KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasI-Team: Patients Kept from Medical Marijuana as They Push for Reform
LAS VEGAS -- You probably do not make your sandwich like Diane Bilyeu. It has meat, lettuce, bread: the same fixings as everybody else but with one discernible difference.
She made it with one hand because she has no other choice.
It is the same single hand used to roll joints, eat marijuana-infused brownies and enjoy pot-lined hard candy. Bilyeu uses medical marijuana to dull the pain of losing her right leg and arm in a truck accident 13 years ago.
"I couldn't imagine how bad the breaks were, or how many breaks there were in the bones. The joints were destroyed," she said.
Medics at the scene declared her legally dead. Yet transport to the hospital yielded better results. She was stable, but her arm and leg had to be removed. Five weeks later, after coming out of the medically-induced coma, Bilyeu was fuming with anger.
"I was in so much pain, that's basically all I could concentrate on for the first few days," she said calmly.
As the weeks turned to months, five of them until she could leave the hospital, each passing rain storm brought intense pain. It was a feeling at the time only relieved by powerful drugs like Oxycontin and Fentenyl, drugs Bilyeu says ravaged her body.
"Pharmaceutical medication is all toxic to your body," she said. Bilyeu had used marijuana recreationally before, but rarely made the connection between the euphoric high and long-term, low side effect pain relief.
Enter medical marijuana.
Bilyeu wants to join the 2,800 other Nevadans on the medical marijuana registry. Administered by the Nevada Department of Health, the rules of the registry are strict, but require doctors to determine if the patient has AIDS, glaucoma, severe pain or other serious ailments.
Fergus Laughridge maintains the program, but cautions Nevada law says nothing about obtaining marijuana.
"We make no referrals through our program. We're just a registry," he said.
The 2001 law bars previously-convicted drug sellers from getting a card, but it fails to create any regulations for legal purchase of medical marijuana. It only delineates a "caregiver," for one person to either grow or administer pot to a patient. Unlike other states, Nevada restricts access.
"They can't be the caregiver for multiples. They can be a caregiver for a patient," Laughridge says.
Laughridge points out that while the law allows for one ounce of possession of dried marijuana, it gives latitude to grow your own. With a card in hand, patients can grow up to three mature and four immature plants at a time.
A challenging task for double amputee Bilyeu, but the sort of opportunity a patient named Andrea relishes.
"Let me show you my garden," she says, gleefully pulling open a closet door in her spare bedroom. Inside, a grow on par with professionals. The air is clean, but moist. A small, round fan gently sways back and forth, circulating air by pushing it against a wall.
A row of fluorescent lights looms over plants both large and small. Andrea has to shoo her cat away more than once. The adventurous feline loves to eat the leaves.
"I come in maybe two or three times a day, I give them a misting," she says, showing off the cool, clean water sitting on the plants.
Andrea wanted her name hidden for the story, not because of the fear of legal reprisal, but because the small-scale grow operation could upset neighbors and become a target for crime. She understands the stigma, but she wants Nevada law to have another legal option to get marijuana. She wants to buy it.
"It should be like going to Walgreens and going to the pharmacy and getting your medicine," Andrea said.
State, local and federal laws currently stop that from happening. Andrea can grow her plants, but it appears to be illegal to purchase the seeds. She can have that single ounce of marijuana, but she cannot technically buy it from anyone.
"You're allowed to have it, but it just falls out of the sky," she says, laughing.
Dispensaries in Los Angeles and Denver have become "Little Amsterdams," sometimes the length of entire city blocks. Yet without the infrastructure in place or legal zoning, Nevada's would-be dispensaries exist in a mixed world of shadow and light. Their sales are illegal, yet they operate in the open.
"Las Vegas needs dispensaries. They need legitimate, upscale, comfortable places for these people to go and get their medications," says Amanda Pacheco, owner of Organic Solutions, a fledgling shop on Tropicana.
With clear jars filled with blends of "Cali Kush" and "Bombdiggidy," in front of her, the Coloradan said she wanted to move to Nevada for the opportunity to expand despite the Silver State's legal gaps.
She wants to get rid of what she calls "street thugs." Pacheco says quality dispensaries could give terminal and infirmed patients safe options. "You need to have caregivers who know what they're doing. Not everybody can be a caregiver," she says.
The problem is maintaining a consistent level of quality. Dispensaries often must work with large scale growing, often crossing paths with major criminal operations.
District Attorney David Roger's office would not comment about dispensary prosecutions. The office suggested speaking with the Attorney General, whose office referred the I-Team to Laughridge's office. That office only counseled that Nevada has no option for legal purchases. Clark County said it has no regulations in place and refers any information about dispensaries to Metro.
Diane Bilyeu simply does not want to wait any longer for changes, or for bureaucracy to help her.
"Billions and billions of dollars have been spent to make people think that it's bad," she says exasperated.
With rain on the way this weekend, so knows the pain will be worse. For now, underground purchases are the only option to calm the searing feeling in her bones.
But she shrugs, knowing this is life as it is and will be. She smiles, saying it was part of God's plan. Then she rolls up her sandwich and eats it with the only hand she has known for the last 13 years.
Here are basic facts about Nevada's program. If you have questions about Nevada's medical marijuana program, go to the state's website or look at the flowchart of how to obtain a card.
The state also has set up frequently asked questions about the program and applicable law.
If you have comments or questions, email Jonathan or follow him on Twitter.
