My continuing adventures with medical marijuana

I started out smoking my pot with a homemade pipe, but I hated that pipe, so I got a store bought one, but I hated it too. I then bought a bong, and it’s far superior to the pipes, but I would prefer to not smoke anything, so last week, I threw two cups of marijuana leaves into a pint of olive oil, and heated the oil at 220° F (104° C) for two hours. The result was neither pretty nor tasty, yet palatable enough on toast. The only real downside to the mixture is that it takes so long to work (up to three hours). I’ve also had a problem getting the dosage right. One night I wouldn’t feel anything after swallowing a rounded teaspoon; the next night, a heaping teaspoonful would practically leave me catatonic. Because I’m trying to make my marijuana experimentation as pleasant as possible to Peggy, the catatonic nights posed some behavioral challenges. When you can barely walk or talk, just saying goodnight is difficult, yet I consider it important that I be able to function more or less normally when I’m high, so the challenge isn’t altogether unwelcome.

Yesterday, I decided to take a new tack, so I bought a bottle of 190 proof alcohol, and mixed it with nearly a quart of marijuana leaves (see photo). Now, I just have to shake the mixture twice a day, and in two weeks, the THC will have leached out of the pot and into the alcohol, at which time the foul smelling and horrible tasting concoction can either be taken with an eyedropper or rubbed into the skin. I will admit to no little curiosity about this combination of two intoxicants, which is infamous for landing people in the ER. Now, going to the ER when you’re having a bad time of it on pot isn’t the best idea in the world because—unless you’re psychotic anyway or your marijuana is impure—your only real danger comes from panic. So, you ask, how does that work, exactly? Well, think of marijuana as being like water in a lake. If you’re learning to swim, and you panic in the water, bad things happen unnecessarily, and so it is with marijuana, although with the latter, the bad things are all inside your head, and should go away after several hours if you are able to remain calm.

Before I close, I’ll report on my physical therapy appointment yesterday. The night before, I was in so much pain from my exercises that I needed marijuana, Requip, Neurontin, and oxycodone to sleep even a little, so I decided to ask the therapist if it made sense for me to keep exercising since, no matter how little I do or how much time I take off, the pain is still intolerable. I never got to ask because he told me straight away to stop exercising for a month, at which time he would like to see me again. As he pointed out, I’m already up to 80% flexibility in the shoulder that I had surgery on in April, and so it would be reasonable for me to give up the exercises for good.

While I’m reporting, I’ll add that I saw my surgeon last week. He said he was unhappy about having done three surgeries on me only to have each of them leave me in even worse pain. I try to stay upbeat around doctors to keep them from becoming discouraged, and so I did what I could to cheer Mark up, but I went away feeling badly about the appointment because I’m afraid he’s going to balk about doing a fourth—and hopefully final—surgery. Before you remind me that it’s the job of the doctor to comfort the patient instead of the other way around, I’ll just mention that what should be the case and what is the case are often miles apart. If you have a doctor whom you like as much as I like Mark, it pays to make your time with him something that he will feel good about because frustrated doctors tend to dump patients, even when, as in my case, a negative outcome is almost surely unrelated to any mistake the doctor made or could have foreseen.

I just realized that I’ve gained eight followers since I started writing about marijuana. Are some of them narcs, politicians, or talk show employees who will soon take my words out of context and feature me as an example of why Oregon’s medical marijuana law should be overturned? I’m torn between wanting to be as honest about this subject as I’ve been about other subjects, and not wanting to harm the future of medical marijuana, or get myself arrested, or make myself into an object of public ridicule. Maybe the mass of conservatives really are well-meaning people of conscience, but all I see in their leadership is greed, bigotry, dishonesty, and the willingness to destroy any and everyone who gets in their way; all in the name of their “Blessed Savior.” Oh, but I forgot; it’s our supposedly liberal president who reversed his campaign promises when he ordered the latest war on medical marijuana. Are no politicians to be trusted, ever? No, no politicians, ever. No politicians, no government agencies, no military spokesmen, and no religious leaders. Power does indeed corrupt, if not always, nearly always.