I’ve always been pretty dang healthy, despite the fact that I could stand to lose, oh, 50 lbs. I’ve also never dealt with anything major with myself or any of my kids outside of a few stitches and broken bones. My 17-year-old daughter has been accident prone since she was tiny, so it shouldn’t surprise me that a pretty strong majority of doctor’s visits involve her. Still, chronic pain is a new for our family. She had ankle surgery last month, and her ortho surgeon just diagnosed her with complex regional pain syndrome. As a mom, it’s so hard to see your child suffer and be told that there is really nothing that they can do for her. She is scheduled for physical therapy to retrain her brain that normal nerve stimulation is, well, normal. Still, we’re pulling our hair out trying to find some sort of relief while she heals. She can’t really sleep at all. I wish I could take the pain for her. I would.
I’ve told people a lot of times over this year that ignorance is a luxury that not everyone has. This is hitting home right now as Prop 2 is a huge issue here in Utah – the effort to legalize medical marijuana will be on the ballot in November. When you’ve literally exhausted all options for treatment in both OTC and prescription drugs, and you can’t find help that doesn’t have serious, serious risks, you better believe that I would consider medical marijuana if it was an option at this point. (We’ve already tried CBD which is legal in all states.) My daughter was prescribed hydrocodone after her surgery. She ended up using 3 pills out of 30 during her initial recovery, and then we flushed them. Utah has an opioid addiction epidemic and one of the highest rates of antidepressant use in the country. These drugs are highly, highly addictive and so dangerous that, as a mom, I hesitate to even consider them for my daughter because several months of intense pain is more desirable than a lifetime of addiction of painkillers. But, what do you do when it’s the only way to find relief? I know of people who pick up and move to a different state in order to treat seizure disorders, obtain appropriate relief for cancer treatment or deal with chronic pain issues like my daughter is experiencing. It seems absolutely insane to me not to provide the option for treatment that is not only pretty dang effective but also ridiculously safer than the pharmaceutical alternatives.
I am a pretty conservative mama still, despite how much my perspectives have changed. The proposed law in Utah, from what I understand, allows for extracts, tinctures, oils and edibles but not smoking or whole leaf consumption. I’m not particularly excited to see weed all over mine or your neighborhoods but it is unequivocally safer than the alternatives. I understand that there are risks, but, in my opinion, the benefits outweigh the risks, and I will be voting yes on Proposition 2. When the conditions the THC can treat become more than just theoretical, it just makes sense to provide safer treatment options to people who so desperately need them.
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