Posted on 03/26/2014 4:01:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
PUEBLO WEST, Colo. -- It's 9 a.m. on a weekday, and I'm at the Marisol Therapeutics pot shop. This is serious business. Security is tight. ID checks are frequent. Merchandise is strictly regulated, labeled, wrapped and controlled. The store is clean, bright and safe. The staffers are courteous and professional. Customers of all ages are here.
There's a middle-aged woman at the counter nearby who could be your school librarian. On the opposite end of the dispensary, a slender young soldier in a wheelchair with close-cropped hair, dressed in his fatigues, consults with a clerk. There's a gregarious cowboy and an inquisitive pair of baby boomers looking at edibles. A dude in a hoodie walks in with his backpack.
And then there's my husband and me.
The dispensary is split in two: "recreational" on one side, "medical" on the other. Medical customers must have state-issued cards and doctor's approval. The inventory is not taxed, so prices are lower on that side. On the recreational side, where I'm peering at mysterious jars of prickly green goods, "Smoke on the Water" is thumping from stereo speakers. Yes, there's a massive banner advertising a Tommy Chong appearance, and issues of "High Times" are on display. But the many imposing signs posted on the wall emphatically warn: No smoking, no open drug consumption, and absolutely no entry allowed into the locked lab where the cannabis plants sit under bright lights.
Before I tell you how and why my hubby and I ended up at Marisol Therapeutics, some background about my longtime support of medical marijuana: More than 15 years ago in Seattle, while working at The Seattle Times, I met an extraordinary man who changed my mind about the issue. Ralph Seeley was a Navy nuclear submarine officer, pilot, cellist and lawyer suffering from chordoma, a rare form of bone cancer that starts in the spine. He had undergone several surgeries, including removal of one lung and partial removal of the other, and was confined to a wheelchair.
Chronically nauseous from chemotherapy and radiation, weak from a suppressed appetite, and suffering excruciating pain, Seeley turned to marijuana cigarettes for relief.
Contrary to cultural stereotype, Seeley was far from "wasted." While smoking the drug to reduce his pain, he finished law school -- something he couldn't have done while on far more powerful "mainstream" narcotics, which left him zonked out and vomiting uncontrollably in his hospital bed after chemo. Seeley had the backing of his orthopedic doctor and University of Washington School of Medicine oncologist Dr. Ernest Conrad. He took his plight to the Washington state supreme court, where he asserted a constitutionally protected liberty interest in having his doctor issue a medical pot prescription.
The court rejected Seeley's case for physician-prescribed marijuana, arguing that the government's interest in preserving an "interlocking trellis" of costly and ineffective War on Drug laws trumped his right to individual autonomy and physician treatment. After a decade-long battle with cancer, Seeley died in 1998. But his spirit persevered. Seeley bravely paved the way for medical marijuana laws in nearly two dozen states, including Washington's Initiative 692, approved by voters 10 months after he died, and Colorado's Amendment 20, passed by popular referendum in 2000.
Support for these ballot measures and similar efforts (like the newly enacted Charlee's Law in Utah legalizing medical cannabis oil) transcends political lines. Why? Because cancer, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and other chronic and terminal diseases have no partisan affiliations.
This brings us back to Pueblo. For the past three months, my mother-in-law, Carole, whom I love with all my heart, has battled metastatic melanoma. After a harrowing week of hospitalization and radiation, she's at home now. A miraculous new combination of oral cancer drugs seems to have helped enormously with pain and possibly contained the disease's spread. But Carole's loss of appetite and nausea persist.
A month ago, with encouragement from all of her doctors here in Colorado, she applied for a state-issued medical marijuana card. It still hasn't come through. As a clerk at Marisol Therapeutics told us, there's a huge backlog. But thanks to Amendment 64, the marijuana drug legalization act approved by voters in 2012, we were able to legally and safely circumvent the bureaucratic holdup. "A lot of people are in your same situation," the pot shop staffer told us. "We see it all the time, and we're glad we can help."
Our stash included 10 pre-rolled joints, a "vape pen" and two containers of cheddar cheese-flavored marijuana crackers (they were out of brownies). So far, just one cracker a day is yielding health benefits. Carole is eating better than she has in three months. For us, there's no greater joy than sharing the simple pleasure of gathering in the kitchen for a meal, with Grandma Carole at the head of the table.
Do I worry about the negative costs, abuses and cultural consequences of unbridled recreational pot use? Of course I do. But when you get past all the "Rocky Mountain High" jokes and look past all the cable-news caricatures, the legalized marijuana entrepreneurs here in my adopted home state are just like any other entrepreneurs: securing capital, paying taxes, complying with a thicket of regulations, taking risks and providing goods and services that ordinary people want and need. Including our grateful family.
Same things were said of alcohol. Are you a raging, out of control drunk? You must be because people said legalizing alcohol would turn us all into raging drunks by magic somehow.
Drugs affect brain chemistry which affect thinking and so on. A gun usually isn’t ingested. Well I suppose if you also aim one at your head you’ll get a good chemical redo as well.
Are you suggesting/confessing that you are not to be trusted around pot? Or, is it just everybody else?
I’ve never used it and wouldn’t trust myself with it or any major brain reacting drugs. So it’s for everyone.
As it's obvious you believe in a living Constitution, I could care less what your point is.
So I come by that testimony first hand from a terminally ill person, and I believe him.
I know that at the medical pot stores, a lot of the customers are just using the law as an excuse to get high, but to me, the benefits to my friend Bob make me wish it had been legal for him to get it in my state.
LOL! Reporting the facts is not 'glorification'.
But you've already shown in post #20
She is essentially calling pot a “wonder drug” that makes Mom-in-law’s cancer an almost pleasurable experience
that you can't differentiate between taking a normal experience and making it pleasurable and taking a miserable experience and making it tolerable.
---
The deficit in your perceptive skills is no excuse for slanderous remarks against someone who has done nothing to deserve your bile.
I appreciate that. One of the wisest strengths any person can wield is to recognize what they don't know; to know their own weaknesses.
Undoubtedly; not all of my weaknesses are yours.
It is arrogance to assume that your weaknesses are mine.
There are plenty of legal appetite enhancing drugs. Plenty. The fools (MM included) who buy the leftist lies about smoked or eaten pot being a "medicine" are assisting the left in getting dope legitimized and legalized. Nothing more, nothing less.
The 60's mantra was sex, drugs, rock and roll. 60's leftists have been in charge of our government for decades. What is the result? Sex...homosexual, hetero, no restrictions. Drugs...pot, pharmaceuticals, drug our kids with Ritalin, drug with pot. Rock and Roll...our culture is built around entertainment excess.
Wake up people...this is the end result. This is the end of America.
The tears of drug warrior losers taste wonderful.
“Pot is a tool of the Marxist/Statist enemies of America to enslave the American people.”
Those poor people are smoking COMMUNISM. I’m so sorry to learn that so many of the founders were marxists. It puts that whole commie, leftist 10 Amendment in a different light. Reefer madness was true! /s
Pot has been around for thousands of years as a medicine. No civilization ever fell because of it. Like it or not, the very AMERICAN 10th Amendment reserves authority over its legalisation for the States. If we can rely on individuals to own guns, take perscription meds, drive cars, drink alcohol, et. all, we can handle pot.
Yep pot is a states rights issue. GA is on track to legalize it.
I’m more concerned with other issues like the Federal govt taking over every aspect of my life and the likely impending collapse of the economy.
Like vapor cigarette device but for pot or hash oil
Known today by nicknames like wax or shatter or butter or errl
Concentrated typically higher THC content and smoked in far less volum than say bong hits or a joint from bud leaf
As they say...you just pwned that poster..
.”freeps above his pay grade”
I think the pot Gestapo here are mostly from democrat states and view pot smokers as libs....its more about the smoker and what they typically represent than the drug
I doubt decriminalization makes many more smokers given how most of us have smoked before anyhow
Most folks I know at 56 have smoked at some point and many still do ... responsively
I know a few who abuse it...a minority since most folks I know work
Here in Dixie nearly every pot smoker I know is conservative at best...Randian at worst
One libtard....yes...I claim him as my friend....small talk....no politics
I smoked a lot in my youth...didn’t harm me...I’m very responsible..great work ethic.....financially not too bad up and down but I keep at it...I liked it....if wifey would smoke now and get frisky I’d be all for it on special occasions
I do think decrim beats all out legalization
And those who don’t think it helps with chemo are just plain ignorant of the matter
Like Malkin I saw it in my own family and frankly procured it for them and make no apologies to anyone here....not that id owe it anyhow
I do not drink....don’t care for it......don’t like to be around drunks or any other abuser....loud and don’t listen
I firmly believe pot....not harmless....is far less a detriment to culture than alcohol abuse
No question about it yet this forum is rife with celebration daily about getting snockered on cocktails
Conservatism is about liberty and empirical truth
And that’s the truth about pot....where I live
“Conservatism is about liberty “
Unfortunately, some people who think they are conservatives think it is about control, “Law and Order!”
Most of those calling for it know they are not to be trusted, and project that confession as an accusation.
(you have a beautiful family; my compliments)
Appreciate the ping and the comments. Great home page, and I love the naming of names. There should be a wall of shame associated. Been battling those kind since I started in 98. They are great at thread capture and throwing their internet weight around.
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