opioids.

To their dismay, patients have to pay for the drug tests at their own (or their insurers’) expense.   Carol, a chronic pain patient who had been treated for seven years by the same clinic without any testing, reports that she was billed $325 for a urine screen. The balance of the bill, which totaled $1,601, was paid by her insurer.

Carol says her doctor told her that “the DEA requires him to drug test all his clients, that he has no choice, it is the law.”

In fact, there is no law requiring clinics to drug screen patients for marijuana.   “It’s BS,” says Hiatt.  Not a single case is known in which pain doctors have been sued or prosecuted for allowing medical marijuana use along with opiates.

Prosecutors have argued that marijuana might be obtained on the illicit market in trade for  prescription drugs, though such a scenario seems implausible in medical cannabis states. “It’s unwarranted paranoia,” says Gregory Carter, MD, one of the few practicing pain experts who recommend marijuana in Washington.

Given that cannabis is notably less toxic and addictive than other prescription narcotics,  it seems highly ironic that pain clinics are discouraging its use.  The prejudice against marijuana has nothing to do with medical science, but rather with political and legal pressures to crack down on prescription drug use. Non-medical use of prescription drugs has recently emerged as the nation’s number-one drug problem du jour.

A new government report, ominously entitled the “National Prescription Drug Threat Assessment,” reported 8,500 deaths in 2005 from prescription pain relievers (mainly opioids), more than double the 2001 total. “Diversion and abuse of prescription drugs are a threat to our public health and safety – similar to the threat posed by illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine,” warned Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske.

The Pain Specialists’ Meeting
The 2009 American Pain Society Convention in San Diego included a panel on “Cannabinoids in Pain Management,” chaired by Dr. Mark Ware of McGill University. Dr. Andrea Hohmann, an expert on stress-level analgesia from the University of Georgia, presented evidence from rodent studies which showed that cannabinoids suppress nociceptive processing through both the CB1 and CB2 receptors, and that endocannabinoids, including 2-AG and anandamide, help suppress pain.

Donald Abrams, MD, of the University of California at San Francisco, discussed his studies showing that inhaled marijuana significantly reduced neuropathic pain experienced by HIV patients.  Cannabinoids and opioids interact synergistically on separate but parallel pain receptors, Abrams said. He is conducting another study on combined use of cannabinoids and opioids, preliminary results of which appear promising.

Dr. Ware discussed studies involving the variety of cannabinoid medicines available in Canada, which include dronabinol, Sativex, Nabilone, and herbal THC. All of them have demonstrated efficacy in pain relief.  Cannabis is now recognized as a “third line” agent for neuropathic pain in Canada.  Noting that that its adverse effects are mild to moderate, Ware concluded that “cannabinoid analgesia is the real thing.”

During the question session, your correspondent asked why it was that, in light of evidence that cannabis was so useful in pain therapy, there appeared to be an upsurge in drug testing to prevent its use.  The panelists could offer no explanation.

We moved on to the exhibition hall, where drug testing companies were conspicuously displaying their wares.  Their exhibits showed how well their products could monitor usage of opiates.  The exhibitors seemed surprised when we told them that their products were being used against medical marijuana.

One of the more sophisticated exhibitors was Ameritox, which boasted panels for distinguishing a dozen different opioids plus numerous sedatives, tricyclic anti-depressants, barbiturates, and stimulants as well as “drugs of abuse,” among them marijuana.  Their saleswoman seemed surprised to hear that the Ameritox test was being used to screen out medical marijuana patients.  She said that clinics could easily order the screens without the marijuana if they wanted.
Another company boasted how their test could be administered at the doctor’s office, thereby allowing the doctor rather than the lab to collect the bill.

Finally, we spoke to a legal expert on pain medication, Ms. Jennifer Bolen, a former prosecutor turned defense attorney, who has a useful website devoted to the subject:
www.legalsideofpain.com.

Ms Bolen pointed to three recent developments that have increased the pressure to conduct drug screening of pain patients.  First,  pain doctors have suffered a string of stinging legal judgments for over-prescribing opioids to patients who subsequently overdosed. One notable example involved Dr. Thomas Merrill of Florida,  whose life sentence was sustained by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals last year.

This February, a prestigious panel of the American Pain Society issued “New Guidelines for Prescribing Opioid Pain Drugs” which counsels that “diligent monitoring of patients is essential. “ The report specifically recommends periodic drug screens for chronic opioid patients at risk for aberrant drug behavior, though it doesn’t mention cannabis.

Lastly,  under  legislation that took effect this year, the FDA has new authority to require pharmaceutical companies to implement “risk management” programs to prevent consumer drug misuse.

Medical cannabis patients have no easy remedy to the current drug testing onslaught. In the absence of dire bodily harm, malpractice suits are of no avail.  In general, pain clinics have no legal obligation to treat anyone.  They commonly require patients to sign contracts allowing them to conduct drug screening at will.  Nonetheless, patients may have good grounds to complain to their state medical boards.  This is particularly the case where they have been abandoned by their doctors after being made dependent on prescription narcotics.

The ultimate recourse is to educate doctors, many of whom remain woefully ignorant of the literature on medical marijuana and chronic pain.  At the APS convention we encountered a distinguished pain specialist from San Diego, who joked about having enjoyed the marijuana muchies with his son,  but averred that he wouldn’t let his patients use it, on the grounds that it wouldn’t be useful, and anyway smoked medicine is bad for the lungs. Like most convention attendees, he had missed the panel on medical cannabis, where Dr. Abrams had discussed the use of smokeless vaporizers.

Still,  good physicians should be open to persuasion from patients. Cynthia, a severe chronic pain patient. had frequented the same clinic for 10 years when she was confronted with a surprise urine test.  In addition to prescription opiates, she had been using medical marijuana, though her recommendation was four years out of date.   The test cost her $100  and her insurer $500 more.

On finding her positive for marijuana, her doctor informed her that she would have to reduce her cannabinoid level to zero.  After a heart-to-heart  talk, in which she explained to him how she had been able to reduce her opiate use to minimal levels thanks to medical cannabis, her doctor relented. “I feel really lucky,’ says Cynthia,  “You have to feel out the doctor. We have a special relationship.  I don’t think he plans to do this with all his patients.”

REFERENCES
[1] Lynch and Clark, “Cannabis reduces opioid dose in the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain,” Journal Pain Symptom Management, (2003) 25(6) 496-8.

[2[ Narang et al., 2008 Efficacy of dronabinol as an adjuvant treatment for chronic pain patients on opioid therapy, J Pain. Mar;9(3):254-64.

From O’Shaughnessy’s, Summer 2009
To order this 52-page, all-content, no-jive publication, send $5 to p.o. box 490, Alameda, CA 94501. O’S is available in bulk to physicians, collectives, cooperatives and reform groups for $1/copy for free distribution to patients and interested citizens.

50% increase in marijuana treatment admissions in one decade

In 1997, about 200,000 people checked into treatment for marijuana. By 2005, that number has risen to over 300,000 people, though it has tapered off a bit these last couple of years. By any account, this is a huge rise in the number of people seeking rehab for marijuana in just a decade. It would seem like the powerful new “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” has given rise to a 50% increase in reefer addicts!

Only 15% of marijuana "addicts" admit themselves to treatment

However, when you look behind the numbers, you find that this increase has more to do with the rapid increase of drug courts in the late ’90s, early ’00s. By far, most of the people who are in treatment for marijuana are forced there! 57% are forced into treatment by the criminal justice system, while only 15% admitted themselves to treatment. For comparison’s sake, over all drugs combined, 1/3rd of all admissions are self-admissions, marijuana is the drug with the lowest self-admission rates (lower than meth) and highest criminal justice-admission rates (higher than meth), and for alcohol, self-admission is around 29% and criminal justice (including DUI) admissions are only 42.5%.

37% of all people admitted for marijuana rehab didn't even use marijuana in the past month.

Even more interesting is a look at the actual substance use of the people admitted to treatment. Almost 4 out of ten marijuana smokers who are in treatment haven’t even used marijuana in thirty days! Again, for comparison, only 1 out of 4 alcohol admissions didn’t drink in the past month, and the number is only 1 in 6 for heroin.

Another interesting figure: almost 58% of marijuana admissions are first-time admissions to drug treatment, a number that seems suspisciously close to the 56.9% of admissions from criminal justice. That’s the highest first-time figure of all the common drugs (marijuana, alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and meth). Of those drugs, marijuana and alcohol are the only ones where the majority of drug treatment admissions are not returns to treatment. Also, 31% of marijuana users in treatment are employed, a number twice that of heroin or cocaine admissions, but lower than the 42.5% of employed alcohol users in treatment.

Marijuana rehab is almost exclusively aimed at people under 25

Finally, 3/4ths of marijuana rehabbers are male, half are white, 2/3rds are under age 25. Marijuana has the lowest average age of admittance (24 years old), with all other drugs but inhalants and hallucinogens having average ages in the 30’s. The average alcohol or crack cocaine rehabber is 39 years old.

While we certainly prefer any marijuana smoker caught by law enforcement to be sent to rehab rather than jail, the sentencing of people to rehab who don’t really need it means we are wasting resources that could be better directed to the unfulfilled needs of hard drugs addicts. If alcohol and crack’s average rehab age was closer to 20 than to 40, how much time, money, and misery would we save in this country?

Instead we arrest mostly young people for their marijuana use, then sentence them to rehab, then cite the increasing numbers of young people in rehab for marijuana as proof of the increasing danger of marijuana, which is then used to justify arresting more mostly young people for their marijuana use.

By Dale Gieringer, Ph.D, Director, California NORML

California NORML has recently heard increasing reports that Marinol patients are being drug tested and denied employment for use of marijuana. In particular, we have heard from legal Prop. 215 patients who were denied jobs despite presenting Marinol prescriptions after being re-tested specifically for marijuana. Until recently, Marinol and marijuana were indistinguishable on the standard drug tests, so that patients with a Marinol prescription had a valid medical excuse under federal law for testing positive for marijuana.

However, special testing techniques have been developed that make it possible to distinguish the two by testing for non-standard cannabinoids that appear in marijuana but not Marinol. Until recently, these tests were expensive and rarely used except in high-profile criminal cases. However, it appears that they are now being routinely used by certain laboratories in cases where Marinol use is claimed. In particular, we have heard reports of such testing being used to disqualify Marinol-using Prop 215 patients by the transportation industry and by Walmart.

California NORML has accordingly altered its drug testing information to warn against relying on Marinol RXs as a screen for marijuana use: http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/testing.tips.html

There is of course no valid scientific or health justification for allowing patients to use Marinol but not marijuana. The only purpose is to enforce compliance with the law. It is a tribute to the power and influence of the drug testing industry that they have prevailed in foisting the costs of this unnecessary and obnoxious procedure on employers.

California NORML, 2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco CA 94114

(415) 563-5858 / www.canorml.org

I spoke extensively last week with Willamette Weekly’s James Pipkin and on Monday with ABC’s Marcus Baram about NORML’s monitoring and gathering case examples from around the country where medical patients, notably medical marijuana patients, are being denied organ transplants. Marcus’ and James’ articles continue to cast more needed antiseptic light on this disturbing public health practice of official discrimination against otherwise lawful medical cannabis patients.

Heads up: Additionally, the Willamette Weekly has exposed the tragedy that confronts medical patients in Oregon — that no hospital in the state will perform organ transplants on patients who test positive for cannabis, even if they are in compliance with the state’s medical marijuana laws and are in the state’s medical marijuana patient registry.

Like the recent tragedy in Tallahassee regarding the tragic death of 23-year old Rachael Hoffman resulting from her being recruited as a ’snitch’ for the local narcotic officers, the general public and maybe more importantly the general news beat media (AKA, mainstream media) have started to really bore down hard on the human tragedies that arise daily from cannabis prohibition–both in criminal enforcement of the laws, as well as how the prohibition trends upwards into important public institutions, such as in the delivery of medicine to sick, dying or sense-threatened medical patients.

Via our voices, collective consciousness and continued effective uses of employing empowering communication mediums like the Internet (i.e., webpages, podcasts, blogs, online videos and active online social networking), we can advance the long held goal and belief that an informed general public is the best path forward to ending cannabis prohibition may now finally be upon us.

I was heartened to see the Ventura Star editorialize against denying medical marijuana patients access to organ donor banks.

As the saying goes: We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!

Let’s keep the collective pressure on the media, opinion and policy-makers to replace prohibition laws with viable, and common sense-based public policy alternatives.

Thanks to CA NORML’s Dale Gieringer, Ph.D and NLC member/2008 Aspen Legal Seminar faculty Doug Hiatt, Esq. for getting into the ABC news article!
ABC News
Medical Marijuana User Denied Organ Transplant
Jonathan Simchen, Who Has Kidney Failure, Is Latest Example of User Turned Down for Organ Transplants
By MARCUS BARAM

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4893948&page=1

May 20, 2008 —

When Jonathan Simchen was diagnosed with kidney failure last summer, he did just what the doctor ordered: He applied for a kidney transplant and took his prescribed medicine — medical marijuana.

The marijuana was meant to control his nausea.

Simchen, a 33-year-old diabetic who lives near Seattle, soon found out there was a Catch-22 rolled up in his legalized joints. He was turned down by two organ transplant programs because he uses medical marijuana.

“About two or three months after I got on dialysis, I went to Virginia Mason Hospital and they did a rigorous set of tests of my lungs, brain, circulatory system, a psychological evaluation,” Simchen told ABCNEWS.com.

“[They] took me off the list because they’re afraid of me being a future drug user,” said Simchen, who admits that he has used cocaine. But that was in the past and he even quit using medical marijuana at the hospital’s request.

When Simchen went to the University of Washington Medical Center, he says he was also turned down.

“They made it clear that if you had medical marijuana, they wouldn’t treat me. I just lost hope and got totally frustrated.”

Alisha Mark, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason, would not discuss details of Simchon’s case because of medical privacy regulations, but said that “any patient who smokes any product — tobacco, cloves, medical marijuana — would be precluded from receiving a transplant here.”

The hospital, which performs 90 to 100 transplants a year, is concerned about medical safety in the evaluation of whether a patient is a suitable candidate for organ transfer, explained Mark.

“So few people are denied access to the waiting list. We’re not here to prevent them from getting on the list,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the University of Washington Medical Center also declined to discuss specifics of Simchon’s case, but said that medical marijuana use is only one of multiple factors, including behavioral concerns such as a history of substance abuse or dependency, examined by their transplant committee.

“We’ve never denied someone based solely on their use of medical marijuana,” said Clare Hagerty.

Simchon, whose lawyer is planning legal action against the transplant centers, could become a test case to challenge criteria of who is eligible to receive one of the life-giving organs.

Doug Hiatt, a criminal defense lawyer, has represented several clients including Timothy Garon, a Seattle musician who died earlier this month after being turned down for a liver transplant.

“Everyone else I’ve repped died on me,” said Hiatt. “This guy [Simchen] is in good enough shape that we can fight it out. & I realize that there is a shortage of organs and that doctors and hospitals have to do the best they can to take care of the organs they have, but it never dawned on me that they would discriminate against someone using marijuana under supervision, not as a street drug.”

There has never been a successful case brought in such cases, according to Dale Geringer, the California director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He could recall similar situations going back to 1997.

“The litigation takes months and years and these people have weeks or days,” he said.

Other transplant doctors and bioethicists, including some in states where medical marijuana is against the law, were surprised to hear about the refusals.

Vivian Tellis, the director of the transplant program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, says that he would never turn somebody down because of a history of marijuana use or abuse. Because medical marijuana is not allowed in New York, most of those cases involve recreational use.

“There is no known contraindication between marijuana and the drugs you have to take after transplant,” Tellis said.

Tellis explains that an addictive personality is of concern “because if you’re high, you don’t take your [post-transplant regimen of] pills.”

Transplant centers tend to be very careful because they survive financially based on the number of successful transplants they do, explains Maxwell J. Mehlman, director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University.

“They use a screening process to avoid people who might be failures and they look at several factors from drug use to having a support system,” he said.

“It has actually been a source of bioethical controversy because it allows them to reject homeless people and people who live alone. In some cases, it’s a backdoor way of rationing based on social worth and lifestyles.”

Transplant centers insist that their utmost goal is to get organs to people who need them the most and ensuring patient safety.

The United Network of Organ Sharing, which includes 254 U.S. transplant centers, has no policy on the use of drugs or marijuana and leaves it up to their individual members to set reasonable guidelines.

Simchon, who is studying history and anthropology at a community college, is getting help from friends and strangers who are trying to get him into a transplant program.

“I’ve got hope that we can find a center that will put me on the list. I just wish it would happen in Washington, where I live.”

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

The medical records will show that he died due to complications associated with massive liver failure. He would have likely survived longer if he received a timely organ transplant but was denied access because he followed his physician’s recommendation, used medical cannabis during his treatments for liver disease, therefore testing positive for THC metabolites and rather than receive the gift of a potentially longer life—instead doctors at the University of Washington deferred to federal prohibition laws and mores, handing Tim a death sentence.

There are no pharmacological or physiological reasons why Tim Garon, or any medical marijuana patient, should logically be denied access to life-saving or life-enhancing organ transplants.

In my view, commonsense and humanity were completely lacking here on the part of the doctors who denied Tim and his family a chance at a continued life together.

For the better part of ten years NORML (and the ACLU’s Drug Litigation Project) have been 1) monitoring increasing numbers of medical patients denied access to organ transplants for the singular reason that they test positive for cannabis and 2) researching litigation and legislative options to compel organ banks to stop discriminating against medical patients who use cannabis, most especially in states where medical marijuana patients are supposed to be protected by state laws.

Today’s weather in Seattle calls for cloudy and dark weather. That is hardly unusual for this time of year up there, but on this day, the clouds will be particular dark…notably the ones hanging over the doctors at the University of Washington who decided earlier this week to sacrifice Timothy Garon on the altar of pot prohibition rather than treat him like an ailing brother or a sister, wife or child.

Would these doctors really deny organ transplants to a loved one that tested positive for cannabis? I think not.

Read a previous article about Tim Garon’s plight.  View a moving news account of Tim and his family.  Finally, go to NORML’s online advocacy system and send a prewritten letter to your member of Congress in favor of HR 5842, a bill that would end the federal government’s war on patients.