marijuana
...n-angle. Narrow-angle glaucoma infects the eye quickly and can be detected easily. Open-angle has a much slower onset. As the disease progresses “pressure of the eye is elevated, pinching the optic nerve and starving the eye of nourishment. As a result, sections of the eye begin to die leaving progressive blindness”(Randall 8). In this type of glaucoma pain is minimal at first. The brain can compensate for the growing blindness so that the afflicted individual does not realize that he or she is going blind. Randall was infected with open-angle glaucoma and experienced eyestrain from an early age. It was not until he was 24 that a doctor was able to diagnose his problem as glaucoma. Randall was told he had two to five years before he would go completely blind. In a to stabilize the disease, Randall’s doctor resorted to giving him the maximum strengths of available eye drops and medication, but they did not work. Randall suffered from “milky vision, tri-colored haloes around lights, or complete white-outs which are virtually blinding”(Randall 9). Then 1973 as glaucoma destroyed his vision, a friend gave Randall a marijuana cigarette. After smoking it Randall found he no longer saw rings around lights and the painful pressure in his eyes had decreased. He made the connection between the improvement and the marijuana and began to self medicate. Suddenly the doctor recorded an immense drop in his patient’s eye pressure and a halt in eyesight loss. Randall had accidentally discovered a new treatment for glaucoma an illegal one at that. Randall grew marijuana plants in hi house so he would not have to go to the streets to get it. In 1975, police searched his house and confiscated his plants. Randall began a court battle to show that marijuana was saving his eyesight, allowing him to live a normal life even while infected glaucoma. In his trial he used the is today known as the medical necessity defense, which says that An act which would otherwise be a crime maybe excused if the person accused can show that it was done only in order to avoid consequences which could not otherwise be avoided, and which, if they had followed would have inflicted upon him or upon others whom he was bound to protect, inevitable and irreparable harm (law.about.com). In Randall’s case, growing and smoking marijuana allowed him to avoid going blind from glaucoma, something other medications failed to do. After winning his court battle in 1976, Randall became the first American to receive marijuana cigarettes for medical use from the U.S. government. In Aids and cancer patients the nausea caused by treatments of the disease is a horrible after effect. Patients have been known to break ribs rupture their esophagus from the violence in their vomiting (Perrine360). Unable to eat and tormented by constant nausea, they often refuse to continue chemotherapy or simply lose the will to live (Perrine360). People that have been paralyzed from accidents have painful muscle spasms and marijuana helps with that. In a survey 88% of the re...