No matter one’s opinion on recreational marijuana use, we should all agree that medical marijuana would improve Wyoming. It doesn’t take a hippie to say doctors should have the freedom to prescribe medical cannabis to a patient they believe will benefit from it.
Sick people should get the medicine they need and cannabis is one kind of medicine with a lot of potential.
Cannabis can be used to treat glaucoma, bowel diseases, PTSD and can significantly reduce epileptic seizures, muscle spasms, pain from arthritis and tremors from Parkinson’s disease. It can also ease the pain from a number of nasty diseases and conditions, including cancer. There’s even some research that suggests cannabis can slow the spread of cancer or help fight it.
And those are just the medical benefits we’ve found so far. More research is being done every day and more uses for this miracle drug are being discovered all the time.
Some people will still look at this checklist of wonder treatments and express concerns about the safety of their community. Concerned parents are cautious, perhaps justifiably so, about allowing another drug—even one with so many legitimate uses—into their state because they fear it will get into the hands of children.
According to the CDC, one out of every 150 two-year-olds will visit an emergency room this year due to a prescription medication overdose. The drugs in these scenarios usually belong to the child’s parents. Drugs which are already legal pose a much greater threat to children than cannabis ever has or ever will, whether it’s legal or not. Yet nobody is suggesting we stop giving out benzodiazepines and amphetamines.
Another concern with most prescription pills is dependence. While it is possible to become dependent on marijuana, a user is much less likely to become dependent on weed than on most other drugs. And if a person does become dependent on cannabis, it will be less harmful to their health than getting hooked on just about anything else.
It’s true that if medical marijuana is legal in Wyoming, some people will lie to get medical cards and some professionals with access to the drug will sell some of it to turn a quick profit. But that’s no reason to tell Wyoming’s sick and dying that they should suffer here or move to Colorado.
Drugs are neither good nor evil. All drugs have benefits and risks, but cannabis has much greater benefits and much lower risks than just about any prescription medications currently legal in Wyoming.
Legalizing medical marijuana will give doctors the choice and the chance to help their patients in another way. When I get sick and go to the doctor’s office, I want my doctor to have the ability—and the legal right—to do everything in his or her power to help me.
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