Our Health is More Important than Prohibition

It’s not easy sometimes, giving up what you believe to be true, particularly when it’s illegal federally and in most states. We fear for our children’s safety, or losing a job, housing, or our parental rights via arrest or incarceration, or just because a nosy neighbor decided to ruin our life one day. We’re drug addicts, afterall. Except that we’re nothing of the sort. And at some point, we’re going to have to take that leap of faith and do what we know is right.

Before we turn to cannabis to heal ourselves, or a family member, some of us get a feeling about cannabis when we decide to investigate what all the fuss is about. We hear from friends that so and so successfully treated their cancer with something called cannabis oil. You can’t buy it, but you can make it, we hear. And then we feel hope, something we may have given up feeling. We search the internet for any information we can find about how others use cannabis to heal. And we feel hope. We talk to our families to see what they think. And we feel hope. Maybe we have to move to a state where it is legal so that our child can have a normal life, and we’ll do that in a heartbeat, in the blink of an eye. Because we can’t shake that feeling that we’re on to something.

Then, we make the decision to take control of our health. In my case, I got my OMMP card and my husband began growing my plants. I was too ill to initially help with the growing, but I did help with the processing as much as I could. I have RA and my hands are fairly damaged. At the time, I was dealing with major swelling as well, so it was difficult at best to do anything. The garden takes months assuming everything goes right the first time. It probably took six months before I had enough to process into medicine. I’d been so ill for thirteen years, and I really thought I would be so forever. A medication change the year before set off a severe flare that lasted over a year. It was during that time when I made the decision to become a cannabis patient. I mean, I was such a mess at that point, what did it matter if I was high. But after two months on cannabis, I had discontinued several of the medications I was taking, and over the next year, I discontinued all but two. Four years later and I’m down to one. And along the way, I went into clinical remission. Of course I had to see that written in my records because my doctor couldn’t be bothered to tell me about it. He’s gone now and I have a new doctor that knows I’m a patient. My first visit was after we legalized, so I felt it was time to be honest about this. She didn’t throw me out of the exam room, so I guess we’re okay.

I was so ill, I honestly thought I wouldn’t survive. All those years on medicine and I was worse than when I was initially diagnosed. How can the government expect anyone, to live with excruciating pain 24/7 for thirteen years, when cannabis can help if not heal? How can it expect parents to watch their children with severe seizures deteriorate before their very eyes, unable to help them when the answer is right in front of them? And why on earth should they have to accept a lesser version of the plant so that they’re not viewed as unfit parents? So what, their precious babies can only get well for a month or two? Because apparently many improve on the CBD oil and then begin to show a return of symptoms that go away again when the preparation doesn’t restrict THC content. No one is getting their kids high. They’re simply saving their lives.

Cannabis is safe. We don’t need to make it palatable by removing the THC compounds to treat our kids. CBD isn’t enough. It’s a blend of the compounds that heals.  We don’t need to fear this plant. It’s not even a matter of legalization, because clearly that means different things to voters than it does to the legislators tasked with its implementation. It’s about truth. It’s time we accepted the fact that, perish the thought, our government sold us down the river on cannabis. They knew it was safe and did more than look the other way when peoples’ lives were ruined by prohibition, they crafted the very laws necessary to keep ruining lives. And now we’re faced with this silly discussion over how much of the cannabis plant to use to heal our kids when nothing else works. This is what upholding a lie reduces parents to, trying to acceptably heal their kids, while their kids continue to suffer. No parent should be faced with this. Any and all forms of cannabis medicine should be available to all of us. Period. Unfortunately, we’re faced with experimentation when we figure out what works best which we wouldn’t have to do if the government would stop lying and end prohibition.

If cannabis provides the answers that medicine can’t, then step out of the way. It’s our health, and we’ll take it from here, thank you very much.