George McMahon is a member of an exceptionally small group of people who can not only smoke marijuana legally but also have it supplied to him by the federal government.

McMahon, 53, is also exceptionally ill and has been sick and in pain for as long as he can remember. With co-author Christopher Largen, McMahon recently wrote a book that chronicles his struggle with a debilitating disease and his ongoing crusade to make medical marijuana available to the masses.

“I don’t want to call it maltreatment [by the doctors],” McMahon, “but that’s basically what it was.”

McMahon said that for a long time he was treated for what the doctors believed was muscle failure, but when none of the treatments worked, the problem remained unidentified. In 1988 he went to a doctor who treated him purely for the pain, spasms, and nausea that he experienced everyday.

Through a series of tests and many hospitalizations, the doctors were able to diagnose McMahon with an extreme case of an infection that attacks the entire body. Along with the infection, McMahon was also diagnosed with chronic tuberculosis, arthritis, and a disease called Male patella.

Even once the doctors understood what was making McMahon so sick, there was little they could do to help him because of a genetic disorder that makes many treatments incompatible with his system.

“I can’t use regular drugs,” McMahon said. “My genetic code is different.”

In an effort to ease McMahon’s pain, a hospital employee offered him a marijuana cigarette taken from a cancer patient. McMahon said the drug caused him to be hungry for the first time in three months. McMahon then went to a doctor and told him that he had been using marijuana and that it worked to help relieve his pain and suppress his nausea so that he could eat.

Under the doctor’s supervision, McMahon began using marijuana regularly and noticed a significant improvement. Without regular use of the drug, McMahon was just as sick as before.

After two years of applying to a special government program, his doctor was finally able to secure McMahon a spot. This little-known government program now sends McMahon 300 pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes per month, allows him to legally smoke the drug in any state, and helps keep him stable enough so that he can speak publicly about his condition.

June Dahl, a professor of pharmacology at the UW School of Medicine, acknowledged the perceived positive effects of medical marijuana.

“There is evidence that the THC in marijuana has some effect on pain, muscle spasms, and nausea,” Dahl said. “People like marijuana because they can smoke it and can choose their own dosage.”

Critics of the movement towards marijuana as a medicine are concerned about the drug’s less-positive side effects, which could include the risk of lung cancer.

“People putting things into their respiratory systems scare me,” Dahl said.

In fact, marijuana has more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than cigarettes, so many feel that the positive effects may be outweighed by the bad.