I grew up in a sheltered environment in a Long Island middle class suburb in the 1980's. The town I lived in was predominantly white with Christian and Jewish white collar families. It was understood that you went to college right upon graduation to obtain a good professional job, and that pot was bad for you. This was the height of the Nancy Reagan, "Say No to Drugs Campaign ". If someone smoked cigarettes, let alone pot, you were considered a derelict or a "dirt bag ".
My first year of college was the first time I was exposed to pot. One of my hall mates was known as the campus dealer and would invite me in for a hit. I would always pass thinking my brain would explode or I'd turn into Cheech Marion if I got near the stuff. Needless to say, I surrounded myself with like minded people and thought the only exception to my way of thinking was if someone was terminally ill with cancer, even though I did not understand why pain medication would not suffice for them. I was young, altruistic, and naïve.
When I met my wife at the end of 2012, I was at the lowest point in my life. I had three operations related, to cancer and had a mass on the lower left lobe of my horseshoe shaped kidney. Scar tissue covered my abdomen and intestines, which caused me great pain. She opened my eyes to the fact that a doctor had me hooked on Colonipin and helped me get through the painful three week withdrawal from this drug that was not helping me but slowly killing me.
Two months later, I had a third cancer operation where my mass was successfully removed but the scar tissue was not. It was too high risk to do both procedures at once. After seeing me suffer through taking medications for pain and other medications to help offset the side effects of those medications for pain, my wife asked me if I would be opposed to trying marijuana, if it became legal for medical treatment, in order to see if it would help. Of course my old prejudices came back, but after suffering a few weeks more I told her “what do I have to loose”? I decided that I should do some research on the subject as I was afraid of the example it would set for my children, not to mention I didn't want to eat all of the Doritos in Orlando.
After reading and watching many news reports on the topic, I voted for the legalization of medical marijana in the State of Florida in the past election and very disappointed it did not pass with the required number of votes. I was coming to the realization that I would have to try and deal with the FDA approved pill cocktail that my doctors prescribed for me. On Sunday, June 7, I watched a Dateline special on NBC about children and adults who suffer from various horrible debilitating diseases. I saw their families fighting for the right to give thier loved ones medical marijana in their respective States.
It got me thinking, "Why not Florida?" There are 23 States that have approved the use of it for medical purposes, so why not the Sunshine State or the entire country? After all, science is based on facts, or so we were taught in school. The science is the same for the 27 states that have not approved of its use for medical treatment as the ones who did. Many Americans suffer from from illnesses and the aftermath of illnesses like myself, some much more than me. As Thedore Roosevelt said, "In any given moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." Well, legalizing medical marijana for the suffering is the best thing we can do
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