When I heard about this death, I felt anger, and despair. I never liked marijuana (control freak, I'm told) so in that sense this is not personal. But I know that many folks with fibromyalgia find relief with this drug. I know that, compared to other legal, prescription or 'recreational' drugs, this is a relatively harmless substance.
This woman, who lived and struggled and died in my town, needed this medication. She could not take other medicines, due to drug sensitivities; and those she could take did not ease her pain.
Our federal government over-ruled the voters, and the doctors, and took it from her. Let them -- those people, those functionaries -- carry this death on their shoulders.
Is that fair, to hold anyone responsible for another's suicide? Is it fair to blame people for just doing their job?
Do they care?
Does it matter?
Medical marijuana advocate kills herself
By MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian
Robin Prosser, a Missoula woman who struggled for a quarter century to live with the pain of an immunosuppressive disorder, tried years ago to kill herself. Last week, she tried again. This time, she succeeded.
After her earlier attempt failed, Prosser wound up in even more trouble after investigating police found marijuana in her home. She used the marijuana to help cope with pain.
That marijuana charge was eventually dropped in an agreement with the city of Missoula, and Prosser had reason to rejoice in 2004 when Montanans passed a law allowing medical use of the drug.
She was a high-profile campaigner for the Montana Medical Marijuana Act, and like others, she was dismayed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that drug agents could still arrest sick people using marijuana, even in states that legalized its use.
The ruling came to haunt Prosser in late March, when DEA agents seized less than a half ounce of marijuana sent to her by her registered caregiver in Flathead County.
At the time, the DEA special agent in charge of the Rocky Mountain Field Division said federal agents were “protecting people from their own state laws” by seizing such shipments.
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