Teresa Michalsky, mother of the late Travis Michalsky, became active in the medical marijuana movement after her son died from Hodgkin’s at 29 years of age. He used marijuana to help temper the effects of chemotherapy. She worked with the Montana Marijuana Policy Project to make a 30-second television ad this summer which helped garner enough public support to make Montana the 10th and latest state allowing medical marijuana.

It was January, 2003 and our son was up visiting. He was a chef in Arizona. He came up after the Christmas holiday and just got sick. It was flu season, so we didn’t think much about it, but he never got enough energy going to go back down to Phoenix, so he went to the doctor and was diagnosed with… Hodgkin’s. That’s a blood cancer. He was diagnosed on Friday and started chemo that next Monday because it was pretty far advanced. It was Stage III and there are only four stages. Within three hours of receiving chemo he was vomiting… it was coming from all ends of his body, just uncontrollable.

They prescribed some anti-nausea medication but the problem was that he was throwing it up before his body could get the results of it. So he started using medical marijuana. He found out it helped and came down and asked his dad and I if it was okay that he continue to use it. We talked about it quite a while- there’s a lot at risk when somebody is using something against the law. It puts them at risk, you don’t want to see them spend their illness time in jail, we could have lost our house, our daughter is going to school on federal loans, she could have lost that. But the good far outweighed the bad. We told him to use that. If it was making him feel better, to go on and use it.

"He was 29. He has an eight year old son. Relatives all over."

It helped him with three different parts of his medication. It helped with his nausea, with the pain, and he was also prescribed Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication and this helped calm his mind a little bit. I am sure in the back of his head it was always there, but I think it helped him enjoy some moments of life without dwelling on the thought that he might die. Ativan is very addictive and if you could use something like marijuana to do essentially what Ativan is, I thought that was just incredible, the many ways it did help him.

He lost over a third of his body weight. He went from 180… and at the time he died he probably weighed 127. His first chemo treatment was February 3 rd of 2003 and he died December 5 th of 2003. Hodgkin’s is one of the most treatable cancers there is. He was actually one chemo treatment away from being done when it came back. It came back with a vengeance. We took him to the Seattle Cancer Center. He tried two different types of chemo. The first was in-patient for three days and his cancer continued to grow on that and the second one was in-patient for five days with one of the chemos running 24 hours. It continued to grow on that. Actually, what the chemo was doing was giving him more time. It wasn’t doing anything to the cancer at all. It was mid-November last year that he was scheduled to do another five day treatment. I went to all of the appointments with him. We got out to the car and he said, “Mom, I can’t do it. It’s five days of hell and at best it’s a few more weeks at best. At this point, I want a better quality of life than what I’ve had with all of the chemo I’ve been taking.” So he didn’t do anymore chemo and he left about three more weeks after that. He was 29. He has an eight year old son. Relatives all over.

It was just a scary situation to have to worry about him being put in jail for the last few months of his life. When people would come to visit we felt it was only fair for them to know that he was using marijuana because they were at risk too being in our house. I think that my brother, I grew up on a farm in central Montana, my youngest brother runs that farm now. When he came over he didn’t know. I told him Travis was using marijuana to help him through all of this, I didn’t know what the heck he was going to say and he said, “Well, if it helps him, whose business is it?” That sentence has stuck in my mind still. I think that boils it down to a very simple point. His oncologist knew he was using it. The night Travis passed at the hospital, the doctor said, the marijuana was the least of your worries wasn’t it. How true that was. But you are still fearful.

Q: Trouble with law?

No, we didn’t. Never. Not anything like some folks have had. The threat was still there you know. Even right now, speaking in favor of the initiative that’s even kind of spooky- putting your name out there in favor of something that is illegal and telling a story about somebody using it in your home. With the Patriot Act, I have freaked myself out a few times. That they could actually just come search your house just because I am supporting something.

We have had great support from our friends. We have a lot of conservative friends, so I don’t think this is really a party issue. I guess it is more that people who are against it, gosh, the only one I have run into is Shockley [Jim Shockley-R Montana State Legislature] and it is more the dispensing of it. We haven’t had any problem with the law or friends or anything. We have been real fortunate that way.

Q: What was the anti-nausea prescription for the chemo?

It was football shaped- Zofran. At the time of his death he was taking 2000mgs of oxycontin every five hours and in between he was filling in with 200 and 300mgs depending on what he needed. It was unbelievable the amount of medication he was taking. But he was coherent. When the drug czar was here, one of the things he said that really upset me was that he inferred that they were only smoking marijuana to get high. I thought that was such a childish statement. That they were just doing it to make them feel better. But even if that were so, people who are dying have the right to feel better. Doctors don’t make them suffer in pain. One of their other comebacks against legalizing for medicinal is that it sends the wrong message to children. Travis had an eight year old son who knew he was smoking marijuana for the cancer pain. I don’t think they give children enough credit either because he would look at his dad and see how sick he was and just saw the marijuana as part of his medicine cabinet. I don’t think he ever thought his dad was smoking it for any reason other than medicine. We always taught our kids you take medicine if you are sick and if you are not sick, you don’t take it. Once it was over it was over, his son never asked about marijuana again, he never did in the first place.

Q: How idea originally?

From what I can remember he had done some research. He was just grasping for anything that would help him. I am almost positive he found out on some cancer sites on the internet that marijuana might help, it’s not uncommon for cancer patients to smoke marijuana. He did discuss it with his doctor you know. He tried the pill Marinol and that wasn’t helpful to him at all, usually because he couldn’t keep down the pills. I don’t think THC wad the ingredient that was helping Travis. Actually, Representative Shockley brought this up last night- the government must think there is medicinal potential for marijuana or they wouldn’t have legalized the THC pill. He’s made the best argument for legal medical marijuana I’ve heard.

Q: Did he smoke before he used?

I know he did in high school through his teenage years. But I know the job he held in Arizona, no.

Q: How often did he need to smoke?

He did it everyday. There was even one point where he didn’t, the chemo, he didn’t smoke soon enough after the chemo and he started vomiting and the vomit smelled like a bowel movement so I called the doctor and the doctor said that’s where he’s at- he’s vomiting the very bottom…

Q: How were you all able to get the marijuana?

We would just go out and buy it from people. We established a trust relationship between people in the community. It was purchased illegally you know.

Q: Do you have an idea of how much that cost each week or each month?

I would say close to a couple hundred dollars a month. Those Marinol pills, they were outrageous. The Zofran and that kind of stuff was thousands of dollars. Sixty-four Zofrans cost $1,302.

Q: Were you paying out of pocket?

Actually, the pharmacist at the hospital got all of these drug companies to sponsor Travis so there was no out of pocket money. The medical community in Helena, we will be indebted to them forever. The doctor did all of his stuff pro bono. They were just amazing. But that doesn’t happen to every patient at all.

Q: Did Travis ever talk about euphoric effects? Did he get high?

Oh, he never talked about being high from it. I think when people are using it for a medical purpose instead of a recreational it is kind of like taking a pain pill when you are in pain, it doesn’t make you high. But if you take it without being in pain it will make you high. I think marijuana has qualities like that also. He never acted high. I mean, we’ve been around high people before.

Q: Was he able to cut back on other medications?

Oh yes. He cut way back on the anti-anxiety, the Ativan; a little bit on the pain medication. You know he was, especially toward the end, he was using a lot of pain medication. But the marijuana helped with the pain, especially in the beginning. He didn’t need anything for pain but once in a while at first.

Q: What did you know about medical marijuana before your son started using it?

Nothing. And I still don’t know scientific facts. I didn’t know anything about what medical marijuana could do for people, the different ways it could help them until Trav started using it. It was very beneficial to him in a lot of different ways and to everyone around him. It let him enjoy parts of life that I don’t think he would have been able to had he not been using medical marijuana. The pain pills would zone him out. The marijuana never did do that to him.

We tried to do things with him… that we could all have memories out of. I can remember him out at dinner in a restaurant and he would just fall asleep at the table, just conk out. I know the last week of his life he couldn’t even, there were so many tumors in his lungs, he couldn’t even use the medical marijuana. He ended up getting most of his medication through the IV.

I think one of the good things too if this law passes is that you would be able to grow your own so you would know whether or not the plants had been sprayed in case the chemicals would affect your disease. And you would know the purity of the plants.

Q: How many people have you met since all of this has happened who are using marijuana for medicinal reasons?

I would say it’s all been in the Montana area. It’s amazing, I would say 100 or 150 probably, which is a pretty good number for a small area like we are in.

Q: What do most of these people say to you? What kind of conversations do you have?

Just about the quality of life that marijuana has allowed them to have versus how their life was prior to medical marijuana. We’ve all talked about the risk that they put themselves at. So many of them are afraid of going to jail and dying there. I found that it’s from all walks of life that people- it’s not confined to one age group or one income bracket, it crosses every border.

Q: Are most of these folks open with their medical use?

Within their circle they are, but no, not publicly.

Q: How have your views about drug policy changed over the course of all of this?

They have almost reversed. I would have never called myself an “anti-drug” person. I personally think they should legalize marijuana straight across the board, maybe even the other drugs. But if they legalized it, it would take the money out of the drug dealers’ hands. I think that would change so many aspects of this country- not just in the inner city. There are drugs in rural areas, too. I think it would affect a lot of different parts of the way the United States is. I don’t think there would be as many drive by shootings. Maybe I sound ridiculous, but that’s one of the things I’ve thought about. They should have it where you have to be 18 you know to purchase it.

Q: How did you think about these things before?

I thought that marijuana should be illegal. In fact, a lot of Trav’s friends, when they found out we were letting him use medical marijuana were absolutely shocked. They couldn’t believe we would let him do that. So I guess we had been pretty noticeably anti-drug. I don’t know why, what put me there, but I was. Drugs can hurt people, it’s just like alcohol. If you abuse anything it’s going to hurt you.

"Unbelievable isn't it?"

Q: What will you do after this initiative gets passed? Will you stay involved publicly?

When this is done, we need to get on our senators and representatives in Washington DC to get marijuana rescheduled. That would probably be the first step. One of the things that needs to happen is to have more states pass medical marijuana laws and almost force the federal government to look at what people are saying. I don’t think that right now there is any open-mindedness to it at the federal level. Sometimes the states have to ignore what the federal government says and do what they think is right.

Q: How big of a shock was that for you. For your son to come for the holidays and have Hodgkin’s?

It was… It was a nightmare. You know, you think… I guess as a parent of a son you always, you try to prepare yourself, maybe for a car accident or you know daredevil things like bungy-jumping. You always kind of prepared yourself for that sort of a phone call you might get. But never in your wildest dreams do you ever think it’s going to be cancer. It brought all of us to our knees. I don’t know. There’s not even words… It scared the living daylights out of me. We had been down to Phoenix in March and April and we spent about 10 days with him and he had come back up over August and Halloween, prior to the busy season and he was still doing, looking just like Trav, but then when he came up at Christmas time, he looked like he had lost weight. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think too much about that all. And then when he got diagnosed he talked about the doctor asking him if he had been having symptoms- and they were all odd- like itchy skin and night sweats. Well, he thought the itchiness was from the hotter, dry son down there. He had had night sweats, but they weren’t regular. Hodgkin’s targets 25-30 year old guys.

This picture is him and his son, it was taken in August 2002. This is September of 2003. Unbelievable isn’t it? He lived about six weeks after this picture.

That’s what irritates me- what they’re saying about it… You know what. He’s not having pot parties in his room to get stoned. I don’t know. Their arguments are so lame. Why would anybody’s child, or anybody they know, who saw somebody that sick and using marijuana, how would that make you want to go out and use it?? You see somebody that ill….. I don’t know.

Q: What were the responses of extended relatives? Grandparents?

You know, gram and grandpa that live here in Montana were so in favor of him using it. I have just been surprised by the level of support medical marijuana has. I don’t, yeah, we had to tell everyone. All they said was, “If it helps him, let him use it.” I heard that a couple of times at the debate last night. People in their 80’s purchasing it for their daughters. I think they are a lot more open minded that we think they are.

Q: Anything else?

There is. I just want everyone to know that he was a dad, a brother, and a son, but he wasn’t a criminal. And that’s it.