Herb Fellow
New Member
Marijuana wafts in and out of Oregon culture like a burning herb would. The sparsely populated hillsides are perfect places for the alternative set to grow and harvest illicit crops year after year. As an Oregonian, I come into contact with the drug peripherally, at music events and the occasional smoky public bathroom, recognizing the familiar smell readily as it lingers and travels like smoke tends to do. As much as I'd like to claim myself super-cool (And I am, I swear! Just ask me!) I haven't smoked the drug in over 25 years. It puts me to sleep- the THC in it does- in about 5 minutes. I never found much use in that, as I sleep quite easily as it is.
So my last puff would have been somewhere in my early twenties, and I have never missed it.
But that isn't to say I don't know about the plant, its users and the war that has been declared by the federal government. Lord knows, Oregon is full of Marijuana proponents passing out flyers and proselytizing for their cause. I like these people, for the most part, and I always take a flyer and give them an ear, if anything to let them know there are straight people (and straight-looking people) who care about what they are passionate about.
My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer not many years ago and went through chemotherapy. The only effective remedy for the nausea she experienced was to make a tea out of Marijuana leaves. A friend of hers had a medical marijuana card (a set of crushed discs and a bleeding stomach eventually led to marijuana as a pain reducer) and the plant was grown legally under California law and the tea was drank under the approval of her physician.
The equation was basically--
Symptom--> Home Grown Marijuana plant--> Relief of symptom
Please observe that the federal government was left out of this basic loop. So too, were the pharmaceuticals who make things like "synthetic marijuana" (so it is effective when it is artificially manufactured, and ineffective and dangerous when it is naturally grown? Huh?) And there, people of all levels of coolness, is the most relevant and crucial point.
The drug companies can't make money on something that grows in your backyard quite easily from a seed, and the folks in the federal government want what is best for the drug companies.
I don't care what your personal views on smoking marijuana are, what I appeal to is your sense of right and wrong. I appeal to your spirit as a free American that should realize your freedom is reliant on the freedom of those around you. I appeal to everyone who knows they will someday get sick, get old, may end up with cancer or suffer under innumerable other ailments where marijuana may ease and comfort you. I appeal to all Americans, to tell the federal government they have no right to play doctor with sick people's lives.
There is an interesting series of You Tube clips floating around the internet. In each clip, candidates are asked about the issue of putting sick people in jail for self-prescribing (or even doctor prescribed) marijuana as a medicinal herb. On the Republican side, there was Ron Paul, once again, steadfast and on his own, ( a doctor of medicine, to state the obvious) declaring the evil insanity of the federal position. And on the other side, well, the rest of the hapless Republicans, telling sick people that they have a study that claims the benefits the sick people are experiencing are all in their minds.
Imagine that.
Someday I may be in much pain due to illness. Maybe I won't be able to sleep? I have worked my back in ways many people can only imagine, and the discs may go on me. When that day arrives, I may look to my backyard for relief. What I too wonder is, will the federal government come and arrest me?
Source: Nolan Chart
Copyright: 2007, Nolan Chart
Contact: Scott from Oregon (Libertarian)
Website: Ron Paul Smokes'em On Marijuana For Sickos
So my last puff would have been somewhere in my early twenties, and I have never missed it.
But that isn't to say I don't know about the plant, its users and the war that has been declared by the federal government. Lord knows, Oregon is full of Marijuana proponents passing out flyers and proselytizing for their cause. I like these people, for the most part, and I always take a flyer and give them an ear, if anything to let them know there are straight people (and straight-looking people) who care about what they are passionate about.
My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer not many years ago and went through chemotherapy. The only effective remedy for the nausea she experienced was to make a tea out of Marijuana leaves. A friend of hers had a medical marijuana card (a set of crushed discs and a bleeding stomach eventually led to marijuana as a pain reducer) and the plant was grown legally under California law and the tea was drank under the approval of her physician.
The equation was basically--
Symptom--> Home Grown Marijuana plant--> Relief of symptom
Please observe that the federal government was left out of this basic loop. So too, were the pharmaceuticals who make things like "synthetic marijuana" (so it is effective when it is artificially manufactured, and ineffective and dangerous when it is naturally grown? Huh?) And there, people of all levels of coolness, is the most relevant and crucial point.
The drug companies can't make money on something that grows in your backyard quite easily from a seed, and the folks in the federal government want what is best for the drug companies.
I don't care what your personal views on smoking marijuana are, what I appeal to is your sense of right and wrong. I appeal to your spirit as a free American that should realize your freedom is reliant on the freedom of those around you. I appeal to everyone who knows they will someday get sick, get old, may end up with cancer or suffer under innumerable other ailments where marijuana may ease and comfort you. I appeal to all Americans, to tell the federal government they have no right to play doctor with sick people's lives.
There is an interesting series of You Tube clips floating around the internet. In each clip, candidates are asked about the issue of putting sick people in jail for self-prescribing (or even doctor prescribed) marijuana as a medicinal herb. On the Republican side, there was Ron Paul, once again, steadfast and on his own, ( a doctor of medicine, to state the obvious) declaring the evil insanity of the federal position. And on the other side, well, the rest of the hapless Republicans, telling sick people that they have a study that claims the benefits the sick people are experiencing are all in their minds.
Imagine that.
Someday I may be in much pain due to illness. Maybe I won't be able to sleep? I have worked my back in ways many people can only imagine, and the discs may go on me. When that day arrives, I may look to my backyard for relief. What I too wonder is, will the federal government come and arrest me?
Source: Nolan Chart
Copyright: 2007, Nolan Chart
Contact: Scott from Oregon (Libertarian)
Website: Ron Paul Smokes'em On Marijuana For Sickos
Yes, this is a great piece, and there are many more where that came from ;-)
