Yes, Ask Your Doc for Weed
Lately, there’s
been a lot on the news about opiate addiction and what can be done to fix this
problem that has become an epidemic across the US.
The causes are many, but most experts agree that this life crippling addiction
usually starts in the doctor’s office. The ill fated journey starts not in some
shady back alley with a stereo typical pusher slinging balloons of heroin, but
in the “I’ve been to college for at least 8 years and have never heard of the
endocannabanoid system” doctor’s exam room. The
typical story goes a little like this...
Patient breaks a
bone, or has surgery. Patient is given only one option for pain,
pharmaceuticals. There is no mention of medical Cannabis. Patient gets
prescribed opiate pain killers. Patient finds after the script runs out, they
still want the pills. Patient tries for a re-fill, maybe gets it, but sooner or
later the re-fills stop and the now addicted patient has to turn to getting the
pills on the illicit market. Eventually as their tolerance grows, that gets too
expensive, and leads said patient to a far cheaper fix, heroin. The story goes
innumerable directions from here, but more times than not, the tale doesn’t end
well. The amount of time for this devolution depends on the person, and often
patients jump off the downward spiral at various points, but a fair amount end
up loosing everything, living on the streets, overdosing and suicide. The
amount of human capital wasted in the wake of such a disaster is immeasurable.
We all know the stories, and some of us live them.
The solutions
offered by the mainstream are usually limited, but more often than not involve
taking various pharmaceuticals used to manage opiate addiction such as
methadone. The obvious dark, apparently
accepted, irony is big Pharma is getting paid on both ends. They start the
house fire, and then sell the unfortunate home owner the bucket to put it out.
What if there was a way to not start the fire to begin with? Well there is a
way to avoid these all two common stories.
Unfortunately it will take one injury, one surgery, one trip to the
doctor and one turned down pain killing prescription at a time to make the
change. Here’s how we can get started.
At that
inevitable moment at the end of the visit when the doctor pulls out his
prescription pad and thinks back to which pharma rep brought in the best lunch
this week at a pain med sales meeting to write you a prescription, ask him or
her to stop. Maybe say “Instead of pills doc, I’d like to get prescribed
medical cannabis.” You may need to use its more familiar name “marijuana”.
Expect some awkwardness, but it may just start a conversation. And, maybe you
take the prescription just in case you need them, or can’t find any cannabis.
The problem now of course for many Americans is obtaining medical cannabis, but
with a little planning it’s not too hard to find cannabis in the US.
Thankfully, for nearly half the states, medical cannabis is legal, so obtaining
the needed pain killing cannabis might not be that difficult. (Can we just
declassify it already.) A quick YouTube search will reveal some easy ways to
consume the safe, nonaddictive pain medicine. The burden is just getting the
word out that medical cannabis is a safe viable option for most any
pain. Since they are heavily influenced by the
pharmaceutical companies, we won’t be able to count on the medical profession,
the government or the media to stop the deadly opiate addiction disaster going
on in our country right now,
So we have
to spread the word one person at a time.
