About 12 years ago I had a series of abdominal surgeries involving multiple bowel resections that left me with terrible IBS (we are talking 8-12 episodes of diarrhea every day, bleeding, cramping and all the consequences). Eating was like throwing gravel down a corrugated pipe. It wouldn't have bothered me, except somewhere along the line my alimentary canal would add metaphorical bits of barbed wire and glass to the mix, and that was a pain that would never leave.
As an occasional marijuana user, I learned within a year after the last surgery (which was for a perforated bowel and nearly killed me) that a few puffs of a joint would make me feel normal for about 24 hours. I later learned about the antispasmodic effects of weed, worked with my physician and now have Rx marijuana, which allows me to have a normal life.
During the years that my physician helped me deal with this, the hospital where she worked had a policy restricting the prescription of weed. So we tried other solutions. One of those was codeine. The narcotic has the side effect of causing constipation, which was a good thing. Unfortunately the addictive nature of it would mean that I would start taking more and more and more until I was insufferable to my family because coming off of codeine makes a person aggressive and grumpy. Then I would have to go through the horrible withdrawal period and try another solution. The other solution was to eat only once a day, take about 20 fiber capsules before and after each meal. You would think fiber would make it worse, but not at those doses. The fiber would swell in my gut and absorb some of the acids which were eating my insides. This made the transit time slow down just a bit and reduced the bleeding and pain to "manageable" levels. Unfortunately, after doing this for years, I developed adult onset diabetes because I was only eating a single meal a day.
We couldn't go on family trips, couldn't go anywhere that was more than ten minutes away from a bathroom, couldn't sleep through the night. I was dealing with depression, weight loss, anemia and a quality of life that was literally shit.
The point is, eight years ago I started smoking weed regularly illegally and got my medical marijuana card about four years ago. Today I smoke almost every day but use less than 3/4 of an oz each year, and I can eat and live normally. I'm no longer addicted to anything. I'm a small business owner employing four people, member of the chamber of commerce, and I owe it all to medical marijuana.
I don't know what I will do if a Republican goes into office and shuts down the clinic where I buy my weed. I wish the feds would just back off.
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