Photo by Pete Denmark
It’s been fifteen years for me at the ripe young age of thirty-one. I still think daily about my first experience with cannabis. I was sixteen and, like most teenagers are able to, scored a ten-dollar dime-bag from one of my high school friends who promised “The Chronic” that I’d heard so much about in every hit rap album from the 90s leading into and forward from the new millennium.
Get some weed, head to a kickback party with friends. Smoke up! A common scenario among teenagers of that era. From the outside, this was a parent’s greatest fear—and rightfully so. Their child taking the first steps through the gateway of drug use, fearing it would eventually lead to harder drugs, causing addiction and, ultimately, death.
It’s no secret most of us know someone who has suffered from drug addiction. If not, we know someone who has been affected by the behavior or untimely death of an addict. Naturally, with legalization comes the debate of harm vs. good in the ultimate battle for the safety of America’s youth. With that being said, I’m going to offer a different perspective on the first day I experienced cannabis and why.
I was halfway through high school. What was not said previously was that I was medically addicted to prescription opiates, including at-home injectable Demerol (synthetic morphine) shots, for which I had a doctor-approved prescription by the age of twelve, along with other opiate narcotics that were tried, such as hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (Percocet), Tylenol with codeine, and the infamous oxycontin. For mood stability, I was prescribed Prozac and Zoloft at different times to see “what worked best for me,” as well as a few other drugs classified for bipolar disorder (which I did not have) to help the emotional depression brought on by the situation. For sleep, I was prescribed Ambien, Sonata, and Trazadone and I was given a Rohypnol prescription that I never actually filled; Ambien was the usual go-to for my family doctor. Now, you might be wondering, how did all of this happen!?
Crippling leg pain hit me at three-years-old. Over-the-counter children’s Tylenol could not touch it for pain relief. Having responsible parents concerned about their child’s well-being, I was taken to the family doctor. I was diagnosed with growing pains that continued into my pre-teen and adolescent years. After some time, it became a chronic issue. I was re-diagnosed with juvenile fibromyalgia and classified and treated as a chronic pain patient.
While the pain was unbearable and having no answers to boot, the result of the pharmaceutical drugs on my body down the road was an even greater nightmare. The irony of it all was always being told, “don’t use pot!”, and discussion of the dangers of drug use. This was common practice in my home.
At twelve, I knew the difference between an I. V. (intravenous) and I. M. (intramuscular) injection. I knew how to draw up and mix my own Demerol and Phenergan syringe from my prescription vials. I knew how and why to make sure all of the air bubbles were out and how to self-administer a potentially lethal narcotic under doctor’s recommendation and parental supervision.
At fourteen, I didn’t know what an opiate was. I simply knew the names of the things the doctor would give me that made the vomiting, shaking and sweats stop. And the doctors accommodated writing my prescriptions for use every four to six hours to keep up with my body’s seasoned schedule of daily narcotic introduction into my bloodstream. By the age of sixteen, I was a full-blown opiate addict that needed to dose every four hours—in pain or not. If I was not in pain from the medical condition itself, I could sure count on the withdrawal aches and pains to start. Like clockwork. I was a junkie that had never used or even seen a street drug.
This all brings us to cannabis and the day I looked for something else. Just to be perfectly clear, I in no way promote or agree with child or teen recreational drug and cannabis use. I do, however, passionately agree with access to safe medicine.
I wish I could say that back then I had the usual circumstances for experimentation with cannabis. The truth is I went looking for a replacement to help the pain. After four years of having been on the prescribed narcotics, I couldn’t tell the difference between the pain my body genuinely felt, and the pain caused by withdrawal effects. I just knew I wanted and needed something different. So, I inhaled, rather excited with hope but also terrified of the consequences of getting caught due to living in a rather religious home. And, eventually, caught I was. That’s a whole other story.
I was grounded and told not to do drugs, while simultaneously facing the wrath of my parents’ angry faces. It was not the last time I got in trouble for it. But, unlike others in my medical situation, I found safe relief before it was too late.
It took some years for my parents to come around. We didn’t talk about it again until I was eighteen and, this time with their blessing, made the necessary steps to obtain my California doctor’s recommendation for medical cannabis. I was nineteen when I finally became legal to consume cannabis as my replacement for opiate narcotics.
From the first time I used cannabis, I knew there was something happening, and it would be with me for the rest of my life. I found hope. I still treat my own chronic pain and, consequently, the fallout of long-term opiate use with cannabis. The fact is that I am alive. I’m alive because I replaced doctor-prescribed pharmaceutical industry chemicals with a natural, safe plant called cannabis.
All things in perspective, we didn’t know when I was growing up what we know now about the medical benefits of cannabis, either in the medical community or society in general. But, now that we do, how do we proceed? What would my treatment have looked like if cannabis was accepted and used as a safe alternative to opiates, painkillers and mood-stabilizing pharmaceutical medications? What does this mean for today’s pediatric patients prescribed dangerous narcotics?
Coming full circle fifteen years later, I find myself waking up every morning. Alive. Blessed to be the organizer of Uncle Nicky’s Collective, among whose primary patients include an eight-year-old little boy diagnosed with Leukemia at the tender age of five. His parents and doctors have collectively decided it best to replace his opiate pain medication option with cannabis to give his body some relief of the agonizing leg pain the chemo treatments cause, while at the same time combating cancer itself with THC and CBD. Providing a safe alternative for patients like this innocent little boy is why I feel so called to do this work.
I assert that cannabis is a gateway. I’m here to tell you first hand. It is a gateway to life. A gateway to freedom from the hell that comes with being in the clutches of the addiction and dangerous side-effects of pharmaceutical drugs. My fight is for medical cannabis. My stand is for those who cannot make a stand for themselves. It is my firm belief that those of us who have been through and survived this hell have a duty to stand and save others from their otherwise inevitable—and preventable—demise, which is all-too-common and familiar.
