My wife, Cynthia Paul, was featured with her personal story in the last Herbage Magazine, which has been well received. You never know when you are that intimate with your story. A lot of people ask me when and how I got interested in cannabis and when I become a patient, so I thought I might add my story to hers.
I was a staunch tee totaler and a hard NO on medical cannabis for most of my life. I bought the patter that cannabis would lead to other drugs and would start an “addiction spiral”. When I was in my 30’s I injured my back while trying to lift way more weight than I should have been trying to lift. I had severe inflammation in my lower discs which caused significant daily pain. Thru my 40’s I treated this pain with almost a daily regimen of tylenol and advil. I sought the help of an orthopedist and also received steroid injections in my back. While all of these things would help, the overall trend was more and more pain. Somewhere in the early 2010’s Cynthia and I had a discussion regarding both or our severe pain. Would we choose to go traditional pain management with opiates or would we try medical cannabis. This was a BIG decision for me. I had alot of fear about becoming “addicted”. We made the decision to try medical cannabis and it worked better than I could have possibly imagined.
When cannabis worked for me for pain, and after a small period of time where I convinced myself I would not become “addicted”, I became a passionate advocate. As I said many times on the campaign trial…”you cannot change the mind of a converted NO on medical cannabis…”. Once you have seen how this plant works, once you have seen the magic, you cannot ever “go back” to the outdated paranoid ideas that were forced on us by government, the medical community, and the research community. “Discernment” a very important word. And once you have learned the facts about medical cannabis, or experience for yourself, you can never again be a NO on the issue.