stories

AS AN ASPIRING ZEN MASTER BUDTENDER, I’M TRYING TO mitigate any feelings of rage that might overcome me these days. In traffic, for instance. But there’s one thing that’s really been getting my blood boiling lately—and that’s all the disparaging, inaccurate remarks flung at the medical marijuana world, especially the insults hurled at the patients.

You’ve no doubt heard how the dispensaries are allegedly filled mostly with seemingly healthy  guys between 18 and 30. Critics call it a scam for young stoners to get cheap weed. And we definitely get our share of that demographic.

But it’s not the majority of our business. We also get lots of patients in their 40s, 50, 60s—even 70s. Plenty of females coming to see us as well.

And all those seemingly healthy young guys?

Today’s patients included a guy in his mid-20s who works in the film business as an assistant director. He told me he’s on his feet 14-16 hours a day. When he gets home, everything from his feet on up to his hips is hurting. A little cannabis at night cures his ills.

Another one of those seemingly fit young guys was a former Marine who grew up never smoking pot—unlike almost everyone else in his family. He was the straight arrow who was gonna lead them down the path of righteousness.

Then Reggie (not his real name) blew out his knee during his stint in the Marines. The doctor botched his surgery and Reggie’s jacked up knee eventually led to back and hip problems. He’s never been the same. The chronic pain is bearable—usually—with a dose of medical marijuana. “What else am I gonna do?” Reggie scoffs indignantly. “Get hooked on Vicodin and Xanax and all that crap? No thank you.”

Reggie sounds like a lot of our patients. More and more people are rejecting Big Pharma’s sales pitch—what with all those nasty possible side effects—in favor of medical cannabis. And why not? Countless studies have proven its efficacy. No one’s ever died from a pot overdose. And countries like Holland have proven that pot smoking numbers actually go down in countries where marijuana is legal.

The world is about to find out what happens when one of the biggest states in America legalizes marijuana. Once it’s taxed, regulated and fairly distributed the benefits are bound to be monumental.

Until then, the fight continues. Through a gray, skunky haze of speculation, anticipation and misinformation.

begin again…and again

I TOLD MYSELF I WAS GONNA START BLOGGING AGAIN. IF NOT every day, then at least most days. Too much going on to miss.

I’ll give myself an hour. That’s it. Give myself a start time and an end time—although I reserve the right to go a little over my end time. The point is to do it. Just write. Don’t agonize. Don’t spend too much time organizing your thoughts. Just get it down. As much as possible.

And why get it down?

Because things are happening. In the medical marijuana world. At the dispensary. In my life. And hopefully in my other career endeavors. (But more on that later.)

Today’s hour of writing—50 minutes now, actually—will be devoted to addressing the following response I came across tonight in a brief LA Weekly piece. The article was about an LA Times editorial criticizing the State Assembly Committee on Public Health voting to legalize marijuana. Someone named Michael wrote:

“I applaud the Los Angeles City Council for their patience in putting up with the typical chamber-full bunch of pot heads – all claiming to be cancer patients and aids survivors.

The truth is that the marijuana activists have become boring and predictable. Every time the Council tries to bring some reasonable regulation to this joke of a state law, the usual suspects trot out the same old stories.

We are sick of it, and so is the Council. OK, you’ll get to keep a few of your precious pot shops so you can get high and deaden the pain. But you’re not deadening the pain of a physical ailment; you’re deadening the pain of your pathetic lives. Marijuana makes you feel good, because reality hurts you people.

Los Angeles is not a City of losers, and neither are the City Councilmembers who have pandered to you people for almost 5 years, listening to the same old stories you regurgitate every time it looks like someone’s going to steal your dope.

You want to turn the rest of LA into the same bunch of sorry assed losers that you are by ‘medicating’ all the ‘patients,’ but while you piss your lives away making drug dealers rich while you get high, the rest of LA has finally seen the lie you’ve been selling us. 1,000 pot shops and scarcely a seriously ill ‘patient’ as a customer. The patients are all young people, or old stoners. Most of the pot shops don’t even pretend they’re selling ‘medicine,’ it’s drugs, we know it and we’re stopping it.”

Wow. Harsh. Where to begin?

Michael is clearly an angry man. First of all, to label every medical marijuana user with the “pot head” tag is mean-spirited and inaccurate. Not every person who smokes marijuana is a pothead just like not every person who drinks beer is an alcoholic. Just what is a pothead, anyway? And to accuse people who share their stories and anger at City Hall of pretending to be cancer victims and AIDS survivors—have you no shame, sir? God forbid you ever come down with cancer and need a puff to get your appetite back.

Sorry if the medical marijuana advocates have become “boring and predictable” to you, Mike. Would you prefer a dancing monkey and a 3D power point presentation? Sorry the stories of fighting life-threatening illnesses with a relatively harmless plant are boring you. When you say “we are sick of it,” are you referring to the 23% of registered voters in Los Angeles who disagreed with the 77% who told an independent polling company that they wanted the dispensaries left open and regulated, not shut down and prosecuted?

Michael, your old “anyone who smokes pot is a brain-dead loser” stereotype is as outdated and misanthropic as your opinions. Sure, there are plenty of people who deaden the pain of their loneliness/failure/fear with a steady supply of ganja. (You and your ilk are most likely doing the same with alcohol, pharmaceuticals, nicotine and greed.)

But don’t discount the scores of people who are perfectly functioning members of society—teachers, nurses, parents and professionals of every stripe—who smoke pot medicinally, therapeutically and, yes, even recreationally on a regular basis and they get along just fine. Just like all those casual beer and wine drinkers who never had to go to rehab or an AA meeting.

And do not, by all means, discount the countless people who are legitimately suffering from an ailment that you might not be able to see. Is it so hard to believe that there are a whole bunch of people in this category? Since people like Michael usually like to do most of the talking and very little of the listening, they usually fail to find out minor details. Details like, oh, that the kid you think is just a dumb stoner? He actually nearly died in a car accident a few years ago (not his fault) and now  smokes voter-endorsed, state-sanctioned pot to alleviate the pain he still feels from the broken bones and jacked up insides.

But if Michael says he’s faking it, well…guys like Michael know everything.

And nothing.

“The rest of LA has finally seen the lie you’ve been selling us,” Michael writes.

How’s this for lies?

1000 dispensaries? More like 500, if that. Witch hunt hysteria. Created by politicians and a relatively small number of angry citizens. Enabled by a docile media.

Medical marijuana advocates are making drug dealers rich? Not quite. Get your medicine from us and you’re supporting hardworking farmers and law-abiding entrepreneurs who are still in the red after six months in business.

“1000 pot shops and scarcely a seriously ill patient,” Michael writes. All our customers are young people and old stoners, he claims.

And you know this how?

I’d be interested to hear how Michael arrived at his conclusions. Clearly he’s had a bad experience or two with a pot smoker.

Lighten up, Mike.

Or should I say…light up.