- Jan 15, 2013
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This kid was taken off three powerful pain narcotics and he and his mother have participated in the states medical marijuana program to help his severe epilepsy. He had to go to the hospital and they wouldn't allow him the medical marijuana for fear of the federal government even though it's legal in the state.
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Jackson Stormes, a 14-year-old with severe epilepsy, started walking again, lost his double vision and stopped using three highly addictive narcotic medications after his mother began giving him medical marijuana.
But when Jackson was hospitalized last week, he was told he couldn’t use it.
As the use of medical marijuana spreads across the nation, Jackson Stormes’ case stands as just one example of the difficult issues surrounding how, when and where the drug can be used.
Although New Jersey law permits the use of marijuana for people who suffer from certain conditions, officials at Hackensack University Medical Center said that if they permitted patients to use the drug there, it would jeopardize the hospital’s license as well as federal funds it receives. Federal authorities view marijuana as an illegal, Schedule 1 drug
“We are awaiting guidance from the Department of Justice,” said Dr. Jeffrey Boscamp, chairman of the children’s hospital at HUMC. “We feel we would be in a legal no man’s land with the federal government. We put all our licenses in jeopardy, every grant in jeopardy, unless we get some Department of Justice guidance.”
But Jennie Stormes, Jackson’s mother, believes she should be allowed to give her son the marijuana that has been so effective in treating his condition.
“Here’s a situation where hospital policy is overriding state’s rights,” she said. Her son is a registered medical-marijuana user under New Jersey law, she is a registered caregiver under the marijuana law, and the drug had been legally obtained, she said.
Around the state and the nation, the use of medical marijuana in various circumstances is forcing lawmakers, courts, employers and hospitals to confront difficult questions:
A customer at an Atlantic City casino was told this month he could not smoke marijuana inside the hotel, even though he was a registered medical-marijuana patient; he threatened to sue.
An NJ Transit worker, a registered medical-marijuana patient who uses it to treat nerve pain, tested positive for the drug and was suspended and sent to rehab; he sued his employer in March in a case that is pending.
A Wal-Mart employee in Michigan who had cancer and used legal medical marijuana on his own time to treat the pain was fired. A federal appellate court sided with Wal-Mart.
“So many issues have to get worked out,” said Ken Wolski, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana of New Jersey.
The use of medical marijuana has now spread to 20 states — 21 when Maryland’s law takes effect next month. New Jersey’s detailed requirements, among the nation’s strictest, are aimed at preventing recreational users or criminal elements from gaining access to the drug, Governor Christie has said. He is staunchly opposed to legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana.
But that has caused frustration for some who say it’s extremely hard to obtain. “The whole program is just made so difficult for patients, it’s really a shame,” Wolski said.
Wolski remembers when hospital oncologists would make informal arrangements to allow their patients to smoke marijuana, after it was first recognized in the 1960s and 1970s as easing the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy. “There was no written policy,” he said.
In Jackson Stormes’ case, the cannabis has been so successful in treating his Dravet syndrome, his mother said, that he has been able to stop using three highly addictive narcotics and was in the process of being weaned from another anti-seizure medication when he was admitted to HUMC.
By Tuesday, after the weaning was complete, he had gone 48 hours without a seizure, compared with more than 10 seizures a day before he started medical marijuana. He was walking again and had lost his double vision, his mother said.
Jackson now uses only one drug other than cannabis. “This is huge,” said Stormes, a pediatric nurse who lives in Warren County. “The last time he was on one drug was in January 2000, and he was 6 months old.” His recovery will take time, she said. Jackson “has never really lived pharma-free. This is all new to him.”
Jackson does not smoke the marijuana – his mother converts the dry buds into an oil that she administers to her son via an eye dropper under his tongue.
New Jersey’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, on the books since 2010, permits registered physicians to authorize registered patients to obtain marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries for a limited variety of ailments. To date, three of the six marijuana dispensaries allowed under the law have opened. More than 2,200 patients have registered, and nearly 200 doctors participate in the program.
Last November, Stormes said she had her son at a hospital emergency room and was told she could not give him the drug. She left with her son. She said he had three seizures on the drive home.
Stormes, who blogs about Jackson and once confronted Christie at a town hall meeting about his policies on marijuana use, said she had decided to stand her ground when they returned to the hospital last week.
This time, she did not tell hospital staff she was giving Jackson the drug and continued to administer it.
“I shouldn’t have to hide this,” she said. “I paid $1,000 to participate in this program, and it’s working for my son. Why do I have to lie?”
With neither state nor federal regulations to provide specific guidance, hospitals adhere to the standard policy regarding the use of outside medications when it comes to marijuana, said Kerry McKean Kelly, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Hospital Association.
“A hospital cannot allow the use of outside drugs, supplements or other items without specific medical orders from the physician,” she said, “and then the medication has to go to the hospital pharmacy for identification, verification and relabeling. This is a quality-control and patient-safety precaution to make sure there are no adverse drug interactions while the patient is under hospital treatment.”
Hospitals have strict policies about the continuing use of drugs patients have been taking at home after they are admitted. “It’s an incredibly important part of what we do and a huge patient safety issue,” said Boscamp, of HUMC.
When a patient is admitted, a list of their medications is given to the nurse and sent to the hospital pharmacy, he said. In the rare instances when a particular drug is not in stock at the hospital pharmacy and cannot be substituted by an equivalent medication, the nurse sends the patient’s supply to the pharmacy, which confirms what it is and its concentration.
That process is impossible with medical marijuana, Boscamp said. Marijuana-containing oils and lozenges are not standardized, he said. “We cannot possibly verify what it is,” he said. “We can’t take it into the pharmacy and dispense it. It makes us very liable.”
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