SSDP SPEAKER TOUTS CANNABIS BENEFITS

Cliff Village Mayor Describes Being Hit By Train, Treatment

On May 5, 2000, Students for Sensible Drug Policy's guest speaker, Joe
Blundell, was hit by a train, causing severe bodily harm.

"Right where you're waiting for the trains to come, it says, 'mind the
gap.' I didn't mind the gap very well," Blundell said laughing. "When
I woke up, I had lost half my blood and one of the wheels completely
nixed my fingers right off."

The doctor looked at him when he woke up and said, "Son. I have no
idea why you're alive."

"The train literally, physically crushed me," Blundell said. "I was
drug about 70 yards and when the train finally came to a stop, one of
the wheels on the train was resting on the center of my spine."

Workers tried to lift the train off of his body using a crane, but
couldn't lift the train high enough to get him out.

A worker came down and gave him horrific news.

"Eventually a man came down with two big knives and said, 'I'm sorry.
We can't lift the train up enough. We're going to have to stab your
lungs to get you out from under here. Try to let out all your breath.'"

While noting that these are painful experiences, Blundell said the
road to recovery was paved with more pain.

"The pain of being run over by a train and the pain of having my lungs
stabbed pales in comparison to the pain I suffered under the doctor's
opiums," he said.

The "doctor's opiums" is a reference to pharmaceutical drugs which
were made at one time from poppy plants. According to his information,
none of the drugs given are still made of opium.

"It's actually synthesized from coal tar and petroleum," he said, "As
are most pharmaceutical medicines. While suffering under the 'doctor's
opiums,' the side effects are hellish and embarrassing.

"Having your lungs stabbed hurts. Five days without a bowel movement
is the most painful, god-awful experience you can imagine."

The doctors told Blundell that the constipation was a side effect of
the drugs and gave him laxatives to soothe him.

"These are the medicines the doctors have chosen to administer to me
as some sort of humane treatment for my excruciating pain?"

He used the prescriptions for a year and a half before Blundell found
what he describes as a better way.

"On Morphine, Codeine and Demeral, I would lay in bed like a junkie,"
Blundell said. "I would literally get bedsores from how long I would
lay in bed strung out on Morphine."

Since Blundell began using cannabis, he has become more active in his
community. Blundell has become mayor of Cliff Village, where he has
helped pass an ordinance to allow marijuana for medical purposes.

He also started a business designing self-heating and self-cooling
buildings. Information on his building design can be found at
geo-gro.com.

The SSDP's next meeting is 7 p.m. March 18 on the first floor of Spiva
Library.

The meeting is open to the public.