MANCHESTER — The rare form of muscular dystrophy Clayton Holton suffers from has chipped away at his body to the point where he weighs 80 pounds — even though he's 6 feet, 2 inches tall.



Clayton has been in a wheelchair since he was 10. His disease, Duchenne's syndrome, has robbed him of his ability to walk, shriveled his arms to the size and shape of a baseball bat handle, and burrowed a 6-inch crater in the center of his chest.



One thing the disease hasn't eaten away at is his eyes. They're huge, blue, and full.



Holton boarded a plane to California from Manchester-Boston Regional Airport late last monthbecause he refused to die at the Riverside Rest Home in Dover, where the OxyContin he was taking caused him to lose more and more weight; where he'd sit around all day surrounded by people older than his grandparents; where, at 22, he was the youngest nursing home patient in the state of New Hampshire.



He would not die in that situation. He would not waste away to nothing.



Basically, Clayton went to California so he can legally smoke marijuana. He and his doctors say it's the only thing that alleviates his pain.



He doesn't smoke marijuana simply for recreational purposes. He says it takes away the pain in his chest and in his back. It takes away the fatigue from sitting in a wheelchair all day. It relaxes him. It makes him want to eat.



OxyContin doesn't do that for him. The drug, notorious for being abused on the street, takes away his appetite, gives him headaches, drains his energy, changes his personality. When he's on OxyContin, his eyes are red, his skin is white and he lies in bed for hours because he's so tired. He literally can't move. He doesn't want to be around people when he's on OxyContin. He can't eat anything. He's tried other drugs, like Vicodin and Percocet, and says both make him feel the same way.



Tim White, a doctor and medical marijuana advocate, heard about Clayton from Elizabeth Kucinich, the wife of former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. White paid for Clayton to fly to California and arranged for him to stay at a medical facility in Santa Barbara for the next eight months. Clayton plans on being a spokesman for a variety of medical marijuana groups while in California, where the drug is legal for medicinal purposes.



"I can't wait to get out of here. I need to get out of here," Clayton said from the nursing home two days before he left for California. "This is actually happening."



He smiled. So much has gone wrong in Clayton's short life — his parents divorced when he was young, he was hit by a car while crossing the street in his wheelchair when he was 16, he says he and his mother don't speak anymore — that going to California is one thing that's finally gone right.



The California trip was the culmination of a four-month personal campaign he started when he moved to Riverside. Medical marijuana is illegal in New Hampshire, and Clayton wanted to change that. He sent hundreds of e-mails to medical marijuana groups, presidential candidates, and anyone and everyone who he thought could help. He started a MySpace page. He posted videos of himself on YouTube.



He worked with Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana, and a representative drove him around New Hampshire to town hall meetings before the primary so he could ask presidential candidates about their position on medical marijuana. A now-famous clip of him challenging a flustered Mitt Romney was broadcast on CNN and posted on YouTube.



Clayton was supposed to meet with Dennis Kucinich, but the Ohio Congressman had to fly back to Washington the day he was scheduled to stop at the Riverside nursing home. Instead, Clayton got to meet his wife, Elizabeth, a tall, striking Englishwoman with movie-star looks. Clayton talked with her for an hour. It was one of the best days of his life.



Clayton went to the Kucinich campaign's New Year's party, and he has stayed in touch with Elizabeth over the past few weeks.



"She's the one behind all this," Clayton said of the California trip. "She's smart. She cares about people. She's an amazing woman."



At 8:30 a.m. Friday morning, the day Clayton went to the airport, his father, Brian, and his cousin picked him up at Riverside. Clayton was already packed and ready go, and the three of them quickly boarded the elevator. Before the doors shut, a nurse waved goodbye.

"See you later ... for the last time, hopefully," she said.



Brian hates that his son had to go to Riverside, but there was no other option. When Clayton left the home where he had been living, Brian couldn't care for him because his home isn't set up to accommodate Clayton and he has to work all the time to get out of debt.



Brian say he has tried to do the right thing for his son, visiting him at the nursing home and supporting his efforts to legalize medical marijuana. He understands that the drug alleviates his pain, and wishes New Hampshire would legalize it for medicinal use. He's proud that Clayton is moving out to California.



"He's done all this on his own," Brian said at the airport, as Clayton was going through a security checkpoint. "(Going to California) will help him, if anything. It could keep him alive longer."



Brian gave his son a hug and watched as he slowly made his way through the security line. Brian started to talk about what Clayton was like as a young child, before the disease ravaged his body.



"I bought him a three-wheeler. He rode that all the time," Brian said. "He was a normal kid."



He said Clayton's had a tough life, that he's had to deal with too many awful things. He knows that getting on that airplane was the best thing he could've done — that it was the path to a better life. He wants to see his son live as long as he can, as comfortably as he can. He said he's going to furnish his home to accommodate Clayton when he comes back.



Leaning against a railing near the boarding gate, lost in thought, Brian suddenly looked up.



"Do you see Clayton? I think he's gone," he said, scanning the crowd in the restricted area of the gate.



"Yep, he's gone."