Medical Marijuana 101. Ed Rosenthal

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      CONTENTS

Foreword:

      Steph Sherer

Chapter 1:

       Introduction

Chapter 2:

       The Medical Effects of Marijuana and the Science Behind It

       Chapter 3:

       What Conditions Can Marijuana Help?

       Chapter 4:

       Talking To Your Healthcare Provider and Obtaining Marijuana

       Chapter 5:

       How to Use Medical Marijuana

       Chapter 6:

       Marijuana the Plant and Its Varieties

       Chapter 7:

       Growing Marijuana

       Chapter 8:

       Your Rights and Responsibilities—Marijuana Civics and Law

       Chapter 9:

       The Marijuana Industry

       Chapter 10:

       The Future of Medical Marijuana

       Appendices

Foreword

       by Steph Sherer

       Founder and Executive Director

       Americans for Safe Access

      In 2000, I sustained a severe neck injury that left me with lack of mobility in my neck, neurological spasms, and severe chronic pain. I had to take painkillers, muscle relaxants, and high doses of ibuprofen to relieve the pain and calm the spasms. After about a year, as a result of the medications, problems developed with my stomach and kidneys. Six months later, my doctor warned me that I might have to start dialysis. I was 23 years old and terrified.

      One day in the examining room, my doctor shut the door behind him and asked me in a whisper, “Do you smoke marijuana?” I said no, and he replied, “Do you know anyone who does?” I thought he was trying to buy marijuana from me! My doctor reassured me that my assumption was wrong. He explained that he did not know very much about medical cannabis, but he had had other patients with similar intolerance to pain medications who were able to cut their medication intake by at least half by using cannabis. He was reluctant to put me on dialysis. If I could find some marijuana, we should try it.

      It was the first time that I had ever really thought about marijuana as medicine. I probably had the same amount of information on the subject that most Americans had at the time. I thought medical cannabis was only for people with AIDS or cancer. In favor of it in principle, I knew little about the emerging scientific developments nor had considered the needs of patients. Now facing my own medical crisis, the choice between dialysis and cannabis seemed an easy one to make, regardless of the law.

      Finding information about cannabis as medicine was extremely difficult. I started by calling friends and friends of friends, but none of these individuals could explain how to use cannabis as a medicine and why cannabis worked. I felt alone as I started experimenting. It wasn’t until months later when I could visit the medical cannabis centers in California’s San Francisco Bay Area that I was able to get the kinds of information found in this book.

       Access Means Action

      So much has changed over the past years. Resources like this book make learning about cannabis therapeutics and policies СКАЧАТЬ