Yes, Ask Your Doc for Weed

 

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.