Drug Crazy - Reefer Madness - Page 181

following procedures, then waded into him with a withering barrage of questions. Unfortunately, the questions turned out to be based on misinformation, and each response from the professor steamrolled the prosecutor with a roll call of references to the scientific literature. After an hour of this, the infuriated official said, “Dr. Grinspoon, all that you have reported here about the capacity of cannabis to relieve suffering of one type or another comes from papers and journals! What has been your experience in observing this for yourself?”

Wrong question.  To a courtroom now packed with late arrivals who had heard of the furious duel, Grinspoon traced his experience back to that day in 1967 when his 10-year-old son was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia. At first, he said, Danny was good-natured about the treatments, but by 1971, he was involved in major chemotherapy and Grinspoon and his wife found themselves subjected to heart-wrenching scenes at the hospital. “He would start to vomit shortly after treatment and continue retching for up to eight hours.  He vomited in the car as we drove home, and when we got there he had to lie in bed with his head over a bucket on the floor.”

Then one day Grinspoon arrived at the hospital and found his wife and son already there. They were uncommonly relaxed and it was obvious something was up.  He was shocked to see his son take the medicine without a fight and after it was over there was no sign of nausea. Instead of throwing up in the car, Danny asked if they could stop off for a submarine sandwich. When they got home, Grinspoon asked for an explanation.  His wife said she had stopped by the schoolyard on the way to the hospital and one of Danny’s pals had given them a marijuana cigarette. She and Danny had smoked it together before the session. 

Grinspoon was stupefied. They could have been arrested!  What about the law? What about the embarrassment to the hospital staff and the university?

Their son, meanwhile, rather than going straight to bed as in the past, went out to play.  And at that point the shaken professor began to re-examine his position. Dr. Grinspoon would ultimately