AIDS Patient Sues For Marijuana Access

An AIDS patient who says he needs to smoke marijuana every day to ease nausea from his medications is suing the state of Colorado to expand access to marijuana providers.

"My medicines are really devastating. The only thing that soothes the nausea is medical marijuana," said Damien LaGoy, 47, of Denver, who is suing the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. He was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and hepatitis C a decade later. LaGoy said his cocktail of 11 medications triggers nausea that is as bad as "the worst case of the flu or food poisoning."

LaGoy is one of 1,350 users of medical marijuana registered with the state, according to Brian Vicente, head of Sensible Colorado, a group that promotes medical marijuana.

But LaGoy says it's a struggle to get it. He and Vicente say Colorado health department leaders met secretly in 2004 and decided to limit providers of medical marijuana to five patients at a time. LaGoy said he found a registered provider, also called a caretaker, only to be turned away because the provider already had a full slate of patients.

"The caregiver is the person who grows the plants and provides them to you legally and safely," LaGoy said.

He said he has not been able to find legal caretakers and has had to rely on friends who have supplied him with illegal pot or forgo his medications to prevent the nausea.

Rocky Mountain News