1. On March 24, 1973, I was involved in a freak automobile accident. I was a passenger in a Volkswagen "Beetle" that was buzzed by a small private airplane. The plane swooped within feet of the car. The resulting air currents lifted the vehicle off the road causing the driver to lose control. The car rolled three times across a distance of 365 feet. I was thrown from the car and knocked unconscious. I suffered severe closed head trauma and later was hospitalized for a week.
2. I was 20 years old. Before this accident, I was a bright, motivated student who excelled in her studies. I lived alone, was independent, and ambitious. I was active in the peace movement and the feminist movement. I was eager to take on the world.
3. Shortly after my release from the hospital, I suffered my first grand mal seizure. Then I suffered a second and a third. Because I was living alone, I did not immediately understand what was happening to me -- or even know for sure that something was happening to me. One moment I would be doing something, the next moment I would be waking up. Sometimes when I awoke, I was covered with cuts and bruises. In the words of Feodor Dostoevesky, an epileptic, my Aconsciousness was instantly extinguished and complete darkness followed. The Idiot, Signet Classic, 1969, p. 254.
4. Not until my parents saw me convulse was I, or anyone else, aware of the full magnitude of my medical problem. I immediately moved back into my parents' home. Soon, I was being stricken by up to five seizures a day. When I began to convulse, my parents had to turn me on my side to keep me from swallowing my tongue. They held me on the floor while I foamed at the mouth and lost control of my bladder, urinating all over myself. I had no control over my muscles. After a seizure dissipated, I slept for several hours. Always, when I awoke, I lacked any memory of having seized.
5. My hospital records from September 1973 provide some insight into my condition:

   [Valerie] began to have dizziness and blackout spells . . . , sometimes without warning, but often with a feeling of unreality preceding the unconsciousness.

   On [August 23, 1973], the patient apparently had a very hard blackout spell, at which time she was rendered unconscious and unresponsive for about 20 or 30 minutes, and apparently tonic movements were noted at that time.

   Valerie A. Leveroni [Corral] Discharge Summary, Saint Mary's Hospital, Reno, Nevada, Sept. 6, 1973.

6. Doctors placed me on anticonvulsant and pain medications. But the medications were only mildly successful in preventing seizures and reducing pain. Again, my hospital records are revealing: The patient was first placed on Dilantin and Phenobarbital, but because of repeated seizures after hospitalization and witnessed by the nurses, Mysoline was instituted instead of Phenobarbital. She had some difficulty with headache . . . and this was first treated with Cafergot, then Periactin, and later Percodan, when the former two did not seem to help very much. On one occasion, Mysoline was increased to 375 mg. q.i.d. at which point the patient became quite drowsy and depressed. ....

   [The patient] was discharged with prescriptions for Percodan . . . , Valium, . . . Dilantin, . . . , and Mysoline . . . .

   Valerie A. Leveroni [Corral] Discharge Summary, Saint Mary's Hospital, Reno, Nevada, Sept. 6, 1973.

7. After I tried Mysoline and Dilantin to no avail, doctors prescribed still other anti-epileptic drugs, phenobarbital, and diazepam. But I fared little better with these medications. Each drug, effective in about 75% of persons who suffer from seizure disorders, failed to relieve my symptoms. I continued to suffer as many as three to five grand mal seizures a day. For pain I continued to take Percodan and Valium.
8. These anti-convulsant and pain medications, however, heavily sedated me to the point that I lived in a near vegetative state. My parents described me as Acatatonic. I was rendered wholly dysfunctional. I had to be reminded to eat. I could not think clearly. I did not sleep well. I stumbled through an ever-present drug haze in a futile attempt to control my spasms. I changed medications and tried different dosages, but I continued to be struck by seizures that descended with little warning. The medications also depleted my white blood cells, rendering me vulnerable to viruses with which I came into contact. I constantly battled ordinary colds and flus, often resulting in hospitalization.
9. To make matters worse, I eventually became physically dependent on my medications. I descended ever deeper into a pharmaceutical stupor. I could not work. I could not cross the street by myself. I could not be left unattended, for fear that I would be overtaken by a seizure, or that, in my stupor, I would injure myself. I had a bad habit of walking into oncoming traffic and nearly drowning while taking baths -- all because of my seizure disorder and the prescription drugs used to treat it. My parents, then, after I married, my husband, Michael, were my ever-present caretakers. I had gone from a young woman who had the world at her feet to a prisoner in my own spasmodic body. I lacked freedom, mobility and independence.
10. I lived this way for more than two years. Meanwhile, my husband scoured scientific and medical journals for a sign of some promising new therapy. My life changed forever when he discovered an article discussing the ability of marijuana to control seizures in laboratory animals.
11. I obtained some marijuana and smoked a small amount of it. To my astonishment, my seizure activity diminished. I continued to smoke a little marijuana each day. The seizures stayed away. Whenever I felt an aura (the premonitory sensation that often precedes a seizure), I took a puff of marijuana to control the onset of convulsions.
12. Legally available medicines had failed to control my seizure disorder and had left me debilitated and addicted to prescription drugs. With what little perspective I had left, I convinced myself to stop my failed pill- popping regimen. I told my physician that I could not bear the way I felt, and that I frankly preferred the prospect of suffering a full complement of seizures daily than continuing my medications. Fortunately, my doctor was sympathetic to my efforts to reduce my prescription drugs. He was aware of the dangerous side effects such drugs could cause, and saw those very side effects slowly ruining the quality of my life.
13. At first, I tried to quit my medications cold turkey. But I did not realize just how dependent on them I had become. I immediately suffered a series of seizures. After three days of withdrawals, my husband persuaded me to take a half-dose of Mysoline. Within 30 minutes my symptoms ceased. We then realized I was addicted. We then opted to gradually wean me from prescription drugs. For the next two and one-half years, I slowly decreased my dosages and finally stopped my anti-convulsants altogether. The only medication that I continued to rely on was the single one that would control my seizures and restore a somewhat normal life. That medicine is marijuana.
14. By the end of 1977 I was seizure free and liberated from my drug-induced stupor. Whereas before I had taken up to 15 pills each day, I now only needed a few puffs of marijuana. Whereas before I could barely function, the debilitating side effects of the prescription drugs were now gone. I could do virtually everything that I did before my accident, including driving.
15. From the beginning, I kept my doctor abreast of my progress on medical marijuana, just as I had with my other medications. It was important to me that he have as complete an understanding as possible regarding my medical history so that if my health changed I could look to him -- as I have looked to all of my physicians -- to help me fine tune or otherwise alter my treatment in order to strike the best balance between reducing both seizures and drug-induced side effects.
16. Unfortunately, my physician, who had helped me wean myself from my prescription drug dependency, refused to engage me in a serious dialogue about medical marijuana. His unwillingness to regard marijuana as a medicine made me feel something other than a patient. He treated me as if I were living a lie, engaging in some elaborate self-deception. When my doctor did speak about marijuana, he merely mentioned the sanctions I faced, from the state and federal authorities, for my actions.
17. I grew increasingly uncomfortable with my doctor's reticence. Eventually, I lost trust in his ability to provide me with the best medical care for my seizure disorder.
18. My faith in my physician was completely and irretrievably shattered when I learned that he had never made any notation in my patient chart regarding my medical use of marijuana despite the fact that I had meticulously informed him of this fact for more than a decade. It never occurred to me that as he made copious notes of my symptoms, my prescription medications, and my progress, that my doctor would fail to mention the one medicine that truly worked for me. What if I were suddenly hospitalized? What if I began seizing when out of town? What if I decided to move out of state? What if my doctor left practice or died? Certainly, any other physician who needed to treat me would want to know as much as possible about me, my disorder, and my failed efforts to treat my disorder with conventional therapies. But my doctor deprived such physicians of his intimate knowledge of my health. He deprived them of the ability to assess, for example, whether my use of marijuana masks a neurological symptom attendant to my disorder. In so doing, he jeopardized my future well- being. My doctor's explanation for his dangerous omission: he was trying to protect me from the long arm of the government.
19. I needed a doctor who practiced medicine, not law or politics. Accordingly, I changed doctors. My current doctor is willing to discuss whether marijuana is an appropriate treatment for me, whether smoking is the best way to ingest the medicine, and what constitutes a medically proper grade of marijuana. We have a mutual understanding and trust.
20. Incidentally, since using medical marijuana, I have come to learn that the annals of medicine contain several references to the anticonvulsant quality of marijuana. Medical literature from the 19th century made frequent mention of the use of cannabis preparations for the treatment of seizures. A 1975 case report published in the Journal of The American Medical Association noted the complete control of seizures was achieved with a combination of conventional medication and marijuana. And a 1980 article in Pharmacology reports the successful use of cannabidiol, a constituent of marijuana, in some epileptic patients. Since 1980, articles reporting similar findings have also appeared in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and the American Journal of Epidemiology, among other publications. And the literature is expanding.
21. The government's recent threats against doctors who recommend medical marijuana threaten the special relationship I have cultivated with my physician. My life is difficult enough having to live with a neurological disorder that can disable me at any moment. The stigma attached to epilepsy, much less that attached to a "pot smoker," gnaw at my sense of self and identity. For many years, only my parents and friends knew of the severity of my disorder and the nature of my treatment. The federal government's recent threats, which extend to patients as well as doctors, add to the psychological toll of my illness. I do not relish the thought of a criminal record, nor of being incarcerated. I do not wish to bear the responsibility or guilt for having placed my doctor in harm's way.

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America and the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge, and that this declaration was executed on this 14th day of February, 1997, in Santa Cruz, California.

Valerie A. Corral