Cannabis potent pharmaceutical with great potential
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I made a new friend last week, well two actually… One is the new puppy that is curled up next to me on the couch, and the other is Dan, the fellow that bred the litter and a really great guy. The nice thing about new friends is the new ideas and attitudes they bring into your life; and the way they sometimes stretch your opinions unexpected ways.
As I visited with Dan over the space of a couple weeks about picking out the pup I got to know him a little better and discovered to my surprise that he has multiple sclerosis and has had the diagnosis for years. You see, we’d been doing what guys often do when knee deep in a swarm of puppies – we were swapping hunting stories and talking about dogs we’ve known, and just generally sharing our love for any excuse to spend more time outdoors in the glory that is Montana. We agreed that a good hunting dog is one of the very best excuses a man can have to justify putting off that home repair for another weekend sometime after hunting season.
Well somewhere in the course of the conversation Dan shared that he only hunts with a bow these days – and that he’d lost his right to carry a firearm. Now if you’re like me, at this point you’ve probably jumped to the erroneous conclusion that Dan is some sort of ex-felon. In fact, the reason Dan doesn’t carry a rifle afield is that he has a medical marijuana card. Dan must have seen the puzzled look on my face when he told me this, so he continued to explain that for years he suffered from bizarre, debilitating and unexplained medical symptoms of MS without knowing what caused the condition. After a radiology technician discovered almost accidentally hints of spinal lesions and suggested he ask his physician to consider testing him for MS, Dan eventually wound up with a medical marijuana card and his neuropathy “cured” to the point that he’s healthy and steady enough with a bow to capture a state archery title. It’s hard to argue with facts like that, and harder still to doubt the character of a man like Dan.
So a new friend has given me a new outlook on the medical marijuana issue. Understand that I’m still completely disgusted by those “pot heads” that feel entitled to a medical use card so they can enjoy recreational use of cannabis under the pretense of treating illusory ailments. The potential for abuse of cannabis and its progression to a lifestyle that condones and then enables the deprivation of other addictive drugs is significant and tragic. I have zero respect for physicians that hand out medical marijuana cards like clowns throwing candy at a hometown parade.
However, as Dan’s situation illuminates, and the situation of many others such as recently recounted here in the Valley Journal, cannabis is a potent pharmaceutical with great potential in managing otherwise incurable medical conditions. Denying people like Dan access to this treatment is wrong-headed and unjustified. Making them a criminal for a legitimate albeit illicit use of cannabis is an even worse situation.
So armed with a new appreciation for the medical marijuana law, I’m voting “yes” on initiative 182 to repeal the three-patient limit. Will there be abuse of this law? I’m sure of it. Should people like Dan have legal access to cannabis? I’m sure of that too. Sometimes issues are not black and white and life leaves us to interpret the grey tones. I guess I’ll have to leave it to the medical profession to police their own in dispensing these cards, and be content that guys like Dan can still draw a bow and hit the bulls-eye.
