Seattle Times: Wednesday, April 9, 1997 

     He made the case for pot 


     by Carol M. Ostrom
     Seattle Times staff reporter

     Ralph Seeley searches for words. 

     Once, he had more than he could use, sharp-edged words that more 
often than not made things happen his way. Now,
     heavy-duty prescription drugs dull his brain along with the pain, 
and the words don't come as easily. 

     For a lawyer, that's frustrating. But after radiation, four rounds 
of chemotherapy and 12 surgeries that resulted in the loss of
     some of his spine, one lung and a part of the other, and several 
nerves in his back, Seeley is learning to be more patient. Ten
     years with cancer can do that. 

     Ten years with cancer also pushed him to court. In Pierce County 
Superior Court in 1995, Seeley argued that he had a right
     under the state constitution - which decrees that government exists 
to "protect and maintain individual rights" - to smoke
     marijuana. 

     Painting a vivid picture of himself lying on the floor after 
chemotherapy treatment, covered in his own vomit and excrement,
     Seeley told the judge that smoking marijuana was the only way he 
could control his nausea and that he had a right to have
     the medicine he needed. 

     The judge agreed with him - stunning Seeley, the state's lawyers and 
observers. Now, the case is in front of the state Supreme
     Court. 

     Meanwhile, Seeley waits. Life now is a sort of waiting game: trying 
to stay alive until someone, somewhere, comes up with a
     cure for his cancer before it kills him. 

     The surgeons' slicing and snipping have taken their toll on his 
body, now a lanky 6 feet twisted into a sort of corkscrew. His
     hair, once bushy, is short and sparse thanks to chemotherapy. The 
surgeons tell him there is no more hope the tumor on his
     spine can be excised. 

     Seeley has never talked to his doctor about his death, about how he 
wants to die. He has been too busy fighting "this damn
     disease." 

     Last week, Seeley was in the hospital, trying a new kind of 
chemotherapy, just approved, with no track record, but he's
     optimistic. Along with pain medication, he brought to the hospital 
his little brass pipe and his stash of marijuana. After the
     court decision, he figures his possession is at least a gray area, 
although he smoked before that, he freely concedes. 

     Hours after he was admitted, his music instructor arrived to give 
him a cello lesson. The rental and lessons were an inspired
     gift from his mother, he says. 

     "Aesthetics is a big part of staying positive, staying out of the 
doldrums with this damn disease. And man, when you get four
     notes in a row just right on a cello. . . . I mean, you practically 
wear the thing, it touches both legs and your chest as well as
     your hands. It's just incredibly beautiful." 

     Now, at 48, Seeley is doing a lot of things that are new for him, 
but then, he has always done that. 

     An Air Force "brat" who joined the Navy, he once tended a nuclear 
power plant on a submarine. Later, he enrolled at
     free-spirited Evergreen State College, and worked as a columnist for 
a couple of Northwest daily newspapers. He backpacked
     and fished for trout, rode horses and flew a plane, and now he's 
learning to walk again after his most recent surgery
     paralyzed a leg. Now the tumor itself is cutting off nerves he needs 
to walk. Most times, he walks with crutches with arm
     braces. 

     In December, he married again. Judith Tuffias Seeley, 51, is as 
tough and intense as her husband and, like him, is a cancer
     survivor, having been diagnosed with breast cancer four months after 
she opened a family-law office in 1995. She had a
     double mastectomy and finished chemotherapy in July. 

     Law-school classmates at the University of Puget Sound's night 
school, where Ralph got his law degree in 1993, Seeley &
     Seeley forged their partnership from a friendship. 

     Judith, like others in Seeley's class, was well aware of this fiery 
man who was quick to include lawyers among those he
     termed "scuzzbuckets" or "sleazeballs." Seeley had enrolled in law 
school after becoming outraged at a case he had written
     about: a day-care operator wrongly sent to prison, he contends, on 
the basis of flimsy testimony bolstered by bad lawyering
     and over-zealous prosecution. 

     By the time he had his first lung surgery, just a few weeks into the 
first semester, Seeley had built a reputation as an
     iconoclast. During his absence, Judith remembers, law-school 
classmates took turns invoking his name in answers to
     questions posed by the professor. "I'd like to make `the Ralph 
Seeley hypothetical,' " someone would say. "It's because the
     lawyers are sleazy." 

     Early last year, Judith and Ralph Seeley moved to a comfortable 
rental house in North Tacoma. Like the lawyers they were,
     they agreed they should look into the tax consequences of marriage. 
But one night, Ralph reordered his priorities. "Ralph
     turned to me and said, `I don't care what the tax consequences are. 
Let's get married.' " 

     Both of them say cancer - his or hers - wasn't an issue. 

     His cancer, chordoma, is a rare bone cancer. When he was diagnosed 
10 years ago, his doctors gave him a 17 percent chance
     of living five years, he recalls. 

     The only time he thought about killing himself, he says, was when 
both the pain of his disease and the stupor of the
     painkilling drugs whacked him. "I'm thinking: If I had to live like 
this, I would rather die. When it's so excruciating, there's no
     sense in living like that." 

     He laughs, a mirthless laugh, when he recalls the jokes people make 
about his smoking marijuana. He gets his from a group
     that supplies the illegal substance to people whose doctors - like 
Seeley's - say they would prescribe it if it were legal. 

     "People think it's fun to be high, and it is, but not all the time 
and not in the wrong places," he begins, his voice breathless
     from his lack of lung power. "It's fun to be high and watch the sun 
go down, and eat good food and make love. But nobody
     wants to be high 24 hours a day. 

     "What people don't understand is that the prayer of the cancer 
patient is, `I just want to be normal.' " 

     That is one big issue with marinol, the synthetic "marijuana pill" 
that doctors can legally prescribe to patients like Seeley. He
     tried it, and quickly found that a queasy patient most often vomits 
up any pill. If one of the $12 pills finally stays down, Seeley
     says, it takes two hours to kick in. Then "it makes you extremely 
high - higher than I've ever been from smoking marijuana,
     higher than I want to be. And it lasts 12 to 14 hours." 

     The next morning, perhaps arguing a case before a judge, he'd still 
be high. 

     Before the pain medication muddled his memory, Seeley was having 
considerable success at civil-rights law, which, he says,
     he learned while working with Tacoma lawyer Neil Hoff and his 
associate, Paul Lindenmuth. 

     Seeley's first jury trial resulted in a $9 million award for his 
client; later reversed by the appeals court, the case is pending
     review in the state Supreme Court. 

     Now he is on leave from Hoff's office. In his one remaining case, 
another lawyer checks his work because of the drugs he
     takes. The drugs include some heavy-duty painkillers that make him 
forgetful and affect his judgment. 

     As a lawyer, he may have taken a turn for the worse. But as a human 
being, Seeley insists, he has improved and is "more
     likable." He says he's slower to become angry or offended, or to 
jump to conclusions. 

     That doesn't mean he has quit referring to those on the official 
Ralph Seeley Wrong Side as "sleazeballs" or worse. And he
     huffs himself into indignation when he considers the "lies and 
misinformation being slung around" about marijuana. 

     Opponents of legalizing marijuana for medical purposes say it's 
addictive, he scoffs. Seeley says he knows what addiction is:
     After only nine days on a narcotic prescription drug, he says, he 
quit and for three days suffered chills and illusions of
     cockroaches climbing his legs. 

     In contrast, he smoked marijuana every day for almost three months 
during one semester of law school. Not only did he make
     the dean's list, he had no symptoms when he quit, he says. 

     On the other side of the issue, Assistant Attorney General Melissa 
Burke-Cain argued to the courts that no scientific evidence
     exists to prove that smoking marijuana helps control nausea; there 
are legal drugs that can do the job. Seeley, she said, has no
     fundamental right to choose which drugs should be legal. And the 
Legislature, she argued, was within the power given it by
     the state constitution to accept the federal classification of 
marijuana as a Schedule I drug, like LSD and heroin, considered to
     have no therapeutic use and a high potential for abuse. 

     If the judges decide for Seeley, doctors would be allowed to write 
prescriptions for marijuana for medical reasons. But in
     California and Arizona, where restrictions on marijuana have been 
relaxed for medical use, the federal government has
     warned doctors that they could be prosecuted, stripped of 
drug-prescribing licenses and barred from Medicare and Medicaid
     programs for prescribing drugs the federal government considers 
illegal, no matter what state laws say. 

     In Seeley's view, the Washington Constitution, with its strong 
protection of individual rights, tips the balance to the patient. 

     When asked by a justice during the September court arguments what 
fundamental right he was advancing, Seeley answered:
     "My right to be free from needless suffering." 

     Now, more than six months later, he's still passionate about the 
subject, and still using marijuana to quell his queasiness. This
     isn't, after all, an academic issue for him. 

     "Tell me," he demands, challenging his invisible adversary, "if I 
don't smoke marijuana, what is the benefit to the state?" Tell
     me, he taunts, "and I'll throw up on myself and will not smoke 
marijuana."