Today's Unknown News
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Today's Unknown News
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Anyone who looked into my husband's eyes on Saturday night, anyone who heard his screams — at least, anyone with a soul — would understand that this was torture. And it didn't just "happen." It's official policy. If freedom doesn't include the right to do what you choose — eat what you choose to eat, drink what you choose to drink, and smoke what you choose to smoke — then calling it "freedom" is a lie. The more difficult it is for people to obtain the drugs they want, the more "successful" America's drug strategy is perceived to be. US drug policies are an enormous, expensive failure at keeping drugs out of teenagers' hands. They're pretty darn successful, though, at keeping effective medicine from middle-aged tummy-pain-sufferers. Being a remarkably tough fellow, Harry walked the whole way to the hospital without stopping once to scream, but his face was bathed in tears by the time we found the emergency room. "It's much, much worse than it's ever been before," he whispered to me, squeezing the color out of my fingers. These policies allegedly 'protect us' from the perceived or imagined dangers of drugs — by putting millions of people in prison, where marijuana and other much more dangerous drugs are readily available and easily obtained, and where you're much more likely to be threatened, assaulted, raped, or murdered. If this is "protecting" us, or "protecting" society, well, what can one say in response to such "protection"? Just the obvious — even if these laws "protect" me from becoming a drug addict, I don't care. I would choose the most ghastly stereotype of drug addiction you can conjure up — life as a homeless, toothless crack whore, whatever — over being a ward of the American penal system, subject to whatever barbarism guards and fellow inmates inflict. I would choose suicide over losing my freedom. |
US government tortures my husbandTo protect my husband from potential drug problems, US policy is that his actual problem should eat him alive, quite literally. If this is different than using more straightforward, traditional methods of torture, the difference is academic. My husband Harry has a stomach problem. He's had it for years, and most of the time it's not worth mentioning — just an occasional rumbling ache that wakes him in the middle of the night, once or twice a week. He takes a big swig of generic Maalox, and sits up for an hour or two reading a book. As the Maalox lazily takes effect, the pain subsides, and eventually he comes back to bed and starts snoring again. Once every few months, however, his stomach hits him hard. When that mild ache becomes a sharp stabbing sensation in his abdomen, he's lucky to get two or three hours of sleep. When the stomach is really kicking, he can't hold food down, he can't sleep, and all the Maalox in the world won't help. There are two medications that do help, when his stomach is at its worst. One is a green fluid, apparently available only in hospitals. The other is marijuana. On those rare occasions when the pain is more than Harry can stand, he's gone to the emergency room at various hospitals. They've always they've given him the same green fluid. It works fairly quickly, and within a few minutes the pain is greatly reduced — it still hurts, but the pain falls back below the threshold of Hell. When Harry asks what the green fluid is, he never gets a straight answer (of course, he's not terribly persistent with the question when his pain is just easing after hours of agony). Our best guess is that it's a prescription form of something similar to Maalox, an antacid that coats the stomach lining, with an extra-potent painkiller mixed in. The answer has always been an enthusiastic no when he's asked for a prescription for the stuff, so the painkiller probably comes from the DEA's infamous "Schedule II" — cocaine, morphine, meperidine, codeine, or some such. Whatever it is, it works. But doctors either aren't allowed to prescribe it for use outside of a hospital, or else it's something so tightly controlled that a prescription requires more paperwork and oversight than any doctor is willing to put up with for a poor patient in the emergency room. Fortunately, marijuana works better than the green liquid. We'd smoked weed before, but it wasn't until we moved to San Francisco that we started hearing stories from friends, strangers, and the local press about marijuana's medical attributes. It's great for glaucoma, the articles and experts say, and it's supposed to restore appetite in patients with AIDS or undergoing chemotherapy (when appetite is often the difference between life and death). We were especially intrigued when we heard that marijuana can reduce severe pain, nausea, and muscle spasms — three primary symptoms of Harry's stomach pain at its worst. So one night in 1999 when his tummy was really hurting, Harry fired up a doobie. The results were amazing. With just two or three slow inhalations, holding the fumes in his chest for 10 seconds or so before exhaling, the pain immediately started to fade. A few minutes later, there was no pain at all. None. He's never noticed any side effects, either. So ever since, he's relied on herbal therapy to quell the pain when his stomach is at its worst. We don't have health insurance, so a trip to the emergency room is — to put it mildly — cost-prohibitive. Factor in the physicians' fees, after-hours fees, waiting room fees, chair fees, and the infamous $11 aspirin tablets, and a trip to the ER can easily cost a thousand dollars. We don't have ten bucks we can spend without worrying; a thousand is simply incomprehensible. By comparison, three puffs of marijuana cost a few dollars at most, and relief from the pain comes much faster and lasts much longer than with the green liquid. No matter how bad the pain is, with a little marijuana it's gone within minutes. Last summer, though, we decided we couldn't afford San Francisco's high cost of living. We loaded up a rented truck, and moved to Kansas City. It's a nice town — less "hip" than Frisco, but a lot more affordable. We're generally happy here. But we haven't yet found a source for marijuana. And make no mistake, 29 days out of 30, doing without marijuana is not a problem. We're not pot-heads, and we're busy enough there's really no time to miss it. Until Harry's stomach acts up. Last weekend, Harry's stomach was hurting a lot on Saturday afternoon. He vomited up breakfast, couldn't eat lunch, and by evening we'd canceled our plans. I prepared a bland dinner of rice, bananas, and corn — a few of the foods he has the best chance of keeping down when his tummy's hurting. This time, though, he couldn't eat more than a bite or two. The pain was too much. He wanted to vomit, but since he'd had no appetite all day, there was nothing in his stomach to bring up. By about 8:00, the pain was, he said, as bad as it's ever been in his life. By 9:00 it was worse, and by 10:00 it was worse still. It terrified me to see the look of unbearable agony in his wide eyes, as the abdominal pains stabbed at him. Between screams, we had an indescribably obscene conversation about how obviously we couldn't afford to get him medical treatment, and how obviously, urgently he needed it. It took me till about 10:30 to convince him to walk with me to a hospital, a mile from our apartment. Along the way, we talked about what we knew, from experience at other emergency rooms, would happen: • a long wait, whether or not there appeared to be any other patients,Being a remarkably tough fellow, Harry walked the whole way to the hospital without stopping once to scream, but his face was bathed in tears by the time we found the emergency room. "It's much, much worse than it's ever been before," he whispered to me, squeezing the color out of my fingers. The forms were quite quick and easy, and the wait wasn't too terribly long. The doctor was polite and efficient, and an hour and a half after we walked in, an intern approached carrying one precious swallow of the green liquid, in a tiny plastic cup. Harry drank it, and started feeling somewhat better. No, the intern couldn't tell him what it was, but we weren't sure whether that was because it's a secret or simply because he didn't know. And no, although Harry's pain was growing again just minutes after downing the green liquid, a second dose was out of the question. And no, the doctor wouldn't or couldn't write a prescription. Have a nice night, though, and thanks for stopping by. My husband is the love of my life, my one and only, and I love him more than everything else in the world put together. Anything that hurts him infuriates me, so you'd better believe I'm angry. The green liquid, like the marijuana, is medicine that works, but apparently there's a potential for abuse. Because of this potential, US policy is that my husband must be tortured. Torture, of course, is not a word often used in this context. Congressmen and bureaucrats rarely make speeches demanding that people be tortured. Government employees haven't stopped by our apartment, installed heavy-duty rings in the wall, and hung my husband up by his wrists. They don't laugh and poke at him with hot irons, or stretch him on a rack. Torture is never the announced rationale, and it's not the motivation behind every enhancement of America's insane drug laws. Still, torture is what it is. Anyone who looked into my husband's eyes on Saturday night, anyone who heard his screams — at least, anyone with a soul — would understand that this was torture. And it didn't just "happen." It's official policy: The more difficult it is for people to obtain the drugs they want, the more "successful" America's drug strategy is perceived to be. US drug policies are an enormous, expensive failure at keeping drugs out of teenagers' hands. They're pretty darn successful, though, at keeping effective medicine from middle-aged tummy-pain-sufferers. These policies allegedly protect us from the perceived or imagined dangers of drugs — by putting millions of people in prison, where marijuana and other much more dangerous drugs are readily available and easily obtained, and where you're much more likely to be threatened, assaulted, raped, or murdered. If this is "protecting" us, or "protecting" society, well, what can one say in response to such "protection"? Just the obvious — even if these laws "protect" me from becoming a drug addict, I don't care. I would choose the most ghastly stereotype of drug addiction you can conjure up — life as a homeless, toothless crack whore, whatever — over being a ward of the American penal system, subject to whatever barbarism guards and fellow inmates inflict. I would choose suicide over losing my freedom. If freedom doesn't include the right to do what you choose — eat what you choose to eat, drink what you choose to drink, and smoke what you choose to smoke — then calling it "freedom" is a lie. Anyway, a couple of days have passed since our awful weekend, and Harry's doing better. He's still eating bland foods, but at least he's able to eat, and the pain is low-level enough he's able to sleep, too. We try not to think about the bill the emergency room will send us. Maybe we'll pay what we think it was worth, and let the hospital sue our indigent asses for the rest. Tomorrow my husband will take half a day off work (without pay). He'll be sitting on a bench in a park where the newspaper promises that marijuana dealing is "a problem." If he can find a dealer, there will be no problem at all. And if he can't, then the next time his stomach pain flares up, American government will torture him again. Helen may be contacted at xoxounknown@yahoo.com.
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UPDATE -- April 9, 2002
Well, we received the bill from the emergency room yesterday (4/8). It's about three times the highest figure we could imagine. For an hour and a half in the ER, most of that time spent waiting, we owe $3,300. That's just what we owe the hospital; the bill's small print informs us that any "physicians, anesthesiologists, pathologists, cardiologists, and radiologists will bill separately for their services," which is certainly nice to know. $3,300, so far. That's about 1/6 what my husband and I earned last year, combined. It's about ten times what we have in the bank, all of which is reserved for the rent. It's about what we already owe on our maxed-out credit cards. It might as well be $3,300,000. There's simply no way on Heaven, Earth, or Hell that we can pay a bill like that. [With later bills, the grand total is a bit more than $6,100.] We have no car to sell. No furniture to speak of. No actual assets, except this computer (worth a few hundred bucks, at most), a TV ($50), and a bed (another $50, perhaps). So we'll spend a few days trying to make minimal payment arrangements with the hospital. Will they accept $20 a month for the rest of our lives? If not, we'll have to declare bankruptcy, or just start choosing which creditors to stiff (the hospital will certainly be at the top of that list). At Unknown News, we don't talk much about our personal lives. Day by day, this is much more a news weblog than a personal weblog. I'm sharing all this only because it seems apropos to the ongoing discussion of just how utterly screwed up is "the American way." This seems to be the way the system is designed to "work." After we're finished screaming, cursing, and crying, it just leaves us speechless. And we can only wonder how the many millions of Americans who are far, far poorer than Harry and I handle their medical emergencies. Anyway, we could use some good advice. Any reader with first-hand experience of what to expect from the bastards at the hospital, what tactics we should pursue and what tactics they'll pursue, is very invited to get in touch. Our email address is xoxounknown@yahoo.com. Also, of course, it goes without saying that the next time Harry's stomach acts up, he'll have to either suffer or die or both, as we certainly won't make a return visit to the ER. So we'd be double delighted to hear from anyone in the Kansas City metropolitan area who's willing to provide us with either the marijuana we need, or the precious green liquid, at a reasonable price. Thanks to any and all. —HH
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