When Linda Horan of Alstead, New Hampshire, was diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer in July, doctors said there wasn’t much they could do. They told the 64-year-old to think in terms of months, not years.
Her original tumor has swelled 25 percent since her diagnosis, and three more have appeared on her lungs. The cancer has spread to her brain and her lymph nodes, and she’s already dropped 15 pounds.
She’s vomiting and losing her appetite. And she believes medical marijuana could help these problems while delaying the point where she’ll need to be in a “narcotic stupor.”
But 28 months after New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan signed a medical marijuana bill into law, patients like her still can’t access it legally.
So Horan, a longtime labor activist, is embarking on what she calls her “last crusade.” She’s suing the state’s commissioner of health and human services.
She planned to file the lawsuit this morning in Merrimack County Superior Court against Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas.
“It’s on behalf of all sick and suffering patients in New Hampshire who have been denied the dignity of medicine that they require and are forced to be criminals in order to get the relief they need,” she said.
In the lawsuit, Horan seeks to acquire a medical marijuana ID card so she can get medical marijuana in Maine.
Patients who qualify for medical marijuana in other states are eligible to purchase it in Maine with an ID card from their home state, a form filled out by their doctor and a photo ID, according to Maine state law.
Maine is one of seven states with so-called reciprocity in its medical marijuana law, which allows for visitors from other states to buy the medicine.
Since her diagnosis, Horan has had one radiation treatment to relieve neurological symptoms and began chemotherapy this week. So far, she said, she feels pretty good and isn’t experiencing pain.
However, the most difficult part for her isn’t living with cancer but knowing other people are going through worse.
“The hardest part for me was actually coming to the realization that people who are suffering much worse than I am on a daily basis and are being denied the right to the medicine that will give them some relief,” Horan said.
Since Hassan signed the bill to legalize medical marijuana on July 23, 2013, no ID cards have been issued because of a ruling by the attorney general’s office not to issue any cards until the state’s dispensaries open, according to New Hampshire State Rep. Renny Cushing, the Hampton Democrat supporting Horan in her fight.
The health and human services department has estimated the state’s four dispensaries could open in the first quarter of 2016.
Cushing voted in favor of legalizing medical marijuana and said the law wasn’t meant to force patients to wait until dispensaries opened to get their ID cards.
“The Legislature never intended that people with severe medical conditions who would benefit from medical marijuana should die before the state got around to issuing their cards,” he said.
Cushing and Horan are not alone in their criticism of the rollout of New Hampshire’s medical marijuana law; its delayed implementation, for example, led New Hampshire State Rep. Joe Lachance, R-Manchester, to sue Toumpas in the same court at the end of May.
Horan has been a labor activist her whole life and said she’ll bring that fighting spirit to the lawsuit.
“I’m going out with a cause to help other people who are being unjustly denied their dignity,” she said.
Cushing said he’s known Horan for about 30 years and she’s spent her life working to improve others. He described her as feisty, hardworking, compassionate and giving.
Horan planned to hold a news conference in front of the courthouse before filing the lawsuit this morning, where she would be joined by Cushing, Glenn Bracket, the president of the New Hampshire American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, and her attorney, Paul Twomey.
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services did not provide comment by press time this morning.
Cushing said he “can’t believe we’re still in the situation where we’re making criminals out of patients.”
He said he’s hopeful that the lawsuit will be successful and a judge will issue Horan and other qualified patients a medical marijuana ID.
“It’s about Linda, but it’s not just about Linda,” he said. “It’s about everybody else in a similar situation as her.”
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