This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on April 24, 2015.
I had post herpatic neuralgia migraines after bells palsy attacks that caused seizures and would cause stroke like symptoms. i could not walk sometimes.one time I had a very severe migaraine for 8 days straight.
I could not even walk or see straight. I was taking all courses of seizure drugs, antidepressants. etc.
I took lyrica and it made me have a grand mal seizure. The ER was tired of seeing me, in Ohio they would only provide chronic pain mangement for a year, so pain management was not available to me.
Anyway, I had promised myself if I had another attack of disabling migraines, I would try it [marijuana]. A loving friend brought me some. My symptoms have subsided as I know the course of PHN lasts only 3 years mostly in younger people.
Please do not publisize my name as I am in the medical profession.
If persons going through what I did could not suffer… I am for it.
I would hope that people quit naming a medical treatment with names like “crazy purple haze”. It adds stupidity to the cause and will further drive a wedge for acceptance of this as a true medical alternative.
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Assuming we cannot move away from the stigma of stoner references, should we abandon medical legalization. Do we need to arrest any one that uses stoner references or has long hair from participating in the industry. Does the corporate version equal more acceptance when this is a war against drugs not the name of the drug. Cannabis is not a drug, what we name it should not matter.
My fav strain is ‘Acapulco Gold’ and that name is not going anywhere.
Okay here is my thoughts. I suffer from fibromyalgia, severe spinal stenosis and arthritis in my back, neck and shoulders. Even though I have x-rays, MRI’s and CT scans I am treated as though I’m a drug seeker looking for pain killers for fun. The pills help but the way they are produced through the chemical companies you never know what’s in them that could really harm you AND they CAN become physically AND mentally addicting just like alcohol and cigarettes. As a matter of fact they, chemical opiates/pain killers, cause your body to lose the natural neurotransmitter dopamine or noripenphrine that helps your body deal with nerve damage and pain so when they take you off the medicine you cannot deal with the pain, I don’t care how strong you think you are, if you’re body is in the kind of condition like mine or worse, like so many others with cancer and I think I counted over 200 different other ailments (cured or relieved by cannabis) it’s debilitating, PAINFUL and you have NO quality of life! A person cannot be on them/pharmaceutical opiates, forever. So, what do we do if the doctors cannot cure the problem and/or the pain? YOU are left to SUFFER and in that horrible suffering lose any form of a normal existence! It’s hell, pure hell! Just trying to do simple things like showering, brushing your teeth, making dinner, or a bed or simply being a parent or a friend, communicating normally without crying or becoming angry and agitated, is impossible and leaves you quite alone and depressed.
After going through all this I sit and think about how the times I was given cannabis and it worked SO WELL for me and every other person I know with some form of awful problem, yet we cannot get it without going to jail or moving to where it’s legal then going through the whole new doctor thing and all that goes along with any of that. In the condition I’m in now I can’t even IMAGINE having to go through a move or anything for that matter to go where I can get it somewhat legally. So too, I sit here and think about how alcohol is legal and it does nothing but cause severe damage to the liver, the brain and all other internal/external organs not to mention it makes MANY people crazy, mean and dangerous to others costing the government and healthcare billions of dollars, then I think about tobacco, god, REALLY? It gives people CANCER!!! And BOTH are legal, sold over the counter!!! 18 to 21yr old’s are able to buy it, parents allow their children to use them! So then I read statistics that pharmaceuticals taken as prescribed are #16 in the top 20 major causes of death and #4 taken incorrectly as many people do, sometimes because they are suffering with alzhiemers or dementia and dementia caused by the drugs they are prescribed! What is wrong with this picture?!?
Then I think about marijuana….this PLANT has been around as a medicine and making useful things for some 6,000 +/- years and our governments in many parts of the world (DEA in America) have made it a schedule 1 drug which is described as follows: Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence. Seriously? And we are supposed to trust and vote for the “experts” that came up with that rating? I find it, as the majority do, quite idiotic, ridiculous, ignorant, embarrassing, dishonest and scary.
Compared to the things I mentioned above at what number in the list of top 20’s has it caused deaths or serious maladies do you think it rates? Right! Not even in the top 100! If you looked deeply into police statistics where marijuana was used in a crime it’s because it was either used with other very dangerous drugs, alcohol or in some illegal transaction involving money/”drug dealing” gone wrong (not saying any illegal drug dealing is right but you get the gist) I don’t know all the statistics off hand but I did investigate and couldn’t believe what I saw! Not only is marijuana an incredible medicine but it has tons of other beneficial uses and still after ALL that proof “they”, the governments, call it a “drug” and makes it illegal to use.
Now lets compare the 3; alcohol, cigarettes and chemical pharmaceuticals they call medicine (of which tons have been taken off the market because they are killing us and law suits are abound since they have not been properly tested long enough to see the long term effects like that little pill some parents allowed their young girls take to keep from getting pregnant, YAZ?) then we have marijuana/cannabis/hemp (I know hemp is different…somewhat) that IS, in TONS of ways beneficial medically, does not cause ANY true and known serious side effects, it is NOT physically addicting, HAS been tested for thousands of years (if they’d just recognize the material gathered), it’s totally natural, it could raise the economy for farmers/growers or the jobless that need to make a legal living, and yes it could be and IS taxed, it would reduce the amount of people in jail that tax payers support and could possibly be a cure for cancer??? HONESTLY? Which one would you chose to be on the self in our stores or in your medicine cabinet? Be honest!
They have even developed a way to break marijuana down to remove the “high” effect for certain types of medical issues yet still we sit with it still almost completely illegal and our jails are filled with people who bought it just for medical reasons or to help them cope with the difficulties and many times the horrors of life here on this planet because some idiot thinks alcohol and truly dangerous chemicals are better to sell legally….I’m sick of it as so many are.
I don’t know if this was even the right place to vent like this but I am truly suffering and I do not want to be dependent on oxycodone or morphine or percocet, tramydol, acteminaphine, xanax, lexapro, trazadone gabba-pentine, meloxicam, fentanyl or any of the things I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life to manage my pain or other issues caused not by my own fault but by cruel people that our government should have put away for a long time or not allowed back on the street to do harm to other innocent people because the jails were too full of pot offenders “they” thought “evidently” more dangerous than the monsters that put me in this condition were. There is just no logic! No rhyme or reason for what is being done/ or not done to us or for medically and I’m only talking about cannabis.
I truly benefited from those few times I used because my family couldn’t stand seeing me suffer and took it upon themselves, putting themselves in great danger of going to jail, lose their jobs, there children and their well being, to get me something harmless but extremely healthy and helpful to end my suffering even for a short while….Thanks for hearing me out.