Ottawa ON – I would rather have one than not, but living with a Medical Marijuana License from Health Canada has been a bit of a nightmare. For my wife and I, it has been a stressful and humiliating experience on more than one occasion. The fact that we have to carry “Special Papers” with us to keep us out of jail because we have medical conditions smacks of segregation.
Okay, so it isn’t exactly The Gaza Strip or Apartheid or the Warsaw Ghetto, but big things like that often start out as little things like this. I had three of my great uncles go to Europe in the 1940’s to try and prevent exactly this sort of totalitarian nonsense from ever coming to our shores, and now look at us.
First, there is living with a debilitating medical condition itself. People who seek a medical marijuana license from Health Canada do not have intermittent back pain or knee aches that keeps them from tossing around the ol’ pig skin with their grandson, or a bit of nausea when they have one too many chili dogs. The people seeking this medical exemption are people living with painful, debilitating, and often life-threatening conditions like MS, arthritis, crohn’s, PTSD, AIDS, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and cancer.
Patients are often made to feel worse when they fail to respond to the “standard” medications, and are often accused of trying to hustle doctors into “a prescription to get high”. The irony being, of course, that anyone who has used pot knows that you can get a lot higher with the pharmaceuticals than you can with pot. If getting high were the motive, there are far easier way to go about it than this.
Then there is the paperwork. My wife and I have been exceedingly lucky in this regard, as our doctors were not reluctant to sign. Many patients have difficulty getting their doctors to sign, but not because of pot. Usually, it is because the doctors don’t want to have anything to do with the unconstitutional federal program, or because their insurance, or the clinic where they practice, or the College Of Physicians, has told them “you are on your own” if they sign.
If you are lucky enough to have a doctor brave enough to sign, the paperwork is fairly easy to figure out. There are a lot of pages to the forms, but each applicant only needs to fill out pertinent parts, not the whole thing.
Then there is the 10-20 – sometimes 30-40 – week wait for the paperwork to be processed. Not only is the Health Canada office ridiculously understaffed, the people sending in their applications often make mistakes by forgetting to sign something, or forgetting to check a box, or forgetting to send photos. This slows the process down.
If you call in and ask for an update or a callback to find out what the status of your application is, and that will slow it down even more. Not as a punishment, as some have accused…. the simple fact of the matter is, it takes time to search through a pile of files, find the one in question, review it, call you back, hope you are actually home when they call, etc. etc. At best, they say it will take 8-10 weeks to process renewals and much longer for new applications.
I am confident that the people in the office are doing the best they can with the work they are handed, but the government could literally hire 100 more people, and it would still take 6-8 weeks to get applications processed. It should only take 4-6 days for something like this, but the government has deliberately understaffed the office in order to let the program fail. They are playing politics with people’s lives, all in an effort to never admit that pot is not dangerous!
Keep in mind that the patient cannot start using or growing without the permit in their hands, so they have to choose between suffering with no medicine for weeks or months, or breaking the law. Imagine the doctor giving you a prescription, you go to the pharmacy, and they say “Have a seat, your order will be ready in 70-80 days.”
Once they get the permit, it can take 20-30 weeks to get the first harvest – and the patient has to wait for that as well. The courts have repeatedly established that it is unconstitutional to place patients in this position, and the government has chosen to ignore those rulings. In fact, many permit holders have been charged with various offenses over the past decade simply because Health Canada couldn’t get their act together.
Personally, I spent three weeks this past July waiting for my permit to arrive. My old one expired on June 28, 2011, and my new one didn’t arrive until July 20. Incidentally, the issue date on my new permit was June 20, 2011 – eight days before the expiry date! It took them a whole month simply to mail the already-completed forms out! THAT is how bad the backlog is!
Last year I broke the law for five weeks, risking arrest, confiscation of my medicine (which would ruin my health), eviction, imprisonment, and – in the case of my epileptic wife – even death. All because Stephen Harper won’t allow the sock puppet Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq to hire enough people to get the paperwork done on time.
Then there is supply. Some people have a designated grower, some people grow themselves. The plant limits are arbitrary and do not reflect the realities of marijuana cultivation, but, naturally, the government has deliberately ignored all the science on this issue, and sided with the police, who demanded limits. As a result, patients and growers are placed in a position which forces illegal and/or dangerous and/or outrageously counterproductive activity.
The regulations also limit how much bud we can store to just a one month supply. So, while any Canadian can buy and store up enough food, booze, medicine, fuel, or ammunition for a year – or a lifetime – we are only allowed to possess enough live-saving medicine for one month’s worth of our daily dose. If we get caught with even a smidgen over our limit, we could lose the right to have a permit at all, ever again.
The problem with this is, if you have a crop loss, then you have no medicine – sometimes for months at a time. So maybe you need to buy some from a compassion club or another grower. Both of these actions are violations of the regulations. Maybe you borrow some from a grower to tide you over, then when your crop comes in – if it comes in – you will owe him that much back. This is, of course, completely not allowed by the regulations, but the circumstances often force patients to make choices like this.
If a grower succeeds and manages to grow more than he is allowed to store, he literally has to throw away perfectly good medicine. Medicine that he paid money and spent a lot of effort to produce, he now must throw in the garbage, or face jail time. He can’t keep it, and he can’t sell it, so what can he do? Not that trashing it really helps much. A man in Quebec was convicted of cultivation with intent because of a bag of wet leaves and branches that he was planning to compost in the spring.
And of course, this is stressful for patients, which is by design of the mad punishment-fetishist, Stephen Harper. Harper is a bully, and bullies like to watch weak people suffer. Stephen Harper, it seems, is doing this because he wants me, my wife, and every other pot user in Canada to suffer and to feel scared. He wants the program to fail because we medical users represent the human rights “foot in the door” towards full-on legalization, and that is why he is punishing us.
I mean, look at his new policy of taking away people’s licenses to grow. Why is he doing this? Because of a few reports of some growers possibly growing more than they were permitted to (by an unconstitutional program). Imagine having your car confiscated by the government because someone in BC may have driven over the speed limit. “For the sake of public safety, all cars are now illegal and all citizens are forced to walk or take public transit.” That would be absurd, but that is what is happening to medical pot users. Harper is issuing some mass-punishment to all medical pot users because he is displeased with the successes we have made so far. Bully to the core.
Cops have told friends of mine “You are only supposed to use it at home.” which is not true at all. According to the regulations, we are allowed to use our medicine anywhere that tobacco is legally being used. That means I can smoke my joint on the sidewalk, in parks, or anywhere outside of designated non-smoking areas, like around building entrances. We cannot use it on the property of a liquor-licensed establishment like a bar or restaurant. But cops and security guards often like to treat us like common street urchins.
Just this past weekend, an LCBO security guard asked me to smoke “across the street” while I waited on the sidewalk for a bus.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qytx1M5qvZY
Then there is the media. When it comes to marijuana, these foppish clowns will regurgitate whatever tripe the police and government feed them. When we point out – with reams of proof – how they are wrong, or lying, or citing debunked science, we get the brush off. For example, the story about pot being “closely associated” with mental illness has been mutated and hyperbolized to the point of absurdity. The study – actually a “mega-study”, or study of lots of other corresponding studies – showed that it was equally as likely that mental illness sufferers were self-medicating with cannabis. Meaning the symptoms brought on the pot use, not the other way around.
How does the media report this? Huge headline with a big smokey joint photo: “Pot Linked To Increased Schizophrenia”. Meanwhile, the stories I keep sending them about recent science showing how pot shrinks tumors and does dozens of good other things, they won’t print. Or they print a small blurb on the back pages.
Even if the reporter is okay and writes a decent story, their editors are usually tired old farts who think pot is a “fringe issue”, so they report it as a “fringe issue”, and the public continues to think of pot as a “fringe issue”. When people like me try to point out that, no, it isn’t a “fringe issue”, it is, in fact, an issue that is intrinsically linked to global crime, civil liberties, government waste and overstepping of authority, racism, poverty, health, the environment, and energy sources, and so on, they just scoff. They have been indoctrinated into thinking pot is bad, period. When confronted with new evidence, they willfully ignore it.
Then there is the public. Media-addled nincompoops who actually want to have their old opinions confirmed rather than possibly learn anything new. I cannot even count the number of conversations I have had with people who flatly refuse to even look at new evidence. They act as if the issue is closed already:
“Pot is illegal because it is bad.”
“No, actually, it is illegal because it is medicine, and here is the science: 20,000 studies done over the course of a century showing pot’s safety and efficacy.”
“Shut up stoner. Go kill your brain cells somewhere else.”
And so on.
They will contradict themselves too: “Pot should be legal to use, but people who grow it and sell it should go to jail.” When I ask them “Where would the pot come from, and how would people get it, if no one is allowed to grow or sell it?” I get blink blink blink.
Remember the days when it was a “commonly held belief” that people of color were a lower species than white people, and therefore incapable of voting and so on? That was just before WW2.
Remember when women were considered too stupid and “emotional” to be allowed to vote, or drive, or own property, or make their own choices about who they could marry, or whether or not they could have sex out of wedlock, or have an abortion, or hold higher positions of authority in society, or get equal pay for equal work? Some of those rights didn’t come about until the 1970’s.
Remember when homosexuals were considered mutants who needed to be treated with electroshock therapy with an aim to “curing” them of their same-sex tendencies? That was the rule as recently as 1965.
During those times, there were people who decried the old ways and demanded newer, fairer treatments for these people. They faced police and bigots and violence and discrimination. They were lied about in public, called perverts and criminals and sinners and ne’er do wells. They had their detractors – racists, sexists, homophobes – who called them people crazy, attacked them physically, and called for their imprisonment and even execution.
Today, while sick people like me fight for the rights of sick people and healthy people alike, we are called all manner of names by the media, the government, the police, and the public. Take the comments forum on this page, for example. The kind of things that are people say about pot users would be actionable if said about many other groups, but because we are just stoners, editors and webmasters and the CRTC and the Press Council and every other authority just lets it go. Why? because we are not people in the eyes of the general public.
The media seems to consider medical marijuana users a novelty, much the same way they regarded “gay rights” and “women’s rights” activists with amusement and incredulity in the early 1970’s. They have, over the nine years that I have been haranguing them, gone from “incredulous” to “respectful”, but they still get so much of it wrong that it is sometimes hard to imagine that they aren’t doing it purposefully. When they use the word “dope”, or put quotes around the word medical when they talk about the issue, they diminish us. They know this, and they do it on purpose. They want to discredit the medical users. Why? Because if they admit that pot is good for “medical” users, then they have a hard time justifying the prohibition that everyone else must obey, so they keep it simple and just discredit us all. Easier for the public to absorb, you see….
Meanwhile, the government calls marijuana a “dangerous narcotic”, yet claims to be committed to giving we sick Canadians quick access to quality medicine. They lie on both counts. Pot is neither dangerous, nor a narcotic. And the government is not committed to helping sick Canadians access clean affordable, potent marijuana… they are keen to build a dozen new jails and fill them with pot growers. They campaigned on a promise – a PROMISE – to build more jails and put more people – specifically pot growers – in those jails for longer periods of time.
The police – The Hired Help – call us liars with comments like “No one needs THAT much pot in a day.”, and so on, as if they somehow know more about medicine and what works for us than we do, or our doctors. They propagandize about our growers, and exaggerate the dangers of pot use to the point that it makes them look absurd in the eyes of even the dullest kids in class.
Trying to medicate in public is always a problem. I usually just smoke a joint, or two, every hour or so when I am out. Every time I do this, I risk being assaulted by an Ottawa cop. I have never had an incident yet, and I have a 50/50 chance of getting the officer who is polite about it… But most likely I will encounter the Red-Bull-Charged lunkhead who thinks I am some sort of cartel operative, and that he is the swift and brutal hand of justice, saving the community from a truly perilous fate. It is just a matter of time, really, before some cop cripples me by kneeling on my head for the terrible, society-endangering action of smoking a joint on a park bench… which is why I tend to stay home a lot and have only been outdoors once after dark since December of 2010.
My choices are, a) smoke as needed and risk violence, arrest, and/or hassle from the public, b) refrain from medicating in public, suffer, and keep my excursions short, or c) stay home. What would you do? I have a sick wife who I cannot leave alone at home. I have errands to run, and have to bring her with me.
Here is a video from this past weekend of a security guard at the LCBO asking me to smoke “across the street”.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qytx1M5qvZY
He smoked a cigarette right there not 10 minutes earlier, a guy was smoking tobacco at the same time as him, and I was on the sidewalk waiting for the bus, and he asks me to go “across the street”. Can you image a gay couple being asked to hold hands “across the street”?
A few weeks ago I was asked not to “partake” by a bunch of Live Action Role Playing nerds in a local park. I explained that this was my medicine, and that asking me not to medicate in public was on par with asking a gay couple not to hold hands, “….because, you know, there are kids around…”. I was appalled. We were downwind, and we liked watching them play their little game as it was something quite far and a welcome distraction from our usual daily drudgery of medicating and suffering and activism and isolation. They made us feel unwelcome, and my wife cried.
In January, an OC Transpo bus driver harangued me as I stood just off of a bus platform, making fun of me like some sort of school yard bully. He suggested I stand “over there”, which I did, and then he proceeded to make fun of me. When OC Transpo and the city refused to meet my demands for a simple written apology, I launched an Ontario Human Rights Complaint against the driver, the company, the city, and the province. From the driver, company, and city, I have asked for nothing more than written public apologies and acknowledgments of my Charter-protected rights to use my medicine. From the province – for failing to regulate the medical use of marijuana (as they are constitutionally-mandated to do) for ten years – I have demanded $10 million. I doubt I will get that, even if I win, and I have no illusions about winning. I would have filed a huge lawsuit, but, being poor and disable, I have no money, and people with no money have no recourse to justice. Justice is only for people who can afford to buy it.
Many families have been torn asunder by this issue as well. A child of a medical user might report them to a teacher, a parent might scoff at a medical user’s recovery, and marriages have been ended. Ferocious custody battles have ensued, and people have lost their homes and jobs, all because of certain people’s flat-out refusal to look at facts, science, history, or the things they see right in front of them….. like their own son getting out of a wheelchair.
So, before you go getting your doctor to sign, think about the people who fight hard every day to keep that right available for you.
That was a very worthwhile, thought out article. You’re right. Thank you.
Forgot to mention the loneliness. When you have no job to go to, and can’t go out and socialize at night, and can’t get out much during the day due to symptoms or public use issues, it is difficult to maintain friendships. Social media helps, but mostly, we spend our time alone, together, wishing we had more ways of socializing with people.
People tend not to visit, as we either live too far away or the people who live close are too busy.
Even public pot-themed events like 420 hold little appeal, as those events are usually populated by the people who do nothing for pot legalization 364 and 5/6 days of the year, and they think that smoking a joint in a crowd is somehow “fighting for legalization”.
Great letter. All sad but true, unfortunately.
Society would prefer you be jacked up on opioids than just feeling ‘better’.
Everything you said makes perfect sense – NO wonder no one listens – ‘common sense’ & the truth is irrelevant these days 🙁
Keep fighting for your rights, we are behind you 100%.
I must stress clearly that I have never had even the slightest problem with police, ever. Never been cuffed or even treated rudely. But considering the videos we have all seen and the reports from people in the community about police roughness…… well, what would you do?
if you were frail and disabled, would you be cavalier about smoking in public, knowing that you have a 50/50 chance of being assaulted by a cop? Or the public?
There is a saying:
“If a dog don’t hunt, don’t go into the woods with it.”
What this means to you, author of this nice article is, buck up and don’t just sit around confounded by the mean bullys who run our world. Duh, the world is ran by corrupt jerks who look at humans as cattle.
You don’t live in a nice, fuzzy happy world yet, you live in an establishment of powerful rich interests. Keep your smoke on the DL until the paradigm shift comes. Make medibles, they last a long time for public excursions. Assimilate with the “normals” so they actually might care what you have to say. Smoke all over town but don’t look like a cliche “stoner” so no one cares.
Mr Barth is correct!
The past and current Health Canada programs are designed not to work
or meet the needs of sick and dying Canadians. We need to free the weed
for adult consumption and the ill.
I also don’t feel it’s right to jail or cause harm to cannabis users when
I can fill my trunk with booze, drink gallons at a time and have a party with 500
people all with no repercussions!
I would go further to say that Cannabis users are one of the last groups of people
to be desciminatedb against by not only the general public but by our police and justice system.
Other countries have done a 180 on this issue and seen vastly improved savings, less use, and increased tax revenue.
Change is hard but needed for a society to evolve.
Russel, I hear ya. And when you do step out to better yourself, there is usually someone ready to crush you. Chin up brother.
i eat medible already. they only get part of it. believe me, i need to smoke in public or stay home. even as it is, I am chewing my lip half the time…..
The Harper Government doesn’t give a damn about you except to vacuum your wallet and humiliate and degrade you. Unless you are one his rapturista fellow travelers you are nothing… lower than dirt.
You have to be saved in time for the Armageddon in order to count for anything in Harperland.
Sadly, the situation will probably will not improve, and might even worse over the next four years at least. I wonder how many people with medical afflictions like this just keep a low profile and grow their own.
I am a canadian and thank god in these troubling times, I live in oregon. Thank god for measue 67.
I wish I could live back home ? But not under the present regime.
I am writing these article and letters to the police and the mayor trying to sort it out, and it is going no where. After I get harassed by a cop – it is just a matter of time, really – I can point to all of these emails and articles and say “See? I tried to be pro-active. I tried to do it through the proper channels. I tried to be community minded, and you stonewalled me.”
I am not out looking for trouble, but it is coming. It is just a matter of time.
Given the way the Harper regime deals with critics, I’d be concerned about trouble ahead.
It’s encouraging to note that so far, the usual insults and bible-quotes are absent from these comments.
Well said Russell. Our “elected” government does seem to have ulterior motives with the biased decisions rendered involving the whole medical uses issue. Keep up the good work.
Alan
hi well said, i think your article may have been more effective without being cluttered by adjectives and insults…clever as they are…we get it… over-description will cause your reader to lose interest…if it was tightened up, you could probably get published in some more activist news…i do understand your posit and your argument is solid, just overdone…come live in vancouver, nobody dares challenge me if i am on the sidewalk or anywhere…when approached by security, speaking the word “what?” repeatedly and slowly at orders becomes a useful tool…i like your comparatives to other human rights case law…just some balanced thoughts while the rest blow smoke up your ass or hatemail you LOL- peace – rose….
well, i am not a government employee he can have fired, so i am not so much worried about that as i am about cops.
I too am a long time liscenced cannabis patient. I have to medicate constantly due to a severe form of Osteo-Arthritis. I have serious large spurrs in my neck, pinched nerves causing my arms and hands to go numb at times, jolting pain from my neck down to my fingers. My spine is fused to my pelvis, with severe pain, and great pain when i stand up and walk a little. I also have arthritic knees and feet. When I medicate in public, as I have to … I constantly wonder how i’m going to keep a thug cop from pounding me to the ground, sitting on me, and handcuffing my hands behind my back. This would cause me great stress and long lasting pain and trauma. I constantly feel like a 2nd class citizen because of Stephen Harpers sick crusade against our culture.
When smoking pot they say the first thing to go is the spelling……eh Bob?
Oh well. Here they come.
@ Russell. Yes, I forgot that the police are independent of the government. Arm’s-length, and all that.
The police are an out of control gang of ignorant, mercenary thugs who’s job is primarily to “Serve And Protect” their corrupt political masters. If anyone out there thinks the police are not being given their marching orders by the politicos, they need to remove the wool from their eyes and see the light.
Russell, Thank You, for every word of it. And Thank You for all the effort you and Christine put forth to help change our laws and educate people, your hard work is really appreciated.
i think most cops on the street would rather not bother with pot at all. i think most cops would rathe rdo things by the book and not mess people up. but like ANY line of work, you get weirdos. and if the reports we are getting are any indication, there are a number of officers in Ottawa who could be considered “off-leash”.
Your article gives the impression that people seeking the medical exemption are people living with painful, debilitating, and often life-threatening conditions like MS, arthritis, crohn’s, PTSD, AIDS, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and cancer and always chronic pain.Looks to me that you have to have the right disease to be in the list of those who benefits from their doctors compassion who will then sign up the necessary forms.In fact always seems that your condition has to be serious to benefit from medical marijuana. I do not agree.
Insomnia,intermittent back pain,foot problems are really well treated with medical marijuana.So,if aspirin can cure many small ills so to does marijuana and the plant should then be available to anyone who find relief from its use.And Health Canada should always bear that in mind.
I have a pain in my backside…..should I rub it with medical marijuana?
@bb54
people could use pot for anything, really, it is that good. But for the most part, doctors only sign for the big conditions….
@ Gertie. I’d use Prep-H on that end, and a fat bat in the other, but only if you have a MM license of course.
Mr Russell Barth
Excellent !!
As usual
Its too bad it wont get the attention it deserves
Bravo !
Pot growers are doing God’s work by nurturing the very plant that he put on this earth for a reason.
Harper is Evil and cruel. Canadians voted this holy crusader in.
Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb
Unfortunately, there are many ignorant Canadians still out there that are totally brainwashed.
Russell: it is all about control. This is accomplished by limiting your options.
Behind you in Frankford, Ontario
Rod Mackenzie, God also put Poison Parsnip, Poison Ivy and Giant Hogweed on this earth. Do we have to smoke those too?
Canadians are smart for voting in Harper, who else can you trust with our money? The majority speaks for itself.
Be careful Barfy because Rod (Behind you in Frankford, Ontario) learned that trick picking up the soap in the shower.
“Ignorant Canadian” sums it up. What’s the point of a post like that, Jamie?
yeah. “natural” is a weak argument for legalization or using pot. the hundreds of years of science showing it’s safety and efficacy is a stronger one.
The Prophet of Pot writes- “…the hundreds of years of science showing…” Here is one secular scientific study on Medical Marijuana [http://www.marijuana-addiction.net/medical-marijuana.htm]. Believe it or not?
“Medical marijuana has been in the news lately because some states have been considering legalizing medical marijuana to treat the symptoms of specific illnesses. Medical marijuana is only under investigation for potential health benefits. To this day medical marijuana is not sanctioned as a treatment or cure for any disease. For some suffering from terminal illnesses like AIDS or cancer, medical marijuana may be used to treat nausea and stimulate appetite in an attempt to increase weight. Be cautioned though that there are inconsistent studies that haven’t ruled out the idea that medical marijuana may cause more harm than good.
Perhaps more importantly is the idea that most pot smokers are not smoking medical marijuana. Only a fraction of a percent of pot smokers does so with a prescription from a licensed physician and obtains the drug from a recognized distributor. If you are seeking information about marijuana for yourself or a loved one because of difficulties with marijuana, this page is for you. Similar to those smoking medical marijuana, many people who chronically use marijuana are suffering from a disease. Unlike those smoking medical marijuana, many people suffer severe consequences that those who smoke medical marijuana often do not consider.
Addiction to marijuana is a very real disease with symptoms and characterized by progression. If you or a loved one is unable to stop smoking marijuana even after swearing off the stuff forever, this is an indication of physical dependence. The negative effects may already be apparent. Loss of memory and ability to concentrate is one effect. A persistent or reoccurring cough is another. Continued use of marijuana can lead to cancer of the head, throat, lungs or mouth.
The social consequences can be just as damaging. Loss of friends, family, spouse, children can all come as a result of marijuana dependency and the isolation that comes from a fixation on the drug. The mental obsession and physical craving severely impedes one’s ability to perform at work and often results in job loss. Studies show that students who smoke marijuana do poorly at school compared to their classmates and workers who smoke pot have higher absences and accidents.
The good news is that marijuana dependence does have a scientifically proven treatment that is very effective. Spencer Recovery Centers have been treating clients dependent on marijuana for over 10 years. Our high success rate comes from a combination of effective therapies. Treating the whole person means medical attention if appropriate, individual and group behavioral therapies, and residential treatment in a comfortable, respectful setting. Spencer Recovery Centers are located on some of America’s most beautiful beaches and short term or long-term stays are available.
Stop suffering from the disease of addiction. It is possible to start again and get the life you want. Without marijuana it is possible for you to accomplish all of your social and financial goals. Let Spencer Recovery Centers show you the gifts of the recovery community. If you or a loved one wants to stop smoking marijuana and have realized that you cannot do it on your own, please call us today. Most insurance plans are accepted.
Amazing what science will do for you! Oh, that it were true, but it is not! John 8:36 “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”.
Treatment Centers:
Alcohol/Drug Info:
Just for the sake of quoting the source above : Amazing what science will do for you! Oh, that it were true, but it is not! John 8:36 “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” comes after -“Treatment Centers: Alcohol/Drug Infor:” , and is not included in the source material.
tnpreacher555: A couple of ? 1. in my copies of the good book it says that Christians should go and feed the hungry heal the sick cloth the nekid make the lame to walk and the blind to see. That is correct is it not? With cannabis/hemp I can feed the hungry from its seed which btw is a complete protein and grows (9 essential amino acids and can be used as a meat substitute) almost anywhere. Healing the sick (I think Mr. Barth and his Mrs. are living proof of that.) cloth the nekid (hemp textiles are well known for strength and durability) Make the lame to walk ( I have seen MS patients put down their canes and walk unaided across a room after a joint) and the blind to see (glaucoma). Also I rember a part in the old test. behold I give you grass the herb bearing seed to you it shall be as meat. (see above) God the creator gave us this plant and others to make our lives on earth better. It is the laws of men that would prevent their use. I work for God. Who do you work for?
@ Mark. The preacher works for a hair-brained cult that is dedicated to controlling the lives of others by using threats such as “Repent or Burn!”. It’s nothing but a thinly disguised hate group. Nothing less, nothing more.
@Furtz That is why I was using scripture to base my argument I have been well churched. It irks me to no end when I see supposed Christians attempt to use it (scripture) to support lies and hate.
@preacher: just remember I am a licensed med cannabis patient myself . I usually am clothed in hemp and I smoke my meds at the computer. therefore when I send these missives I am dressed in sack cloth and ashes If you want to debate me on this issue using scripture in a public form, bring it on if not I suggest you take your lies and fear elsewhere it has no place in the lives of people that love God and are loved by God.
Boy Mark, I am shaking in my shoes! Another case of P.H.D. (Pot head delirium), but this time with a religious twist! Mark, you remind me of some the native American who smoke and consume peyote to achieve their altered state of nirvana. I think that is what happen to Buddha too! So maybe if you keep on smoking dope, you will become a real dope head. Oops – you are already there. Far out man!
Pastor Furts – I think you need to talk to Mark about his spelling and punctuation too! Funny! Or maybe it is just one result of prolong pot use? So if that is the case don’t waste your time Furts. Can your spaghetti monster of a god, cause you to walk on water? 🙁 I did not think so. So it looks like you won’t be able to help Mark.
When referring to my God, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, please show some respect and use capital letters.
Thanks, and Arrrmen.
Yes 555. You cannot defend your position so attack me on spelling. I am dyslexic, (I guess that you like to attack people with a disability) the post would have been worse without spell check, besides you are not worth the effort if you cannot defend your position using scripture just say so. I pray before I post and write as the Spirit Moves me.
Just so you know I am over 50 have a number of injury’s from 30 + years in construction. Including a degenerating spine and a broken neck.We (I am happily married)saved our money and are landlords with 9 apartments, we used to have 13. I guess we will just have to accept our social consequences.
I asked you, Who are you working for and you attacked me. Any true Christian would have responded with “Jesus”. Then they would have defended their position with scripture.
Your post leads me to believe that you are shill trying to prosper off the pain of others. Most insurance plans accepted indeed. Spencer Recovery Centers. Agents for some entity? Maybe. Certainly not working for the one I AM who I work for.
@ the preacher. Actually, I do walk on water a few times a year, usually in Late January and February. The Flying Spaghetti Monster watches over us while we go ice-fishing. Sure beats your Jesus guy who turns his back on drowning people, and throws pretty much everyone into the fiery pit.
@ Mark. You are trying to have a rational conversation with a person who obviously has serious mental issues. Good luck with that. Let’s all hope that the preacher, and his family, get the help they need.
@ Furtz Jesus cane to bring us love a lot of crap is done in his name that should not be done. One of the people spreading this sort of stuff is tnpreacher555. As I pointed out no defense of his position, attacked me immediatel,y attempts to discredit me, insults me. I know, he obliviously has mental health issues.
@555 I ask you for a third time In Jesus name, Who Do You Work For?
Mark – no conservative, Bible believing, Born again Christian would go for medical Marijuana. There is no Scripture support for it’s legalization . It is a additive drug, and a gate way drug at that, and the medial benefits are so small and to so few, that the bad overwhelming out ways the any good. Be glad that the medical profession and the government allows such limited medical use. What may bring some benefit and relieve to a few, will destroy all others! Eph 5:18 “Don’t destroy yourself by getting drunk, but let the Spirit fill your life”. By the way, I use to be dyslexic, and a dope head, and a drunkard, etc. etc.(much more), but God’s grace has even helped me in that and more!
Biblical salvation and a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus is the only real answer and solution – 2Co 12:7 – 10 “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong”.
“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness”. No amount of dope, drugs, alcohol, etc. can match God’s grace in a persons life. Controlled by the Spirit of God, not by drugs, alcohol, nor by false religious demon influence. Renewed in the spirit of my mind by the Word of God – dope and Word of God are two contrary influences. One can not be led of the Spirit, and be high on drugs! One is from the Devil – sorcery, the other from the Spirit of God. Such is the plain facts like them or not.
Who said I get high? When you use cannabis in medical quantity’s the high is long gone. If I could be pain free I would happily give back the prescription. My other choices are to live in pain and be unable to work or become an opioid addict and destroy my liver in ten years and still be unable to work the muscle relaxants I was prescribed make me pass blood in my stools. The cannabis gave me my life back I consider it a gift from the one who created all things The Father who caused the laws to change so that the sick can have access to this medicine. Not by government but rather by the courts. So it cannot be stopped. Once again In Jesus name WHO DO YOU WORK FOR? I remind you that even the devil quoted scripture when he tempted my Lord Jesus. To follow your advice I should just live with the pain, sorry I do not feel like spending the day screaming in agony to satisfy your sadistic tendencies. I cannot believe that Jesus wants me to suffer like that when he already suffered for me.I think you lie. I accuse you of perverting scripture to suite your ends. You show no compassion for the sick and dieing as the Lord Jesus did. You support the status quo as did the Pharisees. You are ruled by your love of money not a love of God or mankind. As I remember the rest of your quote from Eph is “Rather be drunk on the new wine”. As a medical cannabis patient and as evidenced by Mr. Barth’s article. I am often reproached and persecuted and in distress often caused by people like you with a holier than thou attitude. So maybe the cannabis patients are a good example for Your quote from 2nd Co. In truth the more I am persecuted for my cannabis use the stronger I get. Thank you for your choice of quotes they proved my points nicely.
i cured my own lameness
I brought my wife back from the dead once in 2001 with an approximation of cpr
I am persecuted by “the romans”, and “the priests of the temple”
I spread a message of tolerance about pot
If Jesus existed, he would put his arm around me and say “nice work”, and he would denounce the Preacher.
Preacher knows this, but will not relent.
@admin….. need I remind you that Preacher’s words in regards to “pot delirium” could be considered actionable…. just saying……. it might be wise to block him…..
Be glad that the medical profession and the government allows such limited medical use. What may bring some benefit and relief to a few, will destroy all others! End of discussion!
Hi everyone, just a note that some opinions will never be changed so why bother with some? The back and forth can get a bit tedious. That being said I think some great points have been made and that there is a huge difference between Medical marijuana that is controlled and used medicinally and some of the street stuff, that has no quality control being used by young people.
Is Medicinal Marijuana simply a device to legalize Marijuana fully?
Is this just a Canard?
Corn was by far the most subsidized food crop in the US with over $70 billion dollars fed into the machine over the last 15 years. There’s more to this than meets the eye for example why the heavy push to use corn for methanol when there are better alternatives?
“it might be wise to block him…..” Can’t handle a little opposing free speech?
How about sin delirium? The root cause behind “pot delirium” is sin – ” What, then, does this mean? Are we Jews any better off? Not at all! For we have already accused everyone, both Jews and Greeks, of being under the power of sin. As it is written, “Not even one person is righteous. No one understands. No one searches for God. All have turned away. Together they have become worthless. No one shows kindness, not even one person! Their throats are open graves. With their tongues they practice deception. The venom of poisonous snakes is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways. They have not learned the path to peace. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:9-18).
Sin delirium can only be treated by one bowing to the King of Kings in faith and repentance – Mark 5:15 “When they came to Jesus and saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there dressed and in his right mind, they were frightened”. Cured without the use of any drugs – amazing.