RSSFloating A Concret Balloon: my marijuana perspective
May 19
Marijuana? Marijuana? No Comments
An Old Essay
I want to express something in print, just to see what happens… … … Marijuana should be legalized. Gasp! Oh come on people, really? How long are we going to stigmatize this plant? Aren’t we just being a little stubborn at this point? I heard a story the other day about marijuana delivery services in Manhattan. The pot front in the war on drugs was lost a long time ago. Look, Clinton did inhale. I doubt W. passed up a joint in college, and Obama, he admits to doing all kinds of drugs. So why is this still a debate?
I think it’s because of the thoughts you are thinking right now. You are sitting there thinking: this guy’s a pot head or, I wonder if he is stoned right now or, I knew it, he smokes! I know you are curious, but why? Why do you care what I do in the comfort of my own home? Why is that particular drug doused in shame, while Paxil and Zoloft and Xanax and Yaz go directly to work on the brain, the nervous system, and the endochrine system? And why can’t I present a rational argument without being labeled a pothead?
Fine, I’m a pothead. Whatever, here’s the point: there are people out there who are really suffering. Their illnesses are so severe that only medical marijuana gives them relief. How is this worse than taking a muscle relaxant? Is it because they are smoking it? Does this upset a whole other lobby? Well ok, one of our magnanimous pharmaceutical corporations can whip up a marijuana pill, only the active ingredients, and no impurities. Would that be acceptable?
Don’t you see? It’s silly. We are arguing over which drugs are good and which are bad. Drugs are neither. Drugs have no moral stamp on them other than the one we have stamped upon them. They are compounds found naturally on the planet that just happen to alter our body chemistry to alleviate certain discomforts. Some of them have bad effects, so we minimize their use, but we love most of them: in case of headache, take a Tylenol: a painkiller. Is your stomach a little upset, too? We have Pepto-Bismol, Emetrol, and Dramamine: all used to settle down queasiness. And now you can’t sleep, either? The list of sleep aides is long. Marijuana does the job of all three of these medicinal categories.
Case in point: my friend Frank had a backache. He went to his medical doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, a chiropractor, and a massage therapist. He even saw an acupuncturist. Nothing could relieve the tender knot he felt in his lower back.
I worked with Frank in an A&P. He was a meat cutter. His job required him to work in refrigerator temperatures for at least forty hours a week. Some aches and pains were expected, the older butchers told him. Have a shot of Jack Daniels, they advised. So he went to a bar. He had two shots, nothing. He had a third shot and the pain got worse. The alcohol was dehydrating him, he concluded, making the spasm worse. His doctor agreed and wrote another prescription for another round of steroidal muscle relaxer/anti-inflamatory/opiate-esque pain killing drugs. Nothing worked, and the pain kept getting worse.
Finally, after weeks of progressing pain, Frank broke the law, smoked Marijuana, and the pain was gone. He was able to sleep and be at ease for a few hours. When the pain came back he smoked more. His body adjusted quickly. The dazed effect of the marijuana high soon leveled out to a very mild relaxation, but the pain was still alleviated. He was able to do his work better. He was able to drive his car better. As long as he had his medicine every four hours, he was fine, for a little while.
Yes, eventually the pain got more aggressive. Soon he was smoking every three hours. Then he smoked every two. By the time he was down to an hour, the pain was barely being held at bay. In desperation, he went to the emergency room and finally found a good doctor.
The MRI showed a mass on his spine the size of a grapefruit, the biopsy came back malignant: a form of cancer so rare no one knew what to do about it. An expert was flown in. He yanked out the tumor immediately. Within months Frank’s lungs and pelvic bone were overrun with new tumors. He went through two rounds of chemo before he died at thirty-nine.
He called me a few months before he died. He told me that the Catholic saints were coming to him in his dreams. They were telling him not to be afraid. He was calling to convince me to believe in God. He was on his deathbed, worrying about my immortal soul: he was like my older brother. I told him I would try.
I told him to try to haunt me if he could. He laughed and said he was going to hide things from me. I loved him. Then he started crying. He felt so cheated. He had been working toward a retirement he would never see. He had planned to do so many things, someday. Now he had no someday.
As he wept, I asked about his treatment. I asked how he was feeling. He said that after every chemo session he felt like his insides had been clawed bloody. His headaches caused a partial blindness in one eye. He couldn’t keep food down, so he was starving and weak. And in the midst of this agony, of course, sleep was impossible. Then he smoked some pot. All the pain vanished; he ate a small meal, and slept through the night. He did this until the day he died, and he still suffered horribly when his wife couldn’t find a dealer.
You people, who will judge him harshly for taking an illegal drug, should be ashamed of yourselves.
People are in real pain. Legalize it. It’s the sober thing to do.
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