Matthew Gates 10m 2,546 #cannabis
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
The Case For Recreational Marijuana and Medical Marijuana
A year ago, I wrote on why Colorado was such a great state, which has some of the most gorgeous scenery, to strenuous and fun hiking spots, to some of the greatest museums and historical sites, and even some really wonderful people. Yes, probably some of the most friendliest people in the United States you will ever meet. Most people want to move to California, others to New York and Florida, but I personally wouldn’t mind living in Colorado. You can see city, country, suburban, mountains, and woods all within a few hours drive. What makes Colorado worth mentioning so much, however, is the fact that it was one of the very first states to realize how absurd the fuss was over the cannabis plant. Thus, they decided to legalize and embraced marijuana, or better known for its proper Earth plant name, cannabis.
In legalizing and decriminalizing the cannabis plant, they were able to reduce the crime rate, which was a given, as a majority of arrests are for the possession and distribution of a plant. Aliens, you did read that correctly. Here on Earth, we throw people in jail for life, we destroy lives and families and societies and towns, all for consuming (i.e. smoking, drinking, eating) a naturally occurring plant that grows right here on this planet. Well, don’t all of our resources come from the planet? We take away their lives. We remove them from society and prevent them from being productive taxpayers who contribute to society. We demonize them and we throw them in jail with murderers and rapists. We do not have a separation of a marijuana prison system. We actually throw these people in jail for TOUCHING a plant. Now, I know you aliens reading this are now thinking about leaving the planet because wow: how dumb are we humans for controlling other humans down to the point where they can’t even touch a plant that grows naturally on this planet.
Jeff Sessions of the Department of Justice, who is outdated by over a hundred years, comes to mind, in the fact that while many states were considering legalizing or decriminalizing, here comes this old man who thinks that cannabis is worse than terrorism and murder. Can you believe that? Go hang out with someone who smokes marijuana and tell me how many times they talked about blowing something up to kill a bunch of people, or maybe even just mentioning something about murdering you. Most stoners won’t do that. They might ask you go to get something to eat and then they may even pay for it or suggest you eat something that doesn’t even sound kosher, but it is, in fact, delicious. If we allow Jeff Sessions and that part of government to win, than we lose yet another one of our freedoms. We may as well give up alcohol, cigarettes, and anything that allows us to escape reality for a while, such as video games, the movies, television, and definitely have to give up your favorite foods.
States must take a stand against the United States government, even in the threat of losing finances. If you legalize marijuana/cannabis, you won’t need the federal government to fund your state. Guaranteed. Once you have had a taste of what it is like to have extra money in your budget, you will understand why cannabis is gold, why the world needs it, and what it can do to bring peace to the entire world. Yes, it is that powerful. You may be reading this thinking I am crazy, but so are you for thinking that war is the way of the world, rather than peace.
Colorado is a state that has taken a stand and was the first to realize: “What the **** is wrong with us? Why are we throwing people in jail for smoking a plant? Eating a plant? Drinking a plant? Touching a plant? Selling a plant? Growing a plant?” Not only was Colorado the first state to decriminalize and legalize marijuana, otherwise known as the cannabis plant, but they were one of the FIRST on the entire planet to recognize this. Thus, I must give kudos to the legislators, lawmakers, judges, prison systems, federal officials, and even the police officers (we’ve gotten high together, you know who you are… saw you at that 420 festival and you all were so baked with pink eyes, but you were all cool as hell! Like 12 of you! The coolest police officers ever! How does it feel going after real criminals who break the law legitimately instead of people who are touching a plant? Must be rewarding doing actual real police work! Good job officers! And the crime rate hasn’t risen due to marijuana legalization, because most stoners are not criminals! The same argument can be said that most people who own guns are not criminals!)
About a year ago, I obtained a medical cannabis card prescribed by my doctor. I refuse to get hooked on any prescription drugs, as I do not trust them. I have watched my own parents deteriorate to shadows of their former selves because they trusted their doctors. This is not to say that all doctors are bad, but I do feel that most are misinformed by a medical board for whose rules they are required to abide by and trust in, and for the most part, the well-being of their nature may be well-intended, but the reality of the situation is far different, when all you see is a nation that claims to be at war against drugs, yet at the very same moment, advocates for the prescription drug industry to rake in billions of dollars every year, while spending billions of dollars on advertising and pushing prescription drugs. I will stay away from politics for the sake of this confession.
I suffer from PTSD, extreme anxiety, persistent depressive disorder (with manic depressive episodes as a teenager), mild autism, ADHD, and insomnia. We all have our demons. Now you know mine. I deal with it by having a sense of humor and a huge need to distribute sarcasm to everyone I meet. Without medical cannabis, I can function, but I procrastinate; I have fears of going out into the world; I become more irrational and disoriented; and depression takes complete hold of me; and if I was very anti-social before, I am even more anti-social without. While not the cure, medical cannabis does help subside these symptoms to the point where I am more relaxed, I can sleep better at night (or I can actually get to sleep), my anxiety is not so bad, and hey! I can stand near people and talk to people in real life without wanting to run the other way.
Friends and family of mine have expressed similar stories, including a “release” from constant anger, depression, anxiety, paranoia, bulimia, anorexia, stress, pain, and many other symptoms that help them get on with their day to day lives. Doctors who have embraced cannabis as a form of the medical industry have also noticed mostly positive changes in their patients. There have been a few negative findings, such as cannabis not working at all, or the plant causing side effects in its users, but these side effects were never deadly, and stopped immediately. If you looked at the number of negative effects in ANY prescription drug, including the number of deaths vs. medical cannabis, the results are going to shock you, but I implore you to do this research on your own.
Before medical cannabis was available to me, I would visit Colorado a few times a year just so I could have some relief from my own life, from my own mind, from my own pains and sufferings. Like most people who do not trust doctors, it was my own attempts at self-medicating, and I would pay anything to do it. Picking different strands, but usually just sticking to the edibles, because those are the easiest to carry around without any attention drawn to myself, whether I am calming my anxiety at concerts or just having to go shopping at the grocery store. Recreational cannabis solved my problems. As I stressed before: it is not the cure for anything, but it makes things more tolerable and seem less extreme.
Recreational cannabis and medical cannabis are quite similar, though medical is sometimes stronger in its effects, as there are more powerful strains used within. Nonetheless, the beautiful thing about cannabis was that you could experiment with your own dosage. There is no such thing as dying from an overdose due to cannabis. In rare instances, someone might have a heart attack or stroke, but it was most likely not directly from the cannabis itself. In the worst case in which cannabis was responsible for a death was when it caused a person to fall asleep at the wheel. The same warnings apply to nearly ALL prescription drugs that have clear warning labels, “Do not operate heavy machinery.”
The same can surely be applied to a bottle of Dayquil, Nyquil, or even Tamiflu. You could even apply it to after a Thanksgiving meal: turkey has special properties within it that tend to make us humans more tired, thus it is advised before you leave anywhere after Thanksgiving dinner: you take a nap. If you feel that you took too much cannabis at once, the worst that will happen is that you fall asleep, feel extremely tired for more than your usual sleep, or you get really hungry, happy, sad, etc. There is no real dangers in experimenting with cannabis. However, it is highly advised that you are at least 18 years of age, as cannabis is still a drug, and you are experiencing the effects of the drug in your system. I am not advocating that anyone do drugs. If you are not of the legal age to try drugs, than you should stay away.
In fact, you should stay away from fast food too, because that is a drug. Everything we interact with that we put into our bodies could be considered a drug, as it releases a chemical in our brains that gives us feelings of goodness and euphoria or even tiredness. Anyways, I assume most of my readers are not actually children, so I am sure there is not much to worry about in the cases where parents might feel I am advocating it to their children. Children should be educated on the effects of cannabis the same way they are educated on the effects of cigarettes and alcohol.
Back to our topic: what I am advocating for is the case for cannabis. I am very pro-cannabis because it helps me in my life and I know many people who use it both medically and recreationally in order to deal with their own disorders and problems in their own lives. I could as easily turn to alcohol, but other than taking away pain or sterilizing a wound or tool, there is not much medical purpose for alcohol, yet it remains legal. I must admit that I definitely enjoy a good glass bottle of wine!
Cannabis needs to be legal in order for us to break out of the old world order in which people are thrown in jail and society is kept broken. Not only will we enhance our own value as human beings, but we will increase our chances of better understanding the medicinal purposes of such a valuable plant that has been demonized for far too long. Cannabis has helped many people and continues to help many people with problems beyond their own control, from people with epilepsy to those who have random seizures, to making those with cerebral palsy live with little less pain everyday. The billion dollar corporations that are the prescription drug industry, who put plants considered illegal (opiates) into pill form and then give them to people are doing just the same as someone who would consume the plant without it being in prescription drug form. What they do is legal, but when people have the plant in its natural state: its considered illegal. Is there something wrong with this picture?
And don’t worry, if you are hung up on the fact that its a plant, and you’re okay with taking a pill, cannabis comes in pill form too:
Good old pop and swallow! So pill poppers — no need to smoke it, puff it, or eat it. You can swallow it and let your body do the rest!
Cannabis is a fact of life and it has been here long before humans would give it a name. Thinking people who use it are “druggies” is insane. To try and destroy it is to kill an innocent plant, a plant that was put here to help us, for its medical effects, for its fibers, for its ability to withstand even bugs and rodents. When people embrace cannabis and actually give it a try, they might just realize: maybe the government is lying to keep them in control. In control of what? Who knows? Cannabis is treated like it is the forbidden fruit of knowledge. For if you smoke it or eat it, you definitely start to get in connection more easily with that ancient knowledge that is deep within all of us. Why keep us from ourselves? From learning the truth? From being free to live as human beings?
It reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode, called “The Gift”:
The fight for cannabis is not just a fight for cannabis. It is a fight for your freedom as a human being. It is a fight for all of those who lived and died in the prison system because they touched a plant. This is a fight for human dignity and respect. It is a fight that began in the 1930s, a fight that has been ongoing for almost a hundred years, and a fight that needs to stop. Research reveals that government officials purposely demonized the plant for so long that people actually believe it. So many innocent people have suffered for way too long at the hands of [a] tyrannical government[s] dictating to the people who they were supposed to protect what they can and cannot do, for if you touch a plant, the government refuses your protections, and you are deemed a criminal.
Stand up for your rights as a human being, no matter what state you live in, to at least acknowledge the fact that you have human rights and freedoms, and to be thrown into prison. Stand up against potentially having your life taken away from you and destroyed with no chance of recovering it back, and all of your freedoms taken away is not the fault of the plant, but of the government that told you that your life has no value, because you decided to touch marijuana, cannabis, a plant; that forbidden fruit. Religiously, cannabis falls right in line with the Adam and Eve story, in which a snake gave Eve a fruit (supposedly an apple) from the Tree of Knowledge. Maybe, just maybe, that fruit was actually cannabis.
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