Medical marijuana patients denied a spot on transplant list

[Farang]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.c...64_webtrnsplant26.html

Set aside the fact that he got his condition using illicit drugs, because this is an institutional policy that would apply to someone even if a genetic condition made a transplant necessary.

"Most transplant centers struggle with issues of how to deal with people who are known to use marijuana, whether or not it's with a doctor's prescription," said Dr. Robert Sade, director of the Institute of Human Values in Health Care at the Medical University of South Carolina. "Marijuana, unlike alcohol, has no direct effect on the liver. It is however a concern ... in that it's a potential indicator of an addictive personality."

The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation's transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates. At some, people who use "illicit substances" ? including medical marijuana, even in states that allow it ? are automatically rejected.

This is very upsetting to me, that a man would be allowed to die for smoking pot--medically prescribed pot, no less.

 

[Fern]

Unbelievable.

And this woman gets 4 liver transplants

:|

Fern

 

[Tab]

Wow... I hope the family spends all of his life insurance on lawyers...

 

[soccerballtux]

maybe if he didn't smoke marijuana he wouldn't be dying

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
maybe if he didn't smoke marijuana he wouldn't be dying

Don't be a moron.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
maybe if he didn't smoke marijuana he wouldn't be dying

Oh good Lord.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
maybe if he didn't smoke marijuana he wouldn't be dying

I guess he should of been taking oxycotton so he could become a prescription popping junkie.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
maybe if he didn't smoke marijuana he wouldn't be dying

QFT. Marijuana kills ten million people every hour. If you can't see that, you're a drugged-up communist-sympathizer left-wing hippie radical nazi evolutionist abortion-crazed fool.

 

[Farang]

Can we get a record for most responses to an obvious troll comment?

 

[dmcowen674]

Because of the scarcity of donated organs, transplant committees such as the one at the University of Washington Medical Center have tough standards for deciding who should get them.

Originally posted by: Farang
Can we get a record for most responses to an obvious troll comment?

The University of Washington Medical Center disagrees.

 

[Number1]

"Many doctors agree that using marijuana ? smoking it, especially ? is out of the question post-transplant.

The drugs patients take to help their bodies accept a new organ increase the risk of aspergillosis, a frequently fatal infection caused by a common mold found in marijuana and tobacco."


The concern is that patients won't be able to stop smoking after the transplant. This is why some people become eligible for transplant after 6 months off the marifuana.

But why is the police charging this guy for growing his own prescribed medical marijuana.

 

[ericlp]

"Marijuana, unlike alcohol, has no direct effect on the liver. It is however a concern ... in that it's a potential indicator of an addictive personality."

It's a proven fact that marijuana holds no addictive properties. Alcohol if discovered today with be a class 3 hallucinogenic ... But never mind that.

For the record I think Atomic Playboy was obviously joking since MJ is the only drug known to man to have not killed anyone ... Well, until now!

As to why the cops are arresting him? Medical MJ is a State Law. Maybe the Feds stepped in? And maybe the Feds are running the medical board. Though doubt it.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Number1
"Many doctors agree that using marijuana ? smoking it, especially ? is out of the question post-transplant.

The drugs patients take to help their bodies accept a new organ increase the risk of aspergillosis, a frequently fatal infection caused by a common mold found in marijuana and tobacco."


The concern is that patients won't be able to stop smoking after the transplant. This is why some people become eligible for transplant after 6 months off the marifuana.

But why is the police charging this guy for growing his own prescribed medical marijuana.

And yet if he smoked or drank, both of which are far more addictive or cause far more liver problems respectively, that's A-OK!

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: ericlp
"Marijuana, unlike alcohol, has no direct effect on the liver. It is however a concern ... in that it's a potential indicator of an addictive personality."

It's a proven fact that marijuana holds no addictive properties. Alcohol if discovered today with be a class 3 hallucinogenic ... But never mind that.

For the record I think Atomic Playboy was obviously joking since MJ is the only drug known to man to have not killed anyone ... Well, until now!

As to why the cops are arresting him? Medical MJ is a State Law. Maybe the Feds stepped in? And maybe the Feds are running the medical board. Though doubt it.

They never said that MJ is addictive, they just say that it can be an indicator for people with addictive personalities. While it may not be physically addictive, it is certainly mentally addictive to many people.

 

[ericlp]

Originally posted by: XZeroII

Originally posted by: ericlp
"Marijuana, unlike alcohol, has no direct effect on the liver. It is however a concern ... in that it's a potential indicator of an addictive personality."

It's a proven fact that marijuana holds no addictive properties. Alcohol if discovered today with be a class 3 hallucinogenic ... But never mind that.

For the record I think Atomic Playboy was obviously joking since MJ is the only drug known to man to have not killed anyone ... Well, until now!

As to why the cops are arresting him? Medical MJ is a State Law. Maybe the Feds stepped in? And maybe the Feds are running the medical board. Though doubt it.

They never said that MJ is addictive, they just say that it can be an indicator for people with addictive personalities. While it may not be physically addictive, it is certainly mentally addictive to many people.

True...

Tho, the whole thing revolves around MJ and a "POTENTIAL indicator of an addictive personality..." So they are trying to assume your going to have an addictive personality if you smoke MJ.... While MJ doesn't have a physically dependancy and in some cases mentally habit forming in others...

I'm just stating that you could say coffee drinkers have the same trait? Tho, you don't see them denying medical treatment for coffee drinkers.

It's hard for me to think otherwise that they are saying MJ is addictive. If they are not, then what are they saying? Other then one is ok to consume by a state law, and the other is ok to consume by state and federal law.

So what are they really saying or should I just assume some more?

 

[Moonbeam]

As long as there are more people who need donated organs than there are donated organs somebody will have to play god. That will mean somebody will decide who is worth living in their opinion and who is not. Guidelines can be established on medical and ethical principles and after that personal bias will weigh in it would seem to me.

For example, the article said that marijuana smoking after a transplant brings know risk but no data is available for folk who smoke and stop after such surgery. To say a person should not get an organ on the presumption he can't stop smoking because of some potential psychological addiction is not something I would like on my conscience. I have trouble buying the notion of wanting to live enough to get on an organ list and go through the actual surgery and then say, hay I wanna die now by smoking a joint.

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: ericlp

Originally posted by: XZeroII

Originally posted by: ericlp
"Marijuana, unlike alcohol, has no direct effect on the liver. It is however a concern ... in that it's a potential indicator of an addictive personality."

It's a proven fact that marijuana holds no addictive properties. Alcohol if discovered today with be a class 3 hallucinogenic ... But never mind that.

For the record I think Atomic Playboy was obviously joking since MJ is the only drug known to man to have not killed anyone ... Well, until now!

As to why the cops are arresting him? Medical MJ is a State Law. Maybe the Feds stepped in? And maybe the Feds are running the medical board. Though doubt it.

They never said that MJ is addictive, they just say that it can be an indicator for people with addictive personalities. While it may not be physically addictive, it is certainly mentally addictive to many people.

True...

Tho, the whole thing revolves around MJ and a "POTENTIAL indicator of an addictive personality..." So they are trying to assume your going to have an addictive personality if you smoke MJ.... While MJ doesn't have a physically dependancy and in some cases mentally habit forming in others...

I'm just stating that you could say coffee drinkers have the same trait? Tho, you don't see them denying medical treatment for coffee drinkers.

It's hard for me to think otherwise that they are saying MJ is addictive. If they are not, then what are they saying? Other then one is ok to consume by a state law, and the other is ok to consume by state and federal law.

So what are they really saying or should I just assume some more?

You have a valid point, however they are not prescribing coffee as a drug and coffee has less severe effects on the human body. I think that the problem is that they can't really distinguish between the legitimate users and the addicts (i use that term loosely). So some hospitals have created blanket policies so that they don't have to distinguish between them. This guy does seem to have a problem (after all, he was growing the stuff on his own rather than purchasing it from a reputable source), so even if there weren't a blanket policy, I think that this guy would still be out of luck.

 

[Slew Foot]

Ehh, if he didnt get it someone else did. There's many fewer livers going around than people who need one, as long as it didnt get wasted.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
Ehh, if he didnt get it someone else did. There's many fewer livers going around than people who need one, as long as it didnt get wasted.

So if you need a transplant someday but they give it to someone else, at least someone got a liver right?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
Ehh, if he didnt get it someone else did. There's many fewer livers going around than people who need one, as long as it didnt get wasted.

So if you need a transplant someday but they give it to someone else, at least someone got a liver right?

Is there some other reality than this? I think the issue is whether you were next and got skipped over because you play grand theft auto or some other 'relevant' fact.

 

[Number1]

Update

SEATTLE - A musician who was denied a liver transplant because he used marijuana with medical approval under Washington state law to ease the symptoms of advanced hepatitis C died Thursday.

The death of Timothy Garon, 56, at Bailey-Boushay House, an intensive care nursing center was confirmed to The Associated Press by his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, and Alisha Mark, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason Medical Center, which operates Bailey-Boushay.

Dr. Brad Roter, the physician who authorized Garon to smoke pot to alleviate for nausea and abdominal pain and to stimulate his appetite, said he did not know it would be such a hurdle if Garon were to need a transplant.

The case has highlighted a new ethical consideration for those allocating organs for transplant, especially in the dozen states that have medical marijuana laws: When dying patients need a transplant, should it be held against them if they've used pot with a doctor's blessing?

Garon died a week after his doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list because of his use of marijuana, although it was authorized under Washington state law.

"He said I'm going to die with such conviction," Garon told an AP reporter at the time. "I'm not angry, I'm not mad, I'm just confused."

Garon believes he contracted hepatitis C by sharing needles with "speed freaks" as a teenager. In recent years, he said, pot has been the only drug he's used. In December, he was arrested for growing marijuana.

He had been in the hospice for two months and previously was rejected for a transplant at Swedish Medical Center for the same reason he later got from the university hospital.

Swedish said he would be considered if he avoided pot for six months and the university hospital offered to reconsider if he enrolled in a 60-day drug treatment program, but doctors said his liver disease was too advanced for him to last that long. The university hospital committee agreed to reconsider anyway, then denied him again

 

[ayabe]

Well the VA has had my dad's neighbor on morphine for about 6 years for lupis and other ailments, yet they threatened to cut him off completely because he failed a pee test(morphine withdrawal in his fragile state would probably kill him).

MJ is a better painkiller for him as it doesn't have the side effects, but the VA doesn't really care and would rather let him die. I've read some of the letters he's received from them, it's really shameful.

 

[tw1164]

I hope articles like this will encourage more people to sign up as organ donors.

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: XZeroII
You have a valid point, however they are not prescribing coffee as a drug and coffee has less severe effects on the human body. I think that the problem is that they can't really distinguish between the legitimate users and the addicts (i use that term loosely). So some hospitals have created blanket policies so that they don't have to distinguish between them. This guy does seem to have a problem (after all, he was growing the stuff on his own rather than purchasing it from a reputable source), so even if there weren't a blanket policy, I think that this guy would still be out of luck.

To the DEA and whatever drug-enforcement agencies "legitimate users" do not exist only addicts.

 

[Robor]

Maybe this is a stupid question but if he needed to use medical MJ couldn't he eat it rather than smoke it and still get the benefit without the lung damage?