Start Telling the Truth about Cannabis

Whether it’s legalization or CBD only tincture, people sure have some funny ideas about cannabis. The push these days is to make the idea of cannabis as medicine palatable with the introduction of CBD only state legislation. Children suffering from Dravet Syndrome and other seizure disorders appear to do well on cannabis tincture. I understand that parents are concerned over the idea of their kids getting high off the medicine. No one wants that. But here’s the thing. It’s looking like removing or significantly reducing the other compounds, either in the plant itself, or when processing the tincture, isn’t helping some of these kids in the long run. It may be that THC is also necessary for symptom control.

If you give your kids cough syrup, hay fever remedies, or doctor prescribed pain medication, for example, there can be side effects from those drugs. Sometimes kids get sleepy on them. No one freaks out about that. You plan for it..expect it even. For parents to worry about cannabis tincture containing THC is ridiculous. What needs to happen is for everyone to back the hell off and let these kids get well. Parents choose cannabis because nothing else is working. Stop judging them and threatening to take their kids away from them. Leave the parents alone to do what they need to do for their child’s health. The ONLY thing they need to be worried about is their child. For heaven’s sake, we should all be supporting these families. No parent willingly sits by while their child suffers. Some are even relocating to medical cannabis states, which no one should have to do. They leave their extended families, their jobs, their homes in search of an answer for their child. And the last thing they need to worry about is incarceration or something even worse.

Cannabis should be legal. Simple as that. The Obama Administration’s drug policy people, came out the other day and reiterated the same tired old nonsense about cannabis. It was in response to the New York Time’s editorial calling for legalization. The Washington Post responded to the White House remarks with some debunking of their own. It’s not about wishful thinking over science, and they should be embarrassed when they suggest that it is. That ship sailed long ago. Particularly when the government holds the patents it does defining cannabis as medicine. The government prevents research, yet research continues anyway. Recently, a university in Arizona fired a researcher who was researching the effects of cannabis on PTSD sufferers. I can tell you from my own experience, it works well for PTSD. Veterans know this as well. Giving that job back to her would send a message that the lies are stopping and integrity and respect are returning. It’s almost as if the government, both federal and state, is more vested in chaos and illness than peace and health. Otherwise, why would they continue this way? Whose side are they on? Okay, we all know the answer to that one.

The government should set the standard, not further on the lie. Not when people are still being incarcerated, and cities are circumventing their state cannabis laws. Why control behavior this way with something that’s safe? Cigarettes and alcohol clearly are unsafe, but you don’t see those prohibited. Just cannabis. All because someone wanted to make money and someone else didn’t want women to have sex with black jazz musicians..reefer madness and all. Legalization would solve so much. Lives would stop being destroyed through incarceration. People would stop dying from diseases that cannabis appears to cure. Why is that a bad thing? Aren’t we all tired of being manipulated by our government and corporations? Honestly, I was willing to take a back seat to all the other issues our country faces and be patient while legalization progresses, as long as the lies stopped. But after reading their response to the New York Times piece, it’s clear that the lies will continue. The space is being created by more states changing their cannabis laws for Congress and the Obama Administration to “evolve” on this issue. Instead, they’re stuck in the same lie that’s hurting so many.

We can either live in truth, or be governed by it, or haunted by it as my husband says. I know from experience that cannabis is safe. Although I don’t have seizures, I do know first hand how cannabis can heal. Without cannabis, I would still suffer from severe rheumatoid arthritis. The drugs only moved the disease around in the severe range. Nothing more. So it galls me that there’s such push back from the Feds.  Oregon will probably legalize this time. With any luck, we won’t face the same drama Washington is dealing with. Congress needs to pass legislation protecting states with both full and medical legalization. It’s a stopgap measure at best, but it would fix the problems patients face in those states. Federal interference has gone on long enough. It’s time Congress stepped in and did something more than suing/impeaching the President, or Benghazi this or Benghazi that. Instead, we have Michele Bachmann spouting off about the President wanting to experiment on migrant children with ebola. (And yes, the dangling participle was intentional because with her it could mean anything) All while nothing real or important gets done.

We’ve been patient long enough. Admit the lies. Tell the truth. Legalize cannabis and hemp. It’s the right thing to do. It’s going to happen anyway. Don’t worry about making it acceptable or palatable, because that’s completely unnecessary. We need to agree on the premise that cannabis is safe, and begin the conversation from there. Trust me. It will be a far different conversation that we have and the one that’s needed the most.