When my mother struggled with cancer, her appetite dropped to nothing. Her doctor prescribed her synthetic marijuana to help her appetite. It was a liquid she drank that she said tasted awful.
To say it worked would be an understatement. Within a couple of days she was eating normal amounts and felt hunger for the first time in a week. With the drug, she was able to maintain her weight and strength.
She stayed with me during her treatment but went home to dad some as well. On one of her trips home to dad, she ran out of the medical marijuana and went to a local pharmacy to have the prescription refilled. She said the pharmacist had an odd look on his face and asked if her local doctor prescribed this for her. She explained to him that she was seeing an oncologist in my state.
The pharmacist told her that she needed to go back to my state to get the prescription refilled. We aren’t sure of the details of why the pharmacist didn’t fill the prescription because synthetic marijuana is legal in all U.S. states but pure marijuana for medical purposes is only legal in 28 states.
What struck me as so silly about that was that there are legal forms of drugs that are much more extreme and addictive such as morphine and OxyContin which are medicinal heroin. Marijuana is not even considered to be an addictive drug and the results of using it, even recreationally, are really pretty mild compared to other drugs. So why would my mom’s state allow medical heroin but not medical marijuana?
There are conspiracy theories told by wide-eyed potheads that aren’t worth spreading, but there is one conspiracy-sounding story that seems to be reasonable.
The story says that marijuana can be made into paper more efficiently than trees. And this was discovered back in the early days of logging. For the owners of logging companies, this was terrible news because it meant that companies who developed paper would buy from marijuana growers instead of buying logged trees.
So the wealthy loggers went to politicians and convinced them that marijuana was a drug that was worse than alcohol and made people crazy. Therefore, growing the plant should be illegal. They might have also bribed the politicians. Either way, the story says that the logging companies convinced lawmakers to outlaw their competition.
Then there’s the theory that says it’s because of THC, the mind-altering ingredient in the marijuana plant. It’s what creates the buzz. According to some, the THC is used to expand your mind to levels of enlightenment – spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. Government elites don’t want us peasants to expand our minds, or so goes the theory. I can’t say it makes sense to me.
As best I can tell, the conventional reason is that it’s a mind altering substance that is viewed as a gateway drug. And because it’s been illegal for so long, it seems like it’s chiseled in stone. But in terms of having medicinal value, I can tell you from what I witnessed with my mom, it most certainly is helpful. The United States has other drugs legal for medicinal uses and I think marijuana should make that list.
There are currently 28 states that have legalized medical marijuana and more will follow because it just makes sense.
