Me & Marijuana
By California Mary
I am a 40 year old mom and this is how cannabis has affected my life.
The first time I tried marijuana I was about thirteen and already drinking alcohol at a party. It was the late 1980s and every kid I knew in Sacramento “partied” every single weekend. Already feeling the alcohol, I didn’t feel anything different from the two drags I took off the joint, so I figured that marijuana “didn’t work.” I dismissed it and happily continued my partying with booze. The next time I tried marijuana was about a year later at a friend’s house. I was staying the night and we didn’t have any alcohol. My friend had decided to learn how to roll joints and made a whole pile of them! We smoked one joint, felt nothing and were disappointed yet again. Frustrated but determined, we smoke another. We were only halfway through the joint when all of a sudden, I felt it. It was like being in a waking dream. I was so happy. We laughed SO hard all night! Then we ate. Then we slept. Suffering from dreadful insomnia all my life, the next morning I said to myself, “I can’t believe how easily I was able to get to sleep!” I knew that marijuana was for me, but I wouldn’t have access to it for at least another year.
Going to sleep had been the hardest thing for me to do every night of my entire life. I never would have thought that something I was “partying” with could actually help me. Back when I was a kid, marijuana in California was still completely illegal. It was lumped in with methamphetamines, acid, crack, and heroine. If a person used marijuana, that person was, “on drugs.” As a rebellious teen, I didn’t mind that stigma so much, but as I got into my twenties, I began to resent it completely. It was around the time when my 22 year-old brother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer when medical marijuana started making its debut. Whenever my brother-in-law received his chemotherapy he would get SO sick and nauseated. We were glad to have marijuana to help lift his spirits, ease his pain, and help him to eat so he could stay at a good body weight. An additional benefit we didn’t realize existed back then was that the marijuana was actually helping to stave off the cancer! He lasted eleven years before finally succumbing to the disease and passing away. When he passed, we were thankful for the marijuana to help ease our deep sorrow, help us eat, and remember him with humor.
When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with borderline manic depressive disorder. My emotions can go so extremely high that I can barely stand it and then crash to the very bottom so hard I can barely stand it then, either. I don’t mind the highs, but when I feel like I am going to crash, a couple of puffs of marijuana helps me level out. The drama that the crash would’ve caused, meaning hours upon hours of crying and being sullen, just doesn’t happen. Marijuana stops it. It helps me to realize that I was about to have a huge problem about something that isn’t such a big problem and that isn’t worth getting so upset. I kind of, “snap out of it”, and wonder what the hell my problem was to begin with. I also suffer from migraine attacks that can become micro-seizures. Having some marijuana every day keeps the blood capillaries in my brain from swelling and causing these attacks. If I do end up having an attack, the marijuana takes away a lot of the pain, like the nausea. Because the migraine attacks can trigger an emotional crash, marijuana keeps me in good humor.
Sleeping is very good for you when you have a migraine, and the marijuana definitely helps me relax and go to sleep. I was pleasantly surprised at how many ailments this amazing plant can treat. From depression, to pain, to nausea, insomnia, swelling and cancer; marijuana is the miracle medicine that can treat it all. Some even say it assists in deep-thinking and creativity. Shamans across the world have used marijuana, believing that it helps them to communicate with the spirit world. Otzi, the ten-thousand year old mummy found in the Italian Alps, was said to have had a small pouch of cannabis on him. This may indicate that Otzi was a shaman, perhaps on a “spirit quest” at the time of his death. It definitely indicates proof in the long relationship mankind has had with cannabis for its benefits.
With the legalization of medical marijuana in several states of the United States, it seems like Americans are coming to terms with marijuana and the truth about what it really is; a miracle medicine. Yet some people in America are still trying to fight it and make it illegal, again. To these people, I ask they do research on medical cannabis. I also ask, “Am I to be considered a criminal for using cannabis? Should I be in jail? I have never been in ANY trouble with the law, have never hurt anyone, and do not plan to. Do I belong in jail for wanting relief from my ailments?” Those that say, yes, don’t even know me and yet they are attempting to condemn me. I ask that they open their hearts to others’ needs instead of automatically contending that cannabis is a substance that the people must be “protected” from for our own good.
In addition to this request, I ask that all Americans look again at Vice police departments. What is vice, you ask? Vice, in simple terms, is human weakness. Doesn’t America realize that they have outlawed weakness? Those who are considered weak are punished. And now, these heartless Americans would have those who seek relief by medical cannabis to being considered & treated as criminals for their “weakness” of being in pain. These same Americans would also decide who is in more pain than others. Who has that right? How can a person tell another person that the pain they feel isn’t enough to warrant medicine that would benifit better than any pharmaceutical drug out there? How can some people tell others not to get addicted to medications and drugs, but then say that they MUST use addictive and even destructive, pharmaceutical medications for their pain and ailments?
To these confused, heartless” Americans” I say this: The People have spoken! We want our medical marijuana and our rights to be free from persecution! We WILL NOT be suppressed, anymore! My fellow Americans and cannabis patients, it is time to stand up for ourselves and for those who cannot. It is time to remember what it is to be an American; FREE. We came here to be free to worship as we please, but we should also be free to be medically treated or not, and free of persecution for the choices we make in which do no harm to others!
But what can we do to keep ourselves and our medical cannabis safe from persecution? Get involved! Do what Americans are supposed to do, and VOTE! Protest unfair laws that are attempting to take away not just your rights to medical cannabis, but to ALL OTHER LIBERTIES that you want to enjoy! ACT like Americans and fight for your rights! Make sure
you are registered to vote by going to the Secretary of State website and follow the directions. Then follow the
news. Talk to the workers at your dispensaries about what is going on legally with medical cannabis. They are usually VERY aware of the upcoming laws to be proposed and enacted. Make sure you know the medical cannabis laws so that you don’t inadvertently get into trouble with authorities.
A great website to visit for almost all things medical marijuana is CALNORML.
Did you know that some Californians are trying to pass a law that will criminalize every driver that have cannabinoids in their system? It won’t matter if the impairment caused by medical marijuana is long gone; this law will get cannabis patients a DUI under a “zero-tolerance” standard!
Are you tired of not even being considered for jobs that drug test their employees for cannabinoids even though you have a right to use medical cannabis? Aren’t you SICK AND TIRED of being treated like a PARIAH and a CRIMINAL? THIS IS THE TIME TO FIGHT! Please GET INVOLVED, REGISTER TO VOTE AND VOTE to keep medical marijuana available to anybody who needs it! Don’t wish you had; TAKE ACTION NOW because you never know if and when you or anybody in your family or friends will someday need the benefits of miracle, medical marijuana.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
California NORML.
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