MARIJUANA EFFECTIVELY DULLS INTENSE PAIN OF NEUROPATHY

I write in response to Catherine Coonrod, an evidently healthy lady
who sees no need of passing a medical cannabis bill when all we have
to do is wait for the Food and Drug Administration to act. Well,
Catherine, we have been waiting since 1939 and still have no answers.
How many more decades are we to wait?

Perhaps Catherine is unaware that the federal government has refused
to allow these studies. Only recently has California begun serious
study of the medical benefit of marijuana. They have found some
amazing things - that marijuana is an excellent anti-cancer agent,
for one. They also found that inhaled marijuana is the best method of
controlling the pain of neuropathy.

Maybe Catherine is unfamiliar with neuropathy. I am not. I live with
it and with the amazing amount of pain that comes with it. There is
no cure; there is no treatment. There are only mind-killing opiates,
milder forms of heroin such as morphine or Fentanyl, both of which I
take. I can't tell you how much I hate these drugs. They steal my life away.

Marijuana works almost instantly, is impossible to overdose on and
the only side effects are pleasant. Unfortunately, instead of
lighting a pipe or turning on a vaporizer when the pain starts
building, I have to start taking morphine and wait the three or four
hours until I've built a high enough concentrate in my system for the
pain to ease off, by which time I am lucky if I can remember my
middle name. I don't live anymore. I just exist and it hurts me that
people like Catherine couldn't care less.

Dennis M. Garland

Chatham