Is there anything this plant can't do?

As more and more legal restrictions are being lifted from the use of marijuana, it’s as if a flood gate has been opened and doctors and medical researchers are making new discoveries every day about the seemingly endless therapeutic potential that this one amazingly versatile plant can provide. Everything from nervous system diseases like epilepsy and fibromyalgia, to immune mediated conditions such as Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis, to mental health and addiction pathologies, and so much more, can in some way be alleviated, managed or sometimes even cured by some preparation of cannabis. What’s even more amazing is that the CBD oil, which is the form of marijuana that does not have a psychotropic effect and literally has no negative side effects nor is it contraindicated with any other medications, is effective against almost every single medical affliction for which medical cannabis is indicated, and realistically, despite how much we already do know about the healing properties of cannabis, we probably haven’t even scratched the surface of it’s potential. It is simply infuriating to think about the fact that for all of these years, our legislators chose to allow countless people, countless children, to suffer needlessly or pass away rather than admit that they were wrong. Their pride and ignorance deprived us, ALL of us, of an invaluable contribution to modern medicine, and although I am grateful that such a grievous error on the part of our “powers that be” is finally being corrected, I will not forgive those who are responsible for making and keeping marijuana illegal nor can anything they do now atone for the ignorant and dangerous game they played with our health in years past. However, if I thought I couldn’t be more angry or frustrated by the thought of people being so careless and untrustworthy with decisions that have such enormous potential to have a serious impact on my health, I did some research on the history of why marijuana was ever outlawed in the first place, and I definitely got even angrier. You’ll understand what I mean from the next paragraph.

Within the ten or so past few years, our country has slowly but surely begun the process of undergoing the revolutionary process of re-evaluating our perspective on the subject of cannabis and what role we want cannabis to play in our society, in our culture, and in our daily lives. And while the issues surrounding marijuana remains (and likely always will) a controversial and polarizing topic politically, the fact that it’s even a discussion at all on the legislative level is a monumental step toward ridding ourselves of the spurious dogma that poisoned the American psyche with disgraceful misinformation for over a century. From as far as anyone who has researched the subject can tell, a very determined, prolific and well-funded anti-marijuana campaign was launched sometime in the early 1900’s, via which millions of flyers, pamphlets, posters, etc. all with some variation of the basic message that marijuana was extremely dangerous for one fabricated reason or another, and the scare tactic (that appeared to the reader to be medically reliable information even though there wasn’t the slightest shred of scientific data to support the claims) was incredibly effective and was highly successful in achieving the desired effect on the public. Thus the great American crusade against the cannabis plant was born and is unfortunately still alive and well and being waged in several states across America today. The fact that this bogus anti-marijuana rubbish was produced and distributed is indisputable, but the question of by whom is a source of great debate. Let’s just say that it is a very popular subject with conspiracy theorists, and they are very passionate about exposing the ugly truth in as visceral a manner as possible. Most of the theories in play all surmise that the campaign originated within the federal government, but there are different ideas as to which official or department was responsible and for what reasons. Many people claim (and there is good reason to believe they are correct) that creating a social stigma around marijuana and marijuana smokers was helpful in furthering a racist agenda, and this was all happening around the height of the Jim Crow era in the south, so that is a highly plausible theory. It certainly wouldn’t be the last time that the federal government used illicit drugs to ostracize and oppress an entire population of citizens whom they considered to be “less desirable” (hint hint The Iran-Contra affair). I have also heard of a theory that implicates the Dupont textile corporation. Dupont had just invented nylon, and they had the ways and means to eliminate all of their competition, which for them at that time was the hemp industry. So, they just gave the federal government a whole lot of money through lobbying (that “incorruptible” practice where corporate giants are able to buy laws to be made that benefit their business) and Dupont collaborated with the federal government to put hemp farmers out of business and the best way to do that was to find the one doctor who (for enough money) would claim that marijuana was dangerous, which then gave the federal government an excuse to make it illegal to grow cannabis plants regardless of the intended use of the plant (which of course they did for the safety and health of the general public). Whatever the real story is behind the original campaign, it was continued, embellished upon, and took on a life of it’s own and was passed on generation after generation resulting in billions of dollars being spent on the never ending war on drugs, the implementation of unfathomably draconian sentences being imposed and hundreds of thousands of people who had years of their lives stolen from them, (mostly poor people of color), and a whole slew of other equally destructive ways that American citizens paid the price in collateral damage.

I suppose that because marijuana had always been illegal during my lifetime, and because I lived in a commonwealth state (which means they can make whatever rules they want), I never thought to question it, let alone consider the ballsy idea that there is no difference between being denied access to medical marijuana than there is with being denied access to any other essential prescription medication, therefore, not allowing patients access to medicinal marijuana is the ethical equivalent of me being denied access to medical care that could potentially either save my life, or that could drastically improve the quality of my life if I suffered from a particularly painful chronic condition. Which then made me realize that if I was suffering from debilitating chronic pain while marijuana was still illegal, that the state would allow a doctor to prescribe me oxycodone, to which i would become physically dependant (and we all know how that’s been working out for the country), but I would be breaking the law and could be incarcerated for using marijuana that would be just as effective and would be a much, much safer alternative than an opioid medication. Now, I’m thinking of these scenarios in a hypothetical sense, but it makes me wonder how many people were faced with this exact dilemma simply because they happened to live and be sick at a time when medical marijuana wasn’t a legal option. So then the question is, how does the legislature make it up to the thousands of people whose lives were ruined by opiate addiction because medical marijuana wasn’t an option for them? Is that concept something that they even recognize or think of? Has it ever occurred to anyone who had any role to play in the prohibition of marijuana that they should feel somewhat accountable for all the damage that was done and all of the good that wasn’t done because of their insistence that marijuana be a Schedule 1 narcotic right alongside heroin? Because I’m damn sure I would feel ashamed and guilty, especially now knowing everything that we know, for having played even a minor part in the criminalization of marijuana. I’ll even go so far as to say that I bet that if medical marijuana had been an option the whole time, we probably wouldn’t even be faced with the opioid crisis that we are now, or at the very least I can guarantee that it would not have been nearly as devastating. Well, it’s at least food for thought in the meantime, and perhaps the contemplation of these questions may motivate us as citizens to pay more attention in the future and not allow lawmakers to make decisions that are bad for our health and happiness.