Letters to the Editor
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Mom's a Medical User?
As a 43-year-old pothead with grown children, I have to say Cary's response was, at best, extremely one-sided.
I have Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, and live in California. I can tell both Cary and the LW all about getting a certificate so one's smoking will be "legal, whatever that means." It means that I live in a state that recognizes the medical validity of cannabis, that a physician has examined me and determined that I have a disease whose symptoms may be helped by cannabis, and am permitted to use it for symptomatic relief under State law.
It also means that I've been able to replace an entire shelf full of prescription medications that are physically addictive, some with high overdose potentials, with one medicine. It means that I am able to remain a human being, rather than an agonized thing with uncontrolled spasticity that means I can't straighten out my legs, neuropathic pain (aka "nerve burn"), wracked by full-body spasms. Nor am I gulping down hands full of benzodiazepenes, anti-convulsants, opiates, and assorted other meds intended to control pain, spasticity, spasm, vertigo, and appetite stimulation (yes, in my case, the munchies are a good thing).
This poor woman's family, biological and otherwise, would apparently prefer to see her "drug free" than pain free (or even addiction-free), and that's got to be one of the saddest things I've ever heard.
Would they stand over her death bed, watching her suffer, and say to themselves "At least she's not a pot-head anymore" -- ?
You were way off base here, Cary. I'm disappointed.