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THE SIGNING OFF of the introduction of a medicinal marijuana product, Savitex, in Ireland has been welcomed by Tom Curran, partner of the late Marie Fleming.
Marie had become a household name after taking on, but subsequently losing, a landmark Supreme Court challenge for the right to an assisted suicide.
She had used marijuana to curb the symptoms of her Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
First step
“It’s just the first step but a huge one for those of us who are working for a better life for those with disabilities,” said Curran of the news.
Curran said that he and other campaigners had assumed that, due to the reshuffle, the former Junior Health Minister Alex White would leave the issue for the next person to step into his role.
In fact, it ended up being one of the last duties he undertook before he moved on. “We were delighted,” said Curran.
Illegal drug use
Curran has been among a number of campaigners, including groups such as the MS Society and Cancer Society, raising awareness among government figures on the issue.
“We did our best to stay out of the public limelight in campaigning,” said Curran. “We didn’t want it to be confused with the legalisation of recreational cannabis issue.”
He said that the medicinal marijuana campaign tends to garner “the usual rubbish”, that “one little step is going to lead to a stampede”. This is similar to how the right-to-die campaign has been seen by some, he said.
My opinion on that is as far as legalisation of medicinal cannabis is concerned, we now have the pharmaceutical industry and pharmacists involved in controlling it.
He said that it is the word ‘cannabis’ that naturally makes some people think of the illegal drugs market.
“It’s hard to break that connection,” he said.
Marie’s story
Curran said he knows of people who would like to try medicinal cannabis, “but they are afraid to because of the link to illegal drugs”.
He and Marie “always studied and kept our ears to the ground about what was coming to market” for MS treatment, and noticed that the benefits of cannabis kept cropping up.
Curran bought cannabis for Marie, and said that it had a “miraculous” affect on her.
“I realised that what I was doing was breaking the law,” he said.
I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that I was having to break the law to bring the amount of relief and quality of life that it did give Marie.
His big fear was that he would be caught purchasing the drugs. Eventually, he bought cannabis seeds, but needed to wait until they were in season before he could stop buying drugs.
Marie smoked the cannabis – they tried various ways of administering it and found this the best way – and Curran recalled that “within about less than five minutes of Marie having her cigarette, her whole body started to relax… you could see the pain lines going, the spasms went down to about 20% of what they were”.
None of the prescribed medicines she was taking had that effect, said her partner.
In addition, the benefits were so long-lasting that she required a maximum of two cigarettes a day to give her hours of relief.
Life without Marie
Marie passed away in December of last year, aged 59. Curran spoke about mourning her loss, and the effect it has had on him.
When you’re exposed to the person for 24 hours a day and the closeness is there, it can either bring you closer together or it can drive a wedge between you.In our case we were very lucky – it brought us much closer together.
But with Marie’s passing, Curran also feels as though part of his life has ended. “My whole life revolved around her. There is a complete vacuum,” he said.
He receives much support from their families, particularly his son, and Marie’s son and daughter, who he is conscious have “had a huge loss too”.
What is a big comfort to them is that Marie, a university lecturer, wrote a book which was published after her death.
Although he is sad she did not live to see it published, Curran said it shows a different side to the Marie most people know of – it’s not just the woman seen outside the Supreme Court. It’s “the Marie I fell in love with”.
MS ‘wonder drug’ Fampyra
Another issue on Curran’s agenda is campaigning for the MS drug Fampyra to be available at a reasonable price for MS sufferers.
It was recently withdrawn from the General Medical Scheme because manufacturer Biogen Idec could not justify the prices in order to be refunded.
Curran said that the drug can help some people retain their ability to walk, so being unable to take the drug anymore is “like kicking their crutches”.
“I accept completely that we have a finite amount of money to spend on the health service,” he said, but described the Fampyra decision as “short thinking”.
He explained that the long term effect of taking the drug would mean some people might not need the same amount of help from the State, so it would be an investment by the health service.
An Absolute..great woman
@In the paper: Certainly a woman of contradictions given that she claims to be a suffragette. If she stood for womans rights to vote then she should not have abstained from taking her seat at Westminster. In December 1918 presumably before the GE took place she writes to her sister Eva Gore-Booth signing herself as a member of the IRA. Then in January (after the election) she signs herself as an MP without having any intention of fulfilling her duties as an MP. We do not know if she also wrote to her children while being locked up. Constance Markievicz abandoned her Protestant faith to become a Republican martyr.
@Chris Kirk:
What a load of shyte. There were and are plenty of Protestant republicans.
@Teresa Ryan: I don’t think Chris knows what the Orange stands for in our Country’s flag.
@Chris Kirk: Her faith had nothing to do with what her political beliefs should be, and she was not the only Protestant to stand, a few names come to mind; Wolftone, Lord Edward FItzgerald, Robert Emmet, Bagenal Harvey, C S Parnell, Thomas Davis, SAM MAGUIRE, President Childers, President Hyde etc.
@In the paper: I pass by her former home on leinster rd rathmines. a house of great history. with not even a plaque to mark it. a shame to such a great woman.
@Tom Purcell: Douglas Hyde was also the founder of the Gaelic League.
@Chris Kirk: I don’t know why people convert to Catholicism but I don’t see that it’s anyone’s business but their own. The world is full of Republics, but it isn’t a religion. Also, she and her husband had one child. Why on earth wouldn’t she have written to her, despite the shortage of paper in prison? If that’s a State matter, I suggest you write to the National Museum to check what family members she wrote to.
Countess Markievicz actually broke down in tears and begged for her life after her execution was ordered citing the fact that she was only a woman. Feminist – some joke.
@Adam Reid: what an absolute tool you are. Would you be willing to die for your beliefs? Or would you beg too?
@Jimmy Roughneen: Would you be willing to kill for your beliefs?, is worth asking too.
@Adam Reid: nonsense.She objected to being reprieved on account of her sex and on being told said to her captors “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me ” .Sean O’Casey said of her “One thing she had ,physical courage.With that she was clothed as with a garment”.If you have something which contradicts the accepted history perhaps you could please quote your source ?
@Honeybadger197: Another question would be, Are you willing to murder an unarmed policeman doing his job for your beliefs ?
@David Conroy: beliefs or a sense of right to freedom?
@Anthony newey: just checked the O’Casey quote which was from memory.He actually said “physical courage in abundance”.
@Honeybadger197: no I would not. Personnel beliefs are not worth dying for. I could change my beliefs based on new evidence.
@Adam Reid:
British army propaganda without a grain of truth. I suppose an excuse was needed why they bottled out of executing her
@Hardly Normal: Same difference, killing an unarmed policeman did not deter her and his freedom never crossed her mind either. The more I read in to this woman’s history the more I see another side to her. Her title Markievicz cannot be traced (on her husbands side) to Poland or Russia, it just does not add up !
@Adam Reid: You’re a lying pathetic moron.
She got one over the RIC for the way they treated strikers during the 1913 lockouts dublin. nice one.
@Sean Conway: the RIC was a Irish police force made up of Irish men . He was a just police officer doing a days work . Over 500 of them where murder by republicans . Sometimes in front of their own families .
@Tommy Whelan: Most of them were drunken louts.
Constance Markievicz gave up his life to enable us to eradicate suppression, taxation, eviction, criminality… Never forget
@John Walsh: and it didnt work. Look at lreland today.
@John Walsh: And what have you got now? Double taxation, evictions, homelessness, criminality deluxe with drug Lords running riot and planting pipe bombs and shooting each other. I could go on but I’ll let it be. You have suffered enough.
@John Walsh: And when she died, of appendicitis, she gave all her money to the poor. Best Minister for Labour ever.
@John Walsh: Never forget that she also abandoned her children and denyed her faith in the Church of Ireland to become a martyr.
Countess Markievicz was no armchair commentator. Agree with her or not, she was committed to her beliefs and got busy living. She underlined on her Christmas Card a meaningful phrase from Oft in the Stilly Night.
@Aideen Stanley: Exactly, it was a reference to the Thomas Moore song: “When I remember all
The friends, so link’d together,
I’ve seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one,
Who treads alone…”
FG and FF would have considered her a terrorist if she had led her campaign in the 1970′s. Funny old world.
Not sure she would have approved of the Enniskillen bomb or some of the killing which was sectarian by the IRA….She did believe in democracy and in the 1970′s most nationalists in NI voted for the SDLP who supported the Sunningdale agreement….Opposed by the IRA and the DUP…
@Cal Mooney: She joined FF when it formed.
@John003: Are u saying FF and FG would not have considered her a terrorist. She did take part in an uprising against the state. The IRA also partook in sectarian killings in 1919. So I am not sure what your point is in relation to sectarianism.
@Honeybadger197: she joined it when it was a republican party. Now it’s just a vessel through which brown envelopes buy whatever the elite want passed as law.
@Cal Mooney: Yes true IRA did some sectarian killing in war of independence….Difference is they had a mandate from 1918 election which SF won under DeValera…In 1970′s SDLP won every election and had the mandate….She never trusted DeValera however….
@John003: John .. SF did mot run candidates in 1970, so the SDLP were unopposed for the Nationalist vote. The SDLP also swear allegiance to the Queen. SF will not swear allegiance to the British state. That is why SF have the vast majority of the Nationalist vote today. It was also the same reason SF did so well in the 1918 elections. They too refused to swear allegiance to the crown.
@Honeybadger197: I think she joined every organization in the state as well !
@Cal Mooney: That isn’t exactly true as Sinn Fein were led by Arthur Griffith/Michael Collins at the signing of the Anglo Irish agreement and were not arguing about the crown. They wanted the (Free State) freedom from British government rule. It was Dev who wanted an end to the Crown in Ireland, which kicked off the civil war.
@Chris Kirk: You seem to forget that Michael Collins immediately and covertly started shipping weapons to Republicans in the North after the British handed back control of the South. He understood that the Irish in the North needed to defend themselves. It is not written into too many school books (Again FF/FG/Labour dont want to tell the truth about Collins supporting Guerilla war-fare in the North), but all good history books have it well documented. You and everyone should google the truth about Collins.
Jeez, it’s only February, the Christmas articles are starting early this year.
markievicz spoke about civil rights but didn’t stand by them when elected as an MP. Little wonder modern day Sinn Fein in the north abstain from taking their seats at Westminster, while falsely claiming that they represented the civil rights movement during the troubles. Bernadette Devlin was a civil rights activist and an elected MP who stood by her civil rights beliefs at Westminster, so why didn’t Markievicz do the same.
@Chris Kirk: Chris, that sounds like something a member of the Labour party would say to justify every wrong doing they imposed on the most vulnerable of Irish society. Thankfully the Countess and others didn’t take the approach you advocate, otherwise we would all be singing ‘God save the Queen today at all GAA grounds.
@Cal Mooney: Rubbish you know absolutly nothing about Markievicz, go read up on it for feck sake.
@Chris Kirk: You’re no expert either! She had 1 daughter who was in her late teens when Markievicz was imprisoned. Do you think male soldiers abandoned their families to fight too?
@Chris Kirk:
Because SF were elected on a mandate of Irish independence so they set about gaining that independence.
If by 1918, Irish people wanted home rule they would have voted for the Irish Parliamentary party. The didn’t and flocked to SF.
Maybe she was trying to atone for the appalling treatment that her family had dished out to their impoverished and destitute tennants during the preceding century!
@John Mc Donagh: Do you have any evidence for that statement or are you just trying to say that the Gore-Booths were cruel landlords. Have you ever been to Lissadell House to see where they lived. Do you know anything about her children she abandoned to let her parents look after.
@Chris Kirk: I suggest that you read about the clearance of Balligilligan and yes I really DO know all about the Gore-Booths,treatment of their tenants, they were my ancestors landlords. The memories of their Co Sligo tenants are not very uplifting.
@Chris Kirk: Chris, please stop posting nonsense about her abandoned children. They had one daughter, who was at boarding school in England.
@John Mc Donagh: The rents Sir Henry GB charged were between twelve and fifteen shillings an acre compared to 40 shillings charged by the neighbouring estate. Plus free seaweed, an enormous advantage as it was valuable fertiliser.
@Rob_Kennedy: Yeah, and he cleared the townland of Balligiligan because his wife didn’t like the smell of turf fires —–One of the original Greens I suppose! and your post is just absolute nonsense, he evicted more tenants than any of his contemporaries!!
Sir Henry Gore Booth charged half the rent his fellow estate owners did. Constance didn’t get her charitable instincts off a sore knee. She saw the kindness of her parents to their tenants.
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