MEET YOUR NEW MEDICAL-MARIJUANA WRITER

As part of the application for this job, the Tucson Weekly asked me to
lay out my vision for this column. With a few shifts and nudges here
and there, this is what I came up with.

Good question, that. This is a cutting-edge area of media you are
getting into. Yes, I ended that sentence with a preposition. I do it
because I talk that way, and so do most folks. So I guess the first
point I come to (quite inadvertently) is that I will make this column
conversational. I have always wanted to write the way I talk, but the
pigfuckers always prevented me.

Vernacular is where it's at, man. Keepin' it real.

So I plan to conversationally tell Southern Arizonans what they might
want to know about marijuana. The science. The medicine. The history.
The culture. The law. The law comes last, but not least. I figure in
many ways and on most levels, this is a legal column.

This is all happening because state laws were created, and federal
laws are being ignored, and because some laws seem less just than
others, and our culture is intersecting with that in a way that leads
to this column. There are lawsuits involved. So it will be a legal
column, to some significant degree.

I have covered the law off and on throughout my career--a few murder
trials, numerous local elections in various states, a big bankruptcy
case and even the careers of Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords.

The mention of politicians brings up politics--yes, it's a political
column, which relates to the law.

And it's a culture column, tinged with counterculture. I am a stoner,
of sorts, and by that, I mean that I am a regular pot-smoker. There. I
said it: I smoke pot, which will negatively skew the opinions of some
who hear it. But I am also successful, award-winning, a college
graduate, a mentor. I am a good friend, if you let me in. If you don't
let me in, fuck you. I have better things to do than involve myself
with haters. C'mon, just let me in.

I am a loyal guy who gives and learns daily. I am an everyday, normal
human being--just like you. But I smoke marijuana, because it makes my
24/7 neckache a little more manageable.

I've suffered from chronic pain for more than 20 years. It started at
age 17 with a sports wipeout from about 10 feet in the air onto the
back of my neck. A motorcycle crash three years later sealed the deal,
leaving me with disk protrusion, stenosis caused by rampant spinal
calcification and, eventually, degenerative disk disease before I
turned 40. Occasional physical therapy ensued--and the intermittent
prescriptions for codeine, Vicodin and ibuprofen. Marijuana is an
effective alternative that doesn't leave me drained.

Which brings me to medical marijuana. Ultimately, this is a
medical-marijuana column, before legalities and culture and politics
and personal insights.

There is a new medical paradigm emerging in the United States (thank
you, Andrew Weil), and we are at the epicenter of it. Southern Arizona
seems to be emerging as a mecca of natural health, and I deeply
appreciate the chance to explore that. No, you don't have to eat
Vicodin or codeine or (insert name of destructive, addictive drug) to
go to work every day. Yes, you can make it through chemotherapy
without drastic weight loss. Yes, you can get relief from inflammatory
bowel disease or migraines or maybe even premenstrual syndrome.

So, perhaps above all else, it's a medical column.

I don't see many filters here, journalistically. The Weekly has
graciously offered to largely take those away via pseudonym.
Brilliant. I have often wanted to delve into Gonzo journalism, to live
life head-first, without a helmet, to immerse myself in it and tell
people about it. Life lives at 1,000 mph, so to speak, so what good is
a helmet?

So this is a chance to delve.

I started this process wondering what the Weekly was looking for with
this medical-marijuana job. But it occurred to me, after tapping away
at a job application for four hours and considering it in some depth,
that the esteemed editors of the Weekly weren't looking for a "what"
at all.

They were looking for a who. I guess that would be me.