Jlaity
You're quite right. I've been on opioids for 17 years now and I want to get off. For that I'd love to try Medical marijuana. But right now, no one will help. I want to do this under medical supervision, but I'm told if I test positive for marijuana, they won't write prescriptions. Doesn't make any sense. So here I am trying to find a pain specialist willing to work with me. So far no luck.
I had a near death experience, was in the ICU for 5 days with an anurism on my Aorta which caused a large blood clot to form that blocked blood flow to my large and small intestines shutting down my digestive track. Needless to say I was in extreme pain. They put me on intravenous Hydromorphone (Dilaudid) which is one of the strongest opiods you will get in a hospital setting. They gave me a button ... push it as much as you want ... well needless to say I was addicted in about 3 hours.
After 5 days ... ha... they also gave me some heavy duty blood thinners to remove the clot.
It worked the pain slowly got less but I was left with a 6cm anurism in my aorta that has pain to go with it. Feels like someone stabbed me in the back with a hot poker from time to time. Comes and goes. So I got to take home with me a nice supply of opiods which of course I was already addicted to.
As I transitioned from hospital to home with opiods in hand, I started seeing my primary care physician. After 3 months of this my wife handed me some cannabis seeds and told me this is going to work for your issues better than that crap they are giving you now - blood thinners and opiods. She told me I smelled like a dead person walking.
So I started growing my own organic cannabis.
Well it wasn't too long about 6 months into my rehab.. still addicted to opiods and taking them several times a day .. I can tell you I NEVER missed a dose. Probably the only prescription drug I can say that about. One day I called to get my opiod prescription re-filled and the doc said ... Oh no more prescriptions, you risk getting addicted... really? Well we had a knock down drag out argument... pretty much me saying you cant stop this cold turkey... I'm already addicted. You need to give me "something". By that time my first crop of cannabis was finishing. I was close... doc gave me another prescription of another opiod so I was good for a little while.
Finally I just said to my wife this is crazy... I weened off the opiods with cannabis. Only "drug" I take is a baby aspirin every day and of course vape my home grown organic cannabis. Still get that stabbing pain every once in a while, as my 6cm anurism has shrunk down to 2cm the last time I got an MRI.
Good luck waiting for PA or the Feds to do anything positive on the MMJ thing.. and you can thank Nixon and Ray-gun for the war on drugs that caused places like Afghanistan and Columbia to replace cannabis with poppies and Coca plants. Now the USA has a REAL drub problem, heroin/opiod addiction and PA just happens to have one of the highest death rates in the country for heroin/opiod overdose in the country. "There were 4,642 overdose deaths in 2016" and we are on track to exceed that in 2017, the statistics are not in yet.