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My Confessional Appeal for Medical Pot
Polly Reynolds | Providence Journal | 06/05/2005

Rhode Island -- I have multiple sclerosis. I smoke marijuana. I am a divorced mother trying to raise responsible kids. I am also a proud Rhode Islander, by luck of both history and attitude. At least three of those things cause me trouble every day.

On behalf of those of us who use marijuana or will in the future, I thank the General Assembly and all those who have supported accepting the truth of its assistance to us. I look forward to being able to hold my head proud, even high, again.

MS (one of the pot-approved diseases) busted my spirits, my finances, my independence, and my health. The thing that helps me deal with it best busts the rest of me.

The federal government's stubborn, hypocritical refusal to permit good citizens to use an herb with medicinal properties that makes them feel better is stupid, dictatorial and empirically mean. It is uncivil, inhumane and disempowering.

When government brands me a drug abuser and scofflaw, it strips me of both self and social dignity; it mutes my voice and undermines my authority -- personal, moral, social and parental. When the government calls me a drug abuser and scofflaw, it undermines itself, and its own and my respectability.

When the government labels me a drug-abusing scofflaw, it is being very, very anti-family.

The decision for me as my disease worsens has been either to smoke marijuana and keep functioning or to crawl under my bedcovers as a non-functioning, if socially acceptable, parent.

It seemed to me that a little occasional silly absent-mindedness is better than a lot of profound absence.

MS is one of those conditions the doctors call medical enigmas: They only know it's incurable, although there are loads of new efforts to manage its effects. I've tried most. Every treatment, every vicious drug, every bee sting, every nasty concoction, every needle poked into me has hurt me and made me feel worse -- but I've done them in the belief that I'd be even worse sooner if I didn't. Doctors, family and society are proud of me and my pains.

Ironically, marijuana is the only thing that actually makes me feel better and, ironically, marijuana is the only thing I can't use. Doctors and family dare not be proud and dare not speak its name. That hurts worse than the needles.

Rightly or wrongly, I choose to stay as active as I can. I choose to stay living in Rhode Island and, thereby, I choose to break the law.

Rightly or wrongly, I choose to be honest with my children about marijuana and my use of it. Of course, until perhaps now, the rest of the adults around them urge them to lie for me, hide the truth, protect and ignore me.

That using marijuana is illegal has meant a constant nervousness about being arrested and a constant source of discomfort for my family.

Being a feeble felon is not fun; having a feeble felon for a mother is worse. If de-criminalizing marijuana keeps one mother from my feelings of guilt and parental failure, I am gladdened for her and her family.

That cannabis was branded guilty by association a half-century ago should be something real Rhode Islanders can understand. That the federal government can just plain be wrong (and hypocritical) is something we can all understand.

Marijuana has always been a questionable inclusion in the government's "war against drugs." In 2005, when drugs are hawked recklessly throughout the culture and swallowed without sense or stigma, chewing on a plant leaf from the garden should not be a criminal act.

As for stupidities, I do not drive stoned. Wouldn't do it. The whole point of using the weed is to live. I know lots of people on pharmaceuticals who shouldn't drive, either. I don't question police statistics on intoxication and traffic accidents, but I do disagree with police supposition that medical-marijuana users will be responsible for carnage on the roads.

As for unknown dangers, I agree that a current problem with pot is trusting what you're getting. But since growing a little pot plant in a little spot in the garden is a felony, current law forces you to the darker side of distribution systems.

As for known certainties, marijuana is a safe herbal medicine that works, and helps a lot of people who endure daily suffering. As state Senate Judiciary Committee Member Steven Costantino said in his yea vote, it's an issue of compassion. Having lost family to cancer, he called it allowing death with dignity; I call it allowing life with dignity.

I'm happy to see some common sense being spent in Rhode Island on marijuana -- a common weed for the un-common weal.

Polly Reynolds is a writer based in East Providence.

(LothNote: On June 7, the Rhode Island Senate will vote on whether the gravely ill can continue to be arrested for treating their illnesses with medical marijuana! This is good news for those suffering such as the brave Polly Reynolds who wrote this down to earth article.

Although medical marijuana boasts numerous sponsors in both the House and Senate, Gov. Donald Carcieri's (R) Department of Health stunned everyone by coming out against the bill, as did State Police Lt. Leroy Rose, Jr. If you are from Rhode Island or know anybody from Rhode Island please urge them to take action in two ways.

Urge your Senator to support medical marijuana.
Urge Govenor Donald Carcieri, whose health department opposes medical marijuana, to come out and support it.)

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