Medical marijuana

Patient advocates believe the stars are aligned perfectly for this to be the year medical marijuana finally becomes a reality in Illinois.

Dennis nearly lost the lower portion of his right leg when the trencher he was working with unexpectedly hit a metal beam in the ground, causing the blade to jump up, catching the bridge of his foot and slicing his leg all the way up to the knee. In the five-and-a-half years since his accident, he’s undergone two surgeries on his leg, one of which involved using chemicals to destroy nerves, and had an electronic stimulating device implanted near his spine to help ease sensations he describes as “pins and needles.” But none of it has worked very well. Today, he wears a pain patch and takes three to seven 1,000-milligram Vicodin pills each day, depending on his level of discomfort. Despite his best efforts to stay off his leg by rolling around his kitchen on wheeled chairs or learning to drive with his left foot, which involves sitting with his right leg cocked over the car’s console, the pain never subsides.

So excruciating is the pain sometimes that the slightest inadvertent bump has been known to trigger uncontrollable bouts of vomiting. Once he even asked his doctor about having the leg amputated, but jettisoned the idea upon learning that “ghost pains,” which he was told could be similar to the sensation he feels now, could persist even after the appendage was removed.

Around the time of his accident, friends in California suggested he try marijuana, which contains chemicals called cannabinoids and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that can relieve chronic pain and nausea associated with illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS. Although Dennis, 50, smoked pot as a young man, even taking a trip to Amsterdam once, he gave up “partying” when he met his wife and she gave birth to their son. Nor did he want to do anything that could jeopardize his worker’s compensation suit that was pending at the time of his accident. So he waited until the case was settled.

His friends were right, he discovered. The potent type of marijuana known as hydroponic eliminated more of his pain and queasiness that all his expensive prescription pharmaceutical painkillers.

Regular street-grade pot does little for his leg pain, other than providing a high. Even though pot takes away the nauseous feeling he gets, Dennis, who requested that his full name not be printed, still gets knots in his stomach. That’s because every time he purchases, transports and smokes the drug in Illinois he knows he’s breaking the law.

“If you take it out of the drug dealers’ hands, it would be so much f—g better”

Dennis,a resident of Sangamon County, says that he is ashamed to have to purchase his marijuana on the black market and is uncomfortable even uttering the word marijuana. “If you take it out of the drug dealers’ hands, it would be so much f——-g better,” mainly because the kind of pot he needs wouldn’t be nearly as expensive.

His preference would be to grow his own, but state and federal laws — and his wife — currently prohibit him from doing so. Dennis’ hope, along with that of civil libertarian and patients’-rights