Rochelle Lampkin lives in Detroit, Michigan. She has Multiple Sclerosis and occasionally uses marijuana for intense pain relief.

I was diagnosed with MS in my 20’s. I had an exacerbation, a relapse with my MS about four years ago. That time it made me blind. They called it optic neuritis. Well, they did what they do. They gave me massive doses of steroids to shock my system back and hoped it worked. And it did.

I could see- not like before, 20/20, but… I can see! I do still have pain in my eyes, in the optic nerve. Sometimes, it’s like my eyes are about to explode in my head. So, at my MS meetings, there is a young man there, he said he heard marijuana can help your nerves in your eyes- maybe I should try it.

Well, at this point, I was still saying no to drugs! I thought it was a good idea, but, no, I’m not taking any dope. That’s how I looked at it. I wasn’t going to do it.

My son came over to my house one day and I was having this pain. And he said, “Ma, if it will help you, at least try it, if it doesn’t work, you never have to do it again…” I said I would think about it because that’s my son and I am a mother first. I had a friend that I could call. He made sure I got something I could trust- nothing messed up in it. Just one cigarette.

It didn’t take me- I didn’t even have to smoke the whole cigarette. I just took a few puffs and that was it. The pain had started to alleviate and then - - - gone.

It didn’t take an hour for the pain to go away. I started feeling immediate effects. Since I have been working with this program to try to get people to see there is a definite need for it, I have learned a lot more about marijuana than I ever, ever knew. I don’t have to necessarily smoke it. I can put it in a vaporizer and they say you can still get the same effect from the marijuana. That’s good because then I don’t have to worry about the tar that might go into my lungs. That is something I have just learned.

I have also learned that we have a lot of two sided-ness concerning marijuana. I have learned that in the 1800’s- at one time- cannabis was legal and it had very positive purposes. You could make clothes out of it, just a multitude of things. I have learned this. I don’t see what it’s illegal. I don’t understand it. Also since I have been doing this, I have learned that more people do use marijuana for medical purposes or not than are really willing to say they do. I believe also that if they put it to a vote, marijuana would become legal. Because once you get in that booth, you can say, “Yes I want it” or “No I don’t” and nobody has to know about it. I honestly think it is just political. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is good or bad. Of course I have heard the negative about medical use. I have heard people say it might not work for everybody. My response is, “You are absolutely right.” Because there are no drugs, legal or illegal, that work for everybody. But it does work for some people and those are the ones that should use it.

If it were legal, the government would funnel money into it and then maybe we could find out who could or could not benefit from it. If the government looked at it this way- positively- then it would not be looked at so negatively upon.

I am 45. All my life I have said no to drugs. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t do these things. I got sick. The older I get, the more problems I have. I didn’t ask for this. I got it. In my mind, this has got to be the worst terrorist act that could ever happen to a person. It is attacking your body constantly, every day in different ways and you have to deal with it, you have to fight this. If there is anything that can help, you should be allowed to use it and you shouldn’t have to feel like a criminal for doing it.

I have learned a lot. Everybody thinks that marijuana is illegal, that it is wrong as a drug, they say it in the opinion polls. This is bad. I also know know they sell a magazine called High Tide or High Times or something- it’s a magazine. On bookshelves everywhere! It tells you the cost in different areas of the country. It tells you how to use it, the different apparatuses for how to use it. It’s not illegal, but it’s illegal to use the product that they’re talking about! I was amazed. Something is wrong here.

I use it for medical purposes. I really don’t understand why it is totally illegal, I just don’t see it. I also have been researching this issue. I have found- I can’t prove- but I find that the government, our government, has fields, marijuana fields growing in other countries. What are they doing with it?

They believe that they can tell me what’s good for me- as opposed to allowing me to say, “THIS WORKS FOR ME.” They can’t possibly know what works for me. Not one politician has ever called me on the phone and said, “ROchelle, can I come over and have a cup of coffee with you? Let’s talk about some issues.” It’s never happened. I have tried to talk to different people at different times about issues that I feel strongly about. One of them is the issue of rape and abuse. I have called multitudes of places- telephones, faxing, emailing, writing letters about the issues. I want something to be done that’s not being done. But nobody ever listens to me or responds to me. I say I smoke a joint, and I have people coming out of the woodwork! And I don’t understand it. The truth of the matter is, a lot of people who say it shouldn’t be legal; when they are outside, when they get off and go home, they light up a marijuana cigarette and grab a glass of wine or whatever they want to drink and they relax. But they never, ever say they do it. Because they honestly believe it should be illegal. Or they think that they have more knowledge and can control themselves better than I can. I do not have 24 letters of the alphabet behind my name. I have Multiple Sclerosis. In spite of people thinking marijuana is a bad thing, I know that I am fighting for all the right reasons. This may be bad, but it’s for all the right reasons. So, what do you want to know first?

Q: You started using marijuana about two years ago?

Yes.

Q: And it took the pain away immediately? That’s what you use it for primarily?

Yes- I don’t have pain everyday or all the time. I do have spasms as well and the pills can help with that. The spasms are like having a charley horse all over your body. But, yes, it works. It works.

Q: When you use marijuana, do you feel like you are getting high?

I don’t have to smoke it enough to do that. I can have one cigarette last- because I just puff on it once or twice and put it out and keep it in a plastic bag until the next time- for a while. I don’t use it for recreation. I am not getting high. I am grateful it helps the pain and often I just go to street. It doesn’t make me feel hungry. But I kind of like food anyway, so maybe that’s why I don’t notice the difference… I also have friends who take chemotherapy and even when they eat they throw up. But they eat. So the chemotherapy makes them not want to eat. Marijuana can help with their appetite. So I cannot speak for everything about the people who have different problems, but I can speak on what I have and what I know of other people to have and why they use it.

Q: How many people do you know off hand who are using medical marijuana?

The MS Society has groups. Several people in the groups I have gone to speak highly of this. Personally, friends, would be three with different problems but find relief with marijuana. So, a few.

Q: Is it difficult for you to get the marijuana?

No.

Q: Is that because you know someone?

I have someone who takes care of that for me.

Q: How much do you spend each month on the marijuana?

The truth is, I don’t spend a dime, because they just make sure I have it. I don’t need that much. For them to bring me two cigarettes is not a problem. I can have one cigarette that will last a month and then I may have one that will last for the next three months because I won’t have enough pain to warrant me using it. Sometimes you can have pain that you can just tolerate- it is not enough to do anything for. You just tolerate it.

Q: You were diagnosed with MS in your 20’s… did you have an episode, what happened?

I had an episode and I went to the hospital, but at that time of course I didn’t know what was wrong. I knew something was wrong and I had to go through a lot of tests. At the time, they looked for MS because it tends to show up in your late teens and 20’s. So they did look for it. I have a mother who also has MS who wasn’t diagnosed until about 9 or 10 years after I was. Because of her age, they didn’t immediately look for it. After she had a stroke, they put her in the hospital and ran all these tests. They found the MS.

Q: What have the last 20 years been like? The progression of your disease?

The progression of the disease itself is for me, I guess it would be moderate. The problem is the older I get, everything that happens I am not able to come back from now. That causes me a great deal of difficulty. Also, having MS, I have chronic fatigue. Even though people may look at me and not see anything wrong, I have a lot of problems. I wear a pad because my bladder is bad. I am noticing now that my bowel is becoming something that I am having difficulty controlling. I cannot say marijuana will help that because I don’t know and I honestly don’t think it will. But these are things that are happening and the older I get the more they happen.

I didn’t have to stop working until eight years ago and then I went on disability. Because I was getting to the point where I could go to work today, but not the next three days. I could go for three days, but then I would be off for a week. There is no job that I can think of that allows that. However, even though I cannot hold a job, it has not stopped me from trying to do something with my life. Now I go to school. I first thought about being a nurse, but it would have taken too much of my strength and energy to do that. So I decided to be a writer. I have a lot of stories just like the one I am talking to you about and I have many more that I honestly believe will help somebody else. So a book is on the horizon for me. And if I am lucky, whether it makes me income or not, that you can say I can take care of myself, maybe it will help other people take care of themselves. I am a mother first. Not just for my son and my grandchildren, but for everybody. I believe that I am my brother’s keeper.

I first applied to disability and I was denied. Then of course, you have to have denials and you run out of everything and you have find an attorney that will take it on. It makes no sense, because everything the attorney told them is what I told them.

People want to live, but they want a quality life. Just being able to wake up is not living. Also, having MS, I can say the biggest disability of it is that I don’t look sick. The second biggest disability is that I am not old enough to be sick, so that causes me a lot of problems. But that is the public opinion. “You can’t possibly feel that way- you look great. You can’t possibly be that tired all of the time, you are just lazy.” But the truth of the matter is that we are sick. We have problems. And it is not anything they can cure. They don’t have a cure. They treat the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis- they don’t treat Multiple Sclerosis.

Q: Have the doctors tried to give you other prescriptions to help with the pain?

Oh yes. They never deny giving me Tylenol 3 or something like that. But they make you sick. Motrin 800’s I’ve had- they make you sick. You can’t keep putting these things in your stomach without bringing it back up. I don’t have that problem with marijuana. But my doctors are excellent doctors. I am very, very lucky to have had these doctors. I have asked my doctor, especially my neurologist- what did he think about marijuana use for medical purposes. My doctor said exactly what his licensing said he has to say- he told me all of the ills of smoking and that is what he is supposed to do and I would not have expected anything less. He told me how dangerous marijuana has a correlation to tobacco in using it- it causes lung problems. That’s what he told me. He did the right thing as my doctor licensed by the state of Michigan. He said exactly what he was supposed to say.

Q: Do you think it would be better if he had the ability to talk to you about marijuana?

Yes I do. I think it would be better for him and his patients to talk about any and all things that could help them. I think the government ties our doctors’ hands in many ways. And not just with marijuana, they do it with a lot of drugs because of the kickbacks they get from the pharmaceuticals and I’ll say that until the day I die. Doctors go to school to learn how to care for people and unless they are allowed to do what they know how to do, there’s always going to be a problem. Medicine is not an exact science. They can give you weights and measures that are exact, but medicine is not an exact science. It is trial and error every single day.

“I want them to please make a way in their minds to see that this is an issue that people need their help on.”

Q: Tell me about the exacerbation when you went blind. What happened?

At first, I thought- before I lost the sight- I had something in my eye. Then I thought maybe I had some kind of allergy. I kept putting it off because my exacerbations kept hitting me in different places every time so I had nothing to go by. I kept asking people, “Does my eyeball look swollen?” Because that’s what it felt like in my left eye. Then I was doing my laundry and all of a sudden I couldn’t see. Black. I could see- but I just saw black. I called my mother on speed dial to come and get me.

I had to go to the hospital. They gave me massive IV doses of steroids until my sight started to come back. When I started to get my sight back, the IV steroid treatment was stopped and they then put me on an oral steroid that I had to take because you have to gradually come off the steroid- it’s like being an addict. They can’t just take it away from you. It’s a process that has to be done. That’s what they did and they did a very good job. That’s a legal drug.

Q: After that, you started having pain?

Oh yeah. I have residual effects of the problem. I have pain as I am talking to you right now. My left eye is hurting me. When I get exceptionally hot my vision is blurry, or I will be looking at you, your twin and your triplet. That’s why I don’t drive. No doctor told me not to drive for that reason, I’m just not stupid. When I was in the car with my mother right after I got out of the hospital I noticed all the traffic going north looked to me like they were right in front of us. My mom, she said, “Why are you jumping?” She said, “Just close your eyes Rochelle, nobody is running into us.” But that’s what I saw. You can’t drive like that.

On Super Bowl Sunday this year, that weekend, Saturday, I started for the very first time having seizures. I had never had a seizure in my life. I started that Saturday before the Super Bowl game. I went to the hospital because I had one with my face twisted and my arm- I couldn’t use anything on my right side. All I could say was that I was having a stroke. By the time the ambulance got there, it was over and I looked like an idiot.

The emergency doctor said it was probably just a spasm and I said, “This was NOT a spasm. I know what a spasm is.” The very next day, we were all together for the Super Bowl game and I had a seizure. I scared every single soul in the room and they only knew to call 911. Luckily for me, it sounds silly to say, but I had six seizures that day. When I got to the hospital, they saw what was happening. Then they could help me. Which is good because in my seizures, I don’t black out. I get very scarred. It turns out I’ve had another lesion pop up in my brain. That’s how MS shows up in an MRI- lesions in your brain. This one happened to pop up in a spot that cut something off and that is what I started to have seizures- because the connection was all mis-wired. It is not fun at all.

Q: Is there anything else?

Yes. Please. I want them to please make a way in their minds to see that this is an issue that people need their help on. I thank God that the city of Detroit, when it hit the ballot, understood that there was a need and they passed it. I hope the rest of the country can do the same thing. We need help. I know they will if they just understand.

People ask me all the time, “Aren’t you scared because you said this or that…” But no, I am not scared of going to jail. I don’t do anything wrong. No one should be afraid of taking care of themselves in the best way they can.