Marcy Duda lives in rural Massachusetts. She is somewhat of a medical anomaly, surviving five brain aneurysms against all odds. Marijuana is a key part of her medical regimen today.

I suffered severe migraines since I can remember. Since younger than my granddaughter here. Never knowing what caused them, but I knew I had them. I smoked my first joint when I had a headache when I was 12 years old. And I realized right then and there, headache’s gone. Since that, every time I would get sick or nauseas or have a headache, I would smoke pot. It doesn’t lead to harder drugs, believe me. When I couldn’t’ get access to pot after that, I started taking prescription drugs. My mom brought me to the doctor and they prescribed [a strong narcotic]. That was jus the beginning. That led to Percocet which led to Demerol… I was hooked on prescription drugs. I tried to explain to the doctors, all I needed was pot. When I was 17 or 18 I realized it was okay in California, and I asked my doctors and they looked at me like I was nuts. But they didn’t condemn me for using it either. They said, then we won’t write prescriptions, just go smoke your pot.

Q: If used started using marijuana at age 12 every time you had a headache, maybe you just need to learn to deal with pain better.

Going back, what was causing the migraines was aneurisms- five of them- in my brain. I had a sister die from one and my younger sister had one that ruptured and she lived.

Q: So this is genetic?

Yes. They looked at me and said you need to be checked. I laughed right then and there. I knew I had five of them. They did the angiogram and that was it. I had five of them. They gave me a zero percent chance with or without surgery of surviving.

Thirty-eight. I was 38 years old. So I went and got a second opinion, in Hartford, he gave me a two percent chance if I had the surgery, zero without. So I said, “Let’s do it.”

They made me wait two months for surgery. Do you know how waiting is when you know one of them could blow anytime? I smoked a lot of pot. It helped relieve not only the anxiety, but the pain a lot too- the headaches. All that stress caused headaches- like a time bomb.

I lived through the surgery. They did two craniotomies. They did the left side first. They took three out and I went home two days later. The doctor almost had a heart attack. He said he had never see someone with that amount of brain surgery get up and flip a quarter, shower, put her clothes on and say, “Can I go home now?” two days later. Then three weeks later they did the right side- the two really big aneurysms, the dangerous ones they thought would kill me. I survived those, too.

It did so much nerve damage- all the slicing and dicing. They took out a lot of neurons that regulate pain and smell and taste. I went down to 90 pounds. I had no appetite and a lot of pain. They put me on Demerol and morphine, all this crap. I couldn’t take it, I had four kids and there was no way I could function. I had to do the school thing, and this and that. So I went to Harvard and Lester Grinspoon gave me a prescription for Marinol, which was good. I have been on it six years now. The pain management clinic in Springfield keeps that prescription for me. They are willing to write that out for me. It works, but when I get real searing headaches- there are holes in my head, can you see them?

I get grinding headaches and the Marinol helps me not vomit, but it doesn’t touch those headaches. That’s my thing- give me a gun or give me a joint, that’s about how bad it hurts. With the pressure… It’s been a long, long road.

I’ve been fighting the cause, doing public policy. I failed miserably this year because I didn’t have much help. I didn’t get the signatures I needed. I got dehydrated. My doctor said I had to stop.

“I was hooked on prescription drugs- I don’t want to go back there.”

Q: Do you take Marinol a few times a month then?

No, I take it four times a day. I call it a maintenance thing. When I don’t take it, I don’t eat nothing at all.

Q: Is it expensive?

The patient assistance program is giving it to me for free because MassHealth won’t pay. But I think it is $1,800/month for 120 pills. But the patient help program- they give it to me for free. The Federal Express woman brings it to me. Sometimes I think they slip in a placebo though because sometimes it just doesn’t work. I don’t know if it is because of the government or what.

Q: So Marinol is $20,000/year and that just helps with nausea?

And it helps maintain my weight. I went off of it though once because insurance wouldn’t pay for it and I dropped 22 pounds in a month.

They also prescribe oxycontin and they expect me to take that six times a day- every four hours.

Q: Do you do that?

No. Only when I have really, really bad pain. If I could just smoke pot, I wouldn’t need it at all.

Q: Have you ever tried just using prescriptions without marijuana?

I was hooked on prescription drugs- I don’t want to go back there. I don’t ever want to back. Marijuana actually helped curb my appetite for the other drugs.

Q: When do you remember headaches being a problem?

When I was about six. I grew up real fast- so when I was about 12 I was with the 30 year old crowd in town. I grew up across the river and could get pot real fast.

Now that they’re all gone, there’s all that nerve damage. I also go for a Stellate Ganglion block, it’s like an epidural. I get one right here in my throat- every three weeks, I get a big syringe that makes this whole left side numb. They inject it right into your central nerves.

Q: What year were the operations?

1998, the first one in August and the second one three weeks later in September. They’re all still aghast I’m still here. They’re like, “Whoa!”

My surgeon said, maybe it’s because I smoked all that pot that they didn’t burst, that it kept the interocular pressure and all that down. Mine were huge- they couldn’t believe it.

Q: Are you protected by law?

I can still be arrested. I have a prescription for pot, but it’s still illegal. Plus, I’m not one of those people that will run to the corner to buy a bag of pot. I’m too chicken and I have a lot of responsibilities.

Q: Do you grow your own or do you get it from a friend?

A little bit of both. It’s tough now because they are watching me because I have gotten more high profile.

Q: How has this affected your children and grandchildren?

Collie is nine, Danny is twelve. They tell me, don’t take those white pills on the shelf mommy, they make you mean, they make you ugly.

I got a 20 year old boy as well and an older daughter. The older ones, they know what I went through with the prescription drugs, and they think I am much better off now.

Q: How did your parents respond?

My siblings, they’re all nurses. My brother and my two sisters have a problem with me, with it. My brother agrees with medical marijuana, but he doesn’t think I should be putting as much effort into it- like testifying to Congress.

Q: Why do you think you are so involved?

Why? Because I worked healthcare 25 years I was a home health aide. That was my job. I started when I was 18 and ended it brain surgery year- they made me disabled. All the clients- I was working with a company where the clients and I chose each other. They were all about my age and had MS or Cancer, they all smoked marijuana. I would go to help them out. They were all disabled and couldn’t afford it, so I would help them out.

I think it would be more cost effective for the state if they were able to smoke marijuana- you know the people in the wheelchairs in their apartments and the hospital beds than it would to keep feeding them with this MS medication that does tiddly squat that just makes them sicker. I do it for them now. I still go visit them- oh yeah, twice a week I visit three people out in Amherst and bring them little gifts- you know what I’m saying?

They did a TV story on me, but they didn’t block out my name and address on my pill bottles. I had people driving by for a month- smashing my mailbox- “Hey give us drugs!” Because it was oxy.

Steve Brewer- he’s behind me on this. He’s a state senator and he’s behind me on it, too.

Everybody would benefit from this if they had bipolarism, migraines…

I think it is a waste of time and money to put people in jail and keep them there for pot while they let child rapists go.

They just let two level threes out right here in town- I don’t want them around my kids.

The cops have me do community watch on the sex offenders for kids. And I do it three times a week, I’m riding around town. I don’t ever work. Why not protect the kids? That’s what I do. When I see crack dealers coming in to town, selling crack to kids, I don’t hesitate to turn them in. Don’t tell anyone that- I’ll get shot!

Q: What are your objectives?

We’re trying to get marijuana for Massachusetts.

Q: Wouldn’t the DEA trump the state law even if allowed marijuana use?

The 9 th circuit wouldn’t do it. People with prescriptions- they’ll protect them. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry petitioned the DEA themselves last year to let UMass labs grow marijuana for research.

Q: What do you think about vaporizers?

As long as it’s not synthetic. As long as it’s real. But I would prefer it because of the smoking aspect. That would be great if it used real cannabis. I saw them in the magazine for $99.

Grinspoon saved my life that one. I was down 90 pounds, I was exhausted. I went there with my files and begged him. Then I started getting better, healthier. Now I am 35 pounds heavier than I was.

If marijuana is going to be used as medical marijuana, it is the safest drug to use by far over all of the opiates and narcotics that they prescribe. All those drugs do is damage to your liver, damage to your body, damage to your brain. Pot doesn’t. If it did, I would be pretty damaged by now! I think I’m pretty clear and pretty smart for what I’ve been through.

Q: Does your marijuana use affect your short term memory?

It doesn’t. I’ve had short term memory trouble from the brain surgery. I’ve got ten titanium clips in there. Just the side-effects from brain surgery- short term memory loss.

I look at pot as – okay- you smoke a little pot and you think, “Maybe I’ll do this, “ and then you think twice and you always choose the lesser evil. With a couple of budweisers- you don’t even think twice, you just do it.

The same thing with prescription drugs. Every four hours- but with addiction, you start eating them like candy because you build up an immunity. But you don’t build up an immunity with pot.

I started at 12 years old with a prescription from the doctor and I didn’t stop until I had brain surgery. It was a long time. I knew I was addicted early.

But when you are told you have a zero percent chance of surviving- after something like that, you do a 360. I went pot. No alcohol. And only oxy when it really, really hurts. But even then, when I don’t have some pot to go with that stuff, I want to vomit. Because it’s like heroin or something. That’s where the Marinol comes in. Marinol will help with the nausea from oxy.

Q: Do you till help patients?

Yeah, with pot.

Q: How many patients do you think are out there?

All of them. You are looking at people dying out there- lying in the hospital bed, only being able to move their head because they hurt so bad. It’s just so obvious it works. I think between stem cells and pot they will find cures for a lot of stuff.

The thing I like about marijuana is that it is not chemically addictive. It’s not like, “Oh, I need another oxy…” The other prescription drugs, they have control of you.

I want John Kerry and Ted Kennedy to come through like they said so.