Patient Story
Joe Smith - Glaucoma
["Joe Smith" is not this patient's real name, but is being used to protect
his privacy. He has consented to be named and to meet with any medical or
media professional who wishes to confirm the facts of his story.]
I was born and raised in Johnson County, Missouri, on the northwest Ozark
prairie edge. From the start, I was a hunter and naturalist. By junior
high, I had hunted all upland game ... here the old-timers I hunted with
were in the ir 70s and 80s. I went to the University of Missouri -
Columbia in wildlife management for three years, taught field ornithology
the last two years, and managed to take several graduate courses in
biological sciences and art...
I worked five years for the State of Arkansas as a naturalist in the Ozark
and Ouachita regions and briefly in the Little Rock office, trained
everybody in the program, and wrote the training manual. I also worked as
an official research naturalist for Parks and Tourism with the planning
commission/natural heritage and with the state Department of Education
doing environmental lesson plans. I also cooperated with the U of A and
Little Rock museums coordinating programs and materials on loan. I served
as a VISTA volunteer under the Carter Administration.
I was working at both the Ozark Folk Centers at Mountain View and Queen
Wilhelmina in 1974 when a storm caused a no-fault head-on wreck on a White
River bridge. I was in a 3/4 ton pickup and met a loaded 40-foot tanker
milk truck midway on the bridge. I woke up from a coma four days later in
St. Vincents in Little Rock. I lost my left eye and the left side of my
face and jaw. My left foot was crushed and took five pins to re-align. The
plastic surgery did good and I was walking on crutches on the lodge trail
below Cedar Falls and up the rockslide at Petit Jean two months later.
I was 22 then and in pretty good shape before the wreck. But the optic
nerve on my left eye was cut so it's not functional. I had injury-induced
glaucoma in my right eye, according to the opthamologist from the Alford
Eye Clinic in Little Rock. This was later confirmed by another
opthamologist in Sedalia, Missouri. Together, they put me on a steady diet
of atropine and pilocarpene, alternating doses. After stepping up the
doses a year later, he declared it was hopeless and said I'd be totally
blind within a year.
That was when I decided to end their redundant experiment and heal myself.
I had plenty of historical data. Pharmacopeias and the U. S. Dispensary
all refer to pharmaceutical grade cannabis* [as a treatment for glaucoma].
My grandpa showed me cannabis in his orchard along with the other weeds. I
had no previous use of drugs legal or otherwise. I had occasionally used
alcohol but generally considered it to be an indulgent waste of money and
mind I could do fine without. On the advice of my lawyer, I contacted Bob
Randall, who was the first glaucoma patient to get legal cannabis in the
United States. He told me he smoked a joint of buds every two hours (while
awake) for over ten years, supplied by the government. He was doing fine.
[Besides being able to see and even find things in the woods consistently
that other experts had missed for nearly 30 years since the doctor told me
I would be blind in a year,] I have over 25 years of drawing evidence of
the positive effects of steady use of cannabis. I've drawn for Arkansas
and Missouri state parks, illustrated endangered species for the U. S.
Forest Service, botany keys for the U of A, and Dr. Ed Smith's Atlas and
Annotated List of Arkansas Plants for reference. Cannabis improves the
quality of my illustration. It makes observation and concentration easier.
One aspect where cannabis definitely helps is on night vision. I grew up
night hunting, so I had plenty of experience before and after. I can
definitely see better at night now.
[When I tried to get legal cannabis for my glaucoma five years after I
started], within a year I'd been in jail in three counties (Newton, Boone,
Madison) and was looking at ten years minimum. My lawyer got the charges
dropped and advised me to move to North Carolina [where a legally approved
study allowed patient use]. I realized I was at high risk for legal
complications, so I tried to get legal 20 years ago. They know I'm out
here. But it got to a standoff. I haven't moved on to use other drugs or
to other crimes and don't intend to. Thank you for doing what it takes.
For everybody's sake, I wish you the best of luck. Since I'm the first
person who tried to get legal in Arkansas, I'd appreciate eventual
justice.
* Mr. Smith prefers to use the term "hemp" in referring to his herbal
treatment. He states:
"Cannabis is the Latin genus for 3 recognized species - sativa, indicus,
and ruderalis. My grandpa had no idea of what cannabis was, but hemp was a
leading row crop in Missouri well before the Civil War (in Arkansas
territory) and the U. S. government paid them to grow it in both world
wars. All historical references before WWII refer to "pharmaceutical grade
hemp." The term "marijuana" was one of several Hispanic slurs on
agricultural terms that I resent like "machete" for corn knife or cane
knife. Old time hardware stores had drawers of corn knives, but Castro's
men had them, so ... "