LEGALIZATION FOR MEDICATION

On Saturday, members of Alabamians for Compassionate Care- -- a group
that supports the use and legalization of medical marijuana -- marched
from Caldwell Park to the fountain at Five Points west.

They were there to support the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care
Act. They expect the bill will be introduced to the state legislature
sometime in March. It is modeled after the laws that are in effect in
14 other states and the District of Columbia, and it would allow
doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients who suffer from seizures,
have chronic pain or have been diagnosed with cancer.

It is beyond reason that people would seek to deny a person medicine
that would help them with their ailment, especially when there is
absolutely no reason for them to do so.

Marijuana has been used as a medicine for centuries. The people of
India have been using ganja (its Indian name) since the 11th century
to treat headaches, muscle spasms, chronic pain and more. Native
Americans used it for mental illness, and it was the staple in most of
their herbal recipes for the cold and flu, childbirth and relaxing
wounded warriors as well as easing their pain. Even Queen Victoria of
England smoked marijuana to lessen the effects of menstrual cramps.

Now I can tell you from personal experience that it works not only for
chronic pain, but also for the other ailments that chronic pain
creates. For 16 years, I have suffered from chronic low back pain,
sciatic nerve pain in my right leg and muscle spasms in my back and
buttocks. The modern medical establishment chooses to treat a
condition like this in one of two ways: first, they will do nothing,
and you just have to deal with the pain, or they put you on narcotic
pain pills like Percocet and strong muscle relaxants like Robaxin or
Valium.

Neither of these is acceptable. The combination of 30 to 40 mg of
Percocet with 3,000 mg of Robaxin causes depression, respiratory
depression, Anaphylactic reaction, allergic reaction, malaise,
asthenia, fatigue, chest pain, fever, hypothermia, thirst, headache,
increased sweating, hypertension, jaundice, nausea, vomiting, amnesia,
confusion, insomnia and seizures.

Now considering that marijuana usually helps more, and your biggest
worry is that you are going to drink a gallon of milk and eat three bags
of Oreos: which would you rather take? Now granted, marijuana has more
side effects than that. According to familydoctor.org, the primary side
effects of marijuana are slowed reaction time, difficulty concentrating,
sleeplessness, anxiety, paranoia, altered time perception, tremors,
nausea, headaches, decreased coordination, breathing problems, increased
appetite and reduced blood flow to the brain.

I think most reasonable people would agree that if you could choose
between the side effects of narcotics and the side effects of
marijuana, pot is the way to go.

Furthermore, with commercially grown marijuana you would be able to
accurately measure the level of cannabinoids. Marijuana high in
cannabinoids, also known as giggle weed, creates a euphoria that can
aid in dealing with the depression and anxiety that so often comes
with chronic pain

When you have chronic pain you have to stay physically strong, you
cannot allow yourself to weaken because chronic pain is one of those
conditions that if you do not fight it, you will succumb to it and
essentially give in. The problem is that when you are in pain you
usually do not want to eat, and this can cause you to deteriorate
physically. That is where the gallon of milk and three bags of Oreos
come in handy.

I cannot personally testify to its affects on seizures and cancer. I
do not suffer from those ailments. However, there are many more
ailments, other than the ones that we have mentioned, that patients
say is helped more by marijuana than by prescription drugs. It helps
conditions such as migraines, digestive diseases such as irritable
bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, fibromyalgia
and dozens more. Recent studies show that it slows the onset of
Alzheimer's disease, reduces the chances of lung cancer and chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease and helps reduce the tremors and muscle
rigidity associated with Parkinson's disease.

So the question is not why should medical marijuana be legal? The
question should be why in the world is it not legal already? Marijuana
is the closest thing out there to a miracle drug because there are few
if any other drugs that can be used to treat so many different ailments.

The problem, like with so many things in society, is that it has been
deemed unacceptable by a small number of the population, so they start
the propaganda machines. They go to the conservative press and church
organizations, and they poison the minds of the public with
half-truths and outright lies. Propaganda such as Reefer Madness,
Assassin of Youth posters and comics and articles in the press by
people like William Randolph Hearst, whose articles claimed smoking
pot caused young black men to commit murder, polluted the minds of the
public in the early 20th century.

The reasons that marijuana should be legal are too many to list, but
we will list a few.

First, there is no reason to for Americans to suffer when there is a
remedy that will help them with their ailment, especially when that
remedy has fewer and less dangerous side effects than the drugs that
doctors prescribe and does a better job. It could be argued that pot
has fewer side effects than Extra Strength Tylenol. There is no
argument that it has fewer side effects than narcotic pain medication,
NSAID's (Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) and high-powered
muscle relaxants.

Second, through the proper legal and regulated growth and sell of
marijuana it can be far less expensive than the cost of the drugs that
it replaces. Marijuana is relatively inexpensive, but if it were grown
legally and treated like a legal drug, the cost of production would
drop. As it is now, the price is inflated due to the risk that people
take and the cost of smuggling.

Third, in a free country there is no reason for it to be illegal to
anyone in the first place. It is one thing to pass laws regarding its
use -- not smoking it in a public place, for example. However, what
someone does in his or her own home that does not harm society is not
society's business.

Fourth, the truth is that there is a big lobby fighting the
legalization of marijuana. Do you think that Budweiser wants Bud to be
legal; do you think Jack Daniels does? No, they sell far more harmful
substances that anyone over the age of 21 can pick up at almost any
convenience or liquor store.

Fifth, we have been fighting and losing a drug war for longer than any
of us can remember, and a large reason that we are losing is
marijuana. If this relatively safe substance were legal, it would
remove more than half of the problem. This would allow the drug
agencies to focus on real drugs like methamphetamines, cocaine and
heroin, and then we could finally make some progress towards taking
these dangerous drugs of the streets.

Sixth, everyone needs an excuse for drinking a gallon of milk and
eating three bags of Oreos.

Finally, for those of you that say it would make it easier for
children to get their hands on marijuana, that is just BS or
stupidity. When I was in high school, it was easier to buy unregulated
marijuana -- I could usually find a bag between the front of the door
of the school and my locker --than it was to buy a regulated bottle of
Jack Daniels. Dope dealers do not check IDs.

The truth is that the war on marijuana is almost over; the stigma is
gone. The lies about it have been largely disproven, and there has
been so much research done on cannabis that the anti-pot establishment
is finding it hard to pass off new lies about it. For that reason, the
legalization of marijuana will happen sometime in the not so distant
future. The question is: should we deny people medical marijuana now
when we know it is eventually going to be legal for all?