Big Brother Picks on the Sick and Afflicted

Well, President Barack Obama has lost another supporter—me. While I was ready to extend my vote to him again, he has gone back on his word on the medical marijuana issue.

I am a medical marijuana user. Have been even before Proposition 215 passed. I started out as a recreational user when I was in the Navy. Since then, I've earned two associates degrees and had a successful computer networking business for many years.

Over the years I noticed some interesting things. For starters, my migraine headaches virtually disappeared when I had pot. Being an insomniac, I was finally getting enough sleep. In recent years I noticed that after crashing my motorcycle multiple times (most of these on the race track), my body doesn’t move well after a night’s sleep. I tend to have spasms in my sides and lower back. These symptoms are relieved quite nicely by medical marijuana. Otherwise I would be dropping Vicodin and Flexeryl, both highly addictive.

My mother is 78 years old. Bless her heart. She has rheumatoid arthritis really bad in her hands. She has never used street drugs and for the last six or so years her doctors have prescribed one medication after another, none of them effective. So out of curiosity, I bought her a small vial of a product called “Kind Rub,” an ointment containing medical cannabis. Within five minutes of applying it, her pain was significantly reduced. She immediately made an appointment to become a medical marijuana patient.

When Obama first took office, he made it clear that he would not pursue medical marijuana users or legitimate dispensaries. But now, according to news reports, federal prosecutors have launched new raids on some dispensaries leaving the fate of the industry in question. I went to my club, Arc Healing Center, 885 Julian St., in San Jose, one of the better clubs in town in my humble opinion. I spoke to manager Hector Gonzalez, a man with a lot on his plate at the moment.

The San Jose City Council has drafted ordinances that frankly are draconian, to say the least, if not all together undoable. Most would put all the clubs into an inevitable clash with the DEA. Not only that but they want to reduce the number of clubs to 10. The city has almost a million residents. Poor Hector. He not only has to manage the club, but he's also tied into the effort to get a referendum on the ballot to quash those ordinances.

“It’s an interesting stance the federal government has taken given the current budget problems facing the Obama Administration,” Hector says. “I can't help but wonder what other influences are in play with this new strategy. Why now? Why go after legitimate businesses and displace thousands of workers from legitimate jobs at a time when the country needs more jobs.” And frankly, I agree with him. You have to wonder what Obama is thinking taking this stance. He must know he's alienating millions of people by doing this.

It should be understood that I in no way advocate recreational drug use. While it may provide a temporary escape, the path it leads to is destructive and possibly deadly. I survived but only because I quit. But I also believe that I should be able to use any remedy available to relieve or treat any illnesses I may contract. Acupuncture has been around for 3,000-plus years, but it’s only been recognized recently as an acceptable treatment by the American Medical Association.

The government has no business telling me what treatments are acceptable and which ones aren't, especially since the Army used marijuana tinctures to relieve pain right up through the Civil War. It also outlines the conspiracy that made cannabis illegal and all the research that's been done and found nothing. To quote one National Institute on Drug Abuse official, “never has so much money been spent trying to find something wrong with a drug and found so few results.”

But out of all of this, one question keeps coming up. If the voters of this state passed the medical marijuana law, making it legal, why hasn't the California Attorney General sued the FDA in federal court to show just cause or move marijuana from a schedule-1 drug, (which basically means that there is no definable medical use for the drug) to schedule-2, which would put it on the same level as morphine and other prescription drugs.

Why has the Attorney General chosen to let the DEA arrest and imprison people whose only crime is wanting relief from their pain and suffering? Why doesn't the Attorney General protect those who are simply trying to help those in need? True, there are a few that are in it for the money, and they can't seem to follow the rules. These people are the ones the law should deal with, not the ones trying to do good.