For Andrea, the car is her connection to the world. Due to her diverse illnesses, the 55-year-old businesswoman is immunosuppressed and lives with chronic exhaustion (fatigue). Stressful situations, such as hastily changing train platforms, can drain Andrea's batteries in a very short time and weaken them. In addition, their joint pain can make the simplest everyday situations a challenge. For example, her elbow pain prevents her from carrying filled shopping bags.
Thanks to the car, Andrea was able to overcome all these hurdles and thus her everyday life. Until one morning a registered letter from the road traffic office turns her world upside down. In the letter she was informed that she was no longer allowed to drive from now on. Andrea's connection was cut off just like that.
The recipe for this misery: careless handling of Andrea's personal data by the IV and an unprofessional classification of her THC medication, which led to a seemingly arbitrary decision at the road traffic office. But let's start from the beginning:
Be careful, fragile
While telling the story, Andrea has to stop again and again to clear her throat and cough. Because of her inflammatory rheumatic autoimmune disease – her mucous membranes are dry. She also always has a dry mouth and dry eyes. This makes it very sensitive to light. Because of the dry mucous membranes that this disease causes, Andrea's intestines become inflamed very quickly, which has led her to the hospital emergency room several times. Andrea also constantly struggles with stiffness in her joints and muscle cramps. When this occurs, she suddenly begins to limp. So Andrea is always on guard against strong light sources, cold gusts of wind or stressful situations. “I just have to be very careful with my sensitive body,” she says, wrapping her scarf a little tighter around her neck so that it doesn’t freeze and become stiff.
She takes numerous medications so that her body is more resistant to everyday influences. In addition to immunosuppressants, muscle relaxants, antihistamines and cortisone, Andrea takes an alcohol-based THC tincture. She drinks this dissolved in hot cocoa. The drops help her relieve the ongoing inflammation in her body, relieve uncomfortable muscle spasms, and calm her irritable bowel syndrome.
The price for Andrea's freedom
Andrea has arranged her life as best as she can so that she can cope with the symptoms of her illnesses. But a routine IV revision suddenly turned her life upside down. Her case was reassessed and she had to take some tests on her cognitive, physical and mental health. The question also came up as to whether Andrea was fit to drive. In order to prove her competence behind the wheel, she needed a traffic medicine report. For this purpose, Andrea's entire IV file was sent by the insurance company to the road traffic office. Unsecured and unredacted, they made everything visible, including the most meticulous details of Andrea's living situation, her childhood, her professional life - things that are not relevant to the report.
After thoroughly analyzing all of this data, the traffic doctor made the decision to withdraw Andrea's car ticket. The brief explanation was: There was evidence that she was unfit to drive because of taking the THC. “I was blown away,” she says. She had to leave the car at home immediately and her radius was limited to her apartment. Since she had no other choice and is dependent on the car for her everyday life, Andrea stopped taking cannabis therapy. To prove this, she had to give a urine sample to the doctor every month. “I felt like a junkie who had to prove his innocence.” Only when it was proven that she no longer had any THC in her blood was Andrea allowed to drive again under certain conditions.
Since she was no longer able to take THC overnight, the pain and sleep problems were devastating to her mind and body. In order to endure the suffering of muscle cramps, Andrea had to increase the dosage muscle relaxant) “The side effects of it were horrible for me,” Andrea remembers.
Arbitrariness at the road traffic office
Since the new driving order only applies for one year, Andrea was due for a new medical and psychiatric report after 12 months. This was followed by cognitive tests with hemp in the blood. The results are impressive: Andrea's reaction time is higher with THC medication than without it.
After this test result, the traffic doctor gave Andrea the green light to drive a car with THC medication. This is on the condition that the THC dosage is not changed, Andrea only drives when she feels well, she completes regular mental health checks and she also follows other medical instructions.
So far so good – until the next follow-up check was due a year later and new reports were due. “The appointments, prescriptions, tests and reports cost me several thousand francs and a lot of time every time,” says Andrea, perplexed. “I can’t afford it in the long run.”
That's why Andrea is now applying for a long-term permit to drive with THC medication together with Medcan. This is the only way she can shape her life autonomously again, without close controls from the office or endless paper tigers. Andrea ends our conversation appropriately: “My life is severely limited by my illnesses. The car gives me freedom again."
