Well, I finally broke down and got my medical marijuana card. In the past I have disapproved of medical marijuana, as it was always a phony category designed to serve as a Trojan horse for full legalization. I believe in being open with your objectives in a policy debate, and as a lifelong advocate of full legalization (and a former pot dealer myself) the whole idea of medical marijuana struck me as trying to sneak weed in by the backdoor. Plus, what difference does it make that marijuana has medicinal properties? I mean, some people use alcohol for medical purposes, such as the late Mama Nardi from Springfield's legendary and sadly vanished Nardi's Restaurant.
Take a glass of hot water, add three shots of whiskey, add orange peel, apple, lemon and honey. Cool it slightly, drink it slowly, get in bed under the covers. Repeat the treatment as needed for the next 24 hours or until cold is gone.
Repeat as needed, for sure! Having never tried it, I don't know whether Mama Nardi's recipe actually cures colds, or simply puts you in a state of mind where you don't give a shit about being sick. But whatever, no one ever had to get a medical card in order to buy the ingredients for Mama Nardi's medicine. You can buy alcohol for pleasure or you can buy it for medical purposes, but no one makes you buy a Medicinal Alcohol card.
However, after the Governor ruled last month on some pretext or other that not being able to buy marijuana somehow fights viruses, it suddenly became impossible to buy any marijuana without a card costing $150. Doing bong hits at home with black market ganja - arrest that outlaw! Bong hits at home using weed you bought with your medical card - just what the doctor ordered!
Long experience has taught me that in the face of such governmental irrationality, there is no sense in arguing. I wanted to buy what had been openly available to me just weeks earlier as an adult over 21, and to get that right back I would have to grit my teeth, spend the money and jump through the hoops. Soon I found myself tele-conferencing with a doctor I had never met before and who knew nothing about me.
Prior to my tele-medicine appointment, I Googled, "Conditions Treated by Medical Marijuana." There were a surprising number of them, but I decided to go with the basics - insomnia, depression and anxiety, although I sleep like a baby, am depressed only when I recall my lost right to buy marijuana and was only anxious about the possibility the doctor might turn me down. Fortunately, in our short and pleasant encounter I simply pretended to have such symptoms and he kindly pretended to believe me. Thus, after just three or four minutes I was a $150 dollars poorer but had a doctor's permission to buy weed.
That was not the end of it. I next had to register with the State Cannabis Control Commission. They have a very long and intrusive form to be filled out, with numerous documents and pictures you have to submit. Then I had to contact NETA, our local pot dispensary, and register again with them, although their form was short and the questions both predictable and practical. Of course, now I was dealing with the private sector instead of the public sector, which as always makes all the difference.
Within days I was taking the bus into our dead downtown.
Walking past the offices of the Hampshire Gazette, I was surprised by how few cars there were in their parking lot in the middle of the day.
Soon I arrived at the oasis.
Happy days are here again.
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