Crohn's Disease by Bruce Buckner Posted: 02-02-08 01:43am
My name is Bruce Buckner. I am a 48-year
old computer pre-press technician and
webmaster from Seattle, WA. I play music
with a couple different bands for fun and
profit as well. As a child of the sixties,
I%u2018ve smoked pot recreationally (or so
I believed) since my teenage years.
I remember my first bouts of abdominal
cramping and diarrhea around the age of
nine or ten. I was told I was suffering
from colitis, that it was just a
%u201Cnervous stomach%u201D. It was always
particularly bad on days I woke early to
go somewhere, so the %u201Cnervous
stomach%u201D diagnosis kind of made
sense. The cramping and frequent bowel
movements continued. I was going to the
bathroom a dozen times a day. I was
always of slight build but by the age of
twelve my weight had dropped off the
%u201Clow normal%u201D range of the
height/weight charts. I became drastically
underweight. (I am a 48 years old male who
weighs 114 lbs.)
While attending the University of Oregon
in Eugene, I was suffering from a
particularly bad flare-up. I developed
psoriasis, and started getting little red
bumps on my lower legs, which I scratched
into sores. My girlfriend was very
concerned about my hot sweats and
cramping. She finally convinced me to go
the Student Health Clinic. I was very
fortunate that the young doctor I saw was
very familiar with Crohn%u2019s (his wife
had it). He was able to diagnose it right
away, although he still made me undergo a
colonoscopy the following week, which
confirmed his diagnosis. He started me on
sulfasalazine. This caused severe nausea
and vomiting. The cure was much worse than
the disease. The doctor gave me steroids
(prednisone). This made me lay awake all
night sweating. I was making all kinds of
stupid mistakes, I backed my car into a
light post, I lost my temper easily, I
couldn%u2019t handle the sleep deprivation
and stopped taking the steroids. The
doctor commenting on how I looked like I
smoked pot (This WAS 1972) and told me his
wife found that it helped. I had quit
smoking that semester to concentrate on my
studies, but whenever I was cramping, I
smoked a couple joints from that point
on.
Through the seventies and eighties, I
worked in the music business as a
musician, recording engineer, live sound
engineer, and record company
representative. My occupations allowed me
to wake slowly, work late hours, and smoke
lots of pot. Coincidentally, my
Crohn%u2019s was in almost total
reemission. I still had occasional bouts
of leg sores and cramping and diarrhea,
but the cramping and bowel movements would
subside after a couple hours and I would
be OK the rest of the day. I was still
underweight, but I could eat two or three
times a day. In 1987, I was arrested for
possession and given two years probation.
In an effort to obey the terms of my
probation, I left the music industry, and
utilizing the skills I had picked up from
my hobby with the Macintosh computer. I
went to work at a small magazine doing
layout and photo scanning and prepping.
It wasn%u2019t long before I started
suffering from bad flare-ups again. When
it began interfering with my work, my boss
called me into the office. I was able to
get my boss to change my hours. I worked
from 2pm to 10pm. This allowed me to cramp
and go to the bathroom enough times before
going to work. Also, this meant there was
nobody else around when I came back from
dinner, to see me going to the bathroom so
often, or be subjected to the tremendous
amounts of gas I produced after my meal. I
also started smoking pot in the mornings
as well as after work. This was a
manageable arrangement. In subsequent
jobs, after establishing my work, I was
able to make similar arrangement regarding
my work hours. This, along with my smoking
early and late kept my disease tolerable.
In 1997, the pre-press house I was working
at decided to add several other workers to
the late shift.
Within a month or two, I was laid off. I
collected unemployment and to earn a
little extra money, helped a marijuana
farmer trim his crop. He paid me with a
large amount of marijuana. Suddenly, my
Crohn%u2019s was in reemission again!
It was only at this point that I realized
smoking a little pot helped lessen the
cramping, increased my appetite and helped
me feel a little better, BUT smoking a lot
of pot (a big joint every hour and a half)
would keep the disease in a state of
almost total remission.
Medical Marijuana had just become legal in
California, I asked my doctor to write me
a letter prescribing marijuana. He wrote
it. Realizing there was no way I could
afford the seven or eight grams of bud I
needed to smoke daily in order to fend off
major flare-ups. I started growing my own
marijuana. I began working for myself as a
web designer and administrator as well as
developing many pre-press clients. I moved
to a small rural beach community about 150
miles from the city, got a high speed
cable modem and commuted to town once
every week or two. I was having only one
to three bowel movements in the morning,
minimal morning cramping, I could eat any
food I wanted; even my leg sores were
going away! For the first time in my life
I really felt happy. I had all the pot I
needed to smoke, was living a stress free
life, I started socializing and playing
music again. This continued for nearly 5
years, but all good things must end.
In late November of 2001, even though I
had been prescribed medical marijuana for
treatment of my Crohn's Disease, I had a
valid medical marijuana letter from my MD,
as well as a diagnosis of Crohn's by three
different doctors. the County Drug Task
Force raided my home, destroyed my
marijuana plants, destroyed my growing
equipment, and took my car and my life's
savings...I am currently suing the county
for the return of my 10 year old Explorer
and my money, equipment and pot. Although
my attorney is confident we will prevail
at trial, the prosecutor is continuing
with criminal charges. Legal fees may run
in excess of ten thousand dollars. And my
state (Washington) has a medical marijuana
law that specifically names Crohn%u2019s
Disease as a valid medical condition.
I have several relatives with Crohn%u2019s
Disease. Every one of them has had major
surgery. Every one of them has had
complications from the steroids and immune
suppressors they have been prescribed.
Most no longer have functioning excretory
systems and are wearing pouches. I went to
a specialist following my encounter with
the task force who stated %u201CFrankly, I
can%u2019t believe you could have gone
thirty years with Crohn%u2019s without
major medical intervention, I have to
question whether you really have
Crohn%u2019s.%u201D He ordered an
%u201Centeroclysis%u201D (a horrible
procedure that I wouldn%u2019t wish on
anyone) which showed definite scarring and
narrowing in my terminal ileum. The doctor
had to admit that I did have Crohn%u2019s
and that I had kept the disease in control
with marijuana.
I am firmly convinced that I would be in
the same condition as my relatives with
Crohn%u2019s, if I hadn%u2019t used pot.
The medical use of marijuana has saved my
colon and my quality of life.
