HEY MAN, HAVE COMPASSION FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

What is your town's Compassion Society up to these days?

Euthanizing Canuck fans? Banning boy bands?

Sterilizing mosquitoes? Vice versa?

Compassion Societies are those intrepid organizations that deal in
marijuana for medical use.

Motto: "Hey dude, where's my care?" Or as one client appreciatively
describes "They put the hash in compassion."

In an effort to weed out some of the misconceptions clouding this budding
market, I called the local Compassion Society and was invited to come down
and check out the joint.

Realizing that the location of the society is a well-guarded secret, my
inquiry "How do I get there?" was met with "Use your freakin' car, man."
Knock knock knock.

"Who's there?"

"It's Dr. Dave."

"Dave's not here man."

"No. I'm, Dave."

"Oh hey man, come on in."

Expecting to enter a pad full of tie-dyed, red-eyed, dread locked dudes
lounging about making rude noises with vacuum cleaner hoses sucking away at
their bottom lips (my dog hates it when I do that), I was surprised at how
clinical the office was.

Add some 1956 Time magazines, fuzzy mould, and a few screams of pain and
this could have been my own office.

Each patient at this clinic had a separate chart, complete with a referral
from a doctor. Marijuana is not consumed on the premises.

Local MD's refer patients with illnesses ranging from irritable bowel to
fibromyalgia to multiple sclerosis.

Most of these patients have tried prescription after prescription without
success and have admitted to their doctor that the one thing that seems to
give them some relief is marijuana.

In fact, marijuana has been found to be useful medication for those who suffer:

1. Severe nausea, often associated with chemotherapy

2. Wasting diseases including cancer and AIDS. These folks need the munchies.

3. Spastic conditions secondary to neurological diseases.

4. Chronic pain syndromes including irritable bowel and fibromyalgia. Some
doctors fear recommending marijuana. Aside from the usual concerns of
medication dosages, purity, and interactions, doctors remain somewhat
adverse to yanking out their scrip pad and scribbling "Smoke two of these
and call me in the morning."

As part of the MD job description, we spend no insignificant portion of our
day describing in great detail how a patient will incur assorted horrible
cancers of assorted horrible organs if they continue to smoke.

It's then awfully awkward to instruct the next patient to "burn these
leaves and inhale the smoke deeply into your lungs."

But really recent relevant research has shown that there is, in fact, no
increase in lung cancer from smoking marijuana.

Furthermore, vaporizers allow the active ingredients of marijuana to be
inhaled without actually burning the leaf. (This college dorm invention was
created to prevent telltale odors wafting into the dean's lounge and mixing
with his telltale odors.)

Marijuana, like Valium and Demerol and even cigarettes should not be used
recreationally.

Marijuana can render serious users seriously stupid (hence Pauly Shore).
Marijuana users driving Pontiacs, dental drills, shopping carts or other
dangerous equipment is not what society needs.

However, medical marijuana must be made available to those who suffer and
would benefit from its use.

Competent Compassion societies know how, who and what way to help.

Having got the dope on how this growing operation works I wished these
altruistic cannabis experts good luck in their endeavor to bring relief to
the discomforted.

"Thanks for checking us out doctor. And by the way, could you empty your
pockets on the way out."