Who am I? Well as a kid that grew up in the Ozarks during the 60s during a time of rotary phones and only a few numbers to dial. A time when we had a black and white tv that got if we were lucky two channels, we chased fireflies at night, played outside till the streetlights came on, and build forts on the vacant lot next door. We also explored the entire sewer system under the town with the prodding instruction of my Uncle. But then again that is a different story. The one I will save for later.
But I grew up in this small little town where we didn't lock our doors or cars, and all the neighborhood kids roamed free. Or at least we thought we were free. The actual reality was that the entire town was watching us and protecting us.
I didn't know people told lies, and I thought if it was in the paper or on television it was absolute truth. Now don't get me wrong I was not quite like my Granny, who would sit and argue with the television when her stories were on because in her mind she thought they were real.
As a teenager, I would be lying if I said I had never been around weed smoking and drinking. The reality is that in small towns there isn't a lot of other things for kids to do. That was a terrible thing for me. Because I was around people I loved and cared for and they were smoking marijuana.
It has been particularly hard because my parents taught me that the Reefer Madness propaganda about it being the Devil's Weed was the absolute truth. So my soul was torn between what I was seeing and those teachings. What was right?
But my life would go in a direction that would take me on a strange epiphany. I suffered an infinite amount of difficulties in a short period. For someone who is Bi-polar, that can be devastating. And for me it was. So as I tried to handle the still fresh wounds of my Mama's death, and fact that my Daddy died not too long after. Those things followed with the house fire that ripped us of nearly everything. And, I had my identity was stolen after that (and the thief had a lot of fun to my name), there were government audits in my company which made me spend every dime of my savings, and the world began to spin.
I went back and forth to my doctor, my psychiatrist, and my cardiologist who sent me deeper into a spiral. The road to treatment led me down the pharmaceutical road of add this to the medications and then add this to that.
The next thing I knew I woke up. It had been eight months, and I didn't remember any of it. I woke to Lynn taking the medications away, and he said things had to stop.
It was so hard, but that was the beginning of a journey that I would have never thought I would take. We moved to California, and I began to meet people treating their medical issues with marijuana.
It was unreal. How could those patients be helped by the one thing I thought was so evil? But I spent time with parents who were treating their autistic children with drops of CBD oil, cancer patients who relied on marijuana so they could eat and take their chemo treatments. Then I got to spend an afternoon with the most remarkable young man. A young man who would change my life.
I first met Mikie, a wonderful boy with the need to be tied to his wheelchair. The straps were the only thing that could contain his shaking body from falling to the ground. He wasn't even able to put two words together to have a conversation. But I was supposed to interview him about his medical treatment.
Sure I had seen what I thought was evidence that marijuana had real medicinal properties but that afternoon my eyes became wide open. This remarkable young man with a beautiful smile sat before me, and I watched as he took two hits off of a joint.
It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Mickie's entire body relaxed right before my eyes. There was no denying it, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not faking it. I watched as that young man relaxed and then we had the most wonderful talk. All because he had taken two hits that relaxed all the muscles and tendons in his body that he struggled with every moment.
Now I was hooked I needed to see more. So I spent time with some of the autistic children and was witness to the effects that two tiny drops of CBD (Cannabinoid oil) had on them. I watched as children that were having hundreds of regular seizures on a weekly basis. Children that because of those seizures were not able to participate in life at all. They didn't play. They didn't talk, they only suffered. Then I watched as those same children became fabulous little people who ran around playing, laughing and being what God intended in a child.
So as my world and my eyes opened to a possibility of good. The right in what I had always seen as evil I began to see that this natural plant. This plant that doesn't have to be altered to help people. This plant was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
So who am I? I am a believer. I am an advocate for the use of medical marijuana. And I am a new person who realizes that not everything taught in the past was the truth.
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