Marijuana and Me
by Rosemary Rains-Crawford
When I was
in high school, we spoke in hushed whispers about drug usage. While most of our parents drank alcohol, and
some quite a lot of it, they never considered using marijuana or any other illegal drug. They didn't even think warning
us about it necessary, as it was so unimaginable. So I managed
to pass through my entire childhood, teenage years, and most of my adult life
without too much exposure to “weed”.
Ten years after I graduated high school, my younger siblings had a
different experience, as by then marijuana was as much a part of their exposure
as alcohol was to mine.
As the
years passed, of course I became more aware of marijuana, but I remained firmly
opposed to any drug use. I assumed the
term “medical marijuana” was a euphemism used to legitimize marijuana use in
people who used it for the head rush it provided. Even if it did provide medical solutions, smoking something for
medical purposes seemed a bit medieval to me.
Alcohol makes me dizzy, an extremely uncomfortable feeling for me, so I
have always avoided getting high on anything.
Fast
forward 50 years – my aging body is protesting. Sometimes pain in my right wrist and my left knee keeps me awake
at night. I control the pain in my
wrist most of the time with one or two aspirin, but if I have been doing heavy
weeding in my garden, I suffer. When I
mentioned this to my sister, she assured me that marijuana was the safest and
most effective medicine for pain.
“But I
can’t bear the thought of smoking anything!”
“There are
lots of ways to take it without smoking it.”
This was
news to me. I had heard of brownies,
but that didn’t exactly sound like a medication so it hadn’t even occurred to
me. “You mean brownies?” I asked
incredulously.
“Not just
brownies – they have capsules, topical creams, and all kinds of food you can
bake it into.”
“I like the
sound of topical creams if they work.
Maybe it would be worth a try.”
When I made my first doctor
appointment in 15 years for my “Welcome to Medicare” physical shortly
thereafter, the doctor I chose assured me that that physical is “kind of a
joke”. WHAT? No doctor visit to me is “kind of a joke”. I spent my first few years out of high
school working in an Army hospital, so I insisted on blood tests, agreed to the
mammogram that he suggested, and while I was at it, had him xray the wrist that
had been troubling me a lot that week.
Bottom line, I ended up taking 10 mg a day of Lisiniprol for my newly
found high blood pressure, and knowing that my suspicions were correct: I had arthritis in my wrist. While he was willing to prescribe any pain
medication I might have seen on a TV commercial, he refused outright to
prescribe cannabis even though it is legal for medical purposes in the State of
Washington.
“I would prefer a natural remedy to
a chemical compound.”
“There is no difference between
natural and chemical. There is nothing
magical about being natural, and marijuana is a class 2 drug – meaning it has
no medical uses.”
“My sister swears by it and I would
like to try it.”
“I won’t prescribe it because it is
illegal.”
“But it isn’t illegal if you
prescribe it to me.”
“I can’t do that.”
So ended my “welcome to Medicare”
physical and my interest in revisiting any doctor. Still my pain persisted, and sometimes even four aspirin didn’t
dull it enough for me to sleep. Worried
about stomach bleeding from aspirin usage, I decided to pursue the cannabis
solution a bit more. I had no idea how
to proceed. I had seen ads in the
“Little Nickel” newspaper for “guaranteed license for medical marijuana”. They sounded so sleazy and addict-oriented
that I couldn’t visualize myself calling.
Falling into the hands of a medical marijuana quack seemed as bad as
falling into the hands of any other medical person.
“Do you still have contact with
your ex-husband?” I asked my sister.
Her ex was a very interesting guy.
One of the last old hippies, his background as a horticulturist had
always given us things to discuss as I love plants and always have a large
garden. I had known for many years that
his one goal in life was to produce the best bud from the best plants ever
cultivated. I had lost touch with him
over the years when he and my sister divorced.
“I would like to see if he can get me a marijuana plant.”
“Yeah, he still lives near you. I
am sure he can help you. I think this is his number.” She gave me a phone number.
When I called, I got a standard
message delivered by a monotone female voice:
“The party you called is not
currently available. Please leave a
message.”
Not sure what to say as I wasn’t
sure if it was the right number or of all the legalities of “legal
marijuana”, “Hi, you may not remember
me, but I’m Luna’s sister, and I have a horticulture question for you.” And left him my number.
A couple of days later, Don
returned my call. “Hi, Rosie, of course
I remember you. What can I help you
with?”
“I want to get a marijuana plant.”
I blurted out.
“I don’t want to talk about it on
the phone, but I may be able to help you.” He said quickly. But he gave me directions to his farm in
northwest Washington and we agreed to meet the next week.
My husband has a Honda Goldwing
motorcycle that we ride often in the summer, so we decided a visit to see Don
would make a nice ride. With a minimum
of backtracking, we were able to find Don’s farm where he sat in the sun in a
rocking chair on his large front porch waiting for us.
“Hi, Don, long time no see.”
“Yeah, good to see you.”
We sat in the other chairs on the
porch and proceeded to go through updates on my entire family, his entire
family, the weather, politics, etc. for about an hour before I finally
asked. “Can you get us a plant?”
“Well, maybe, but not right
away. I have some cannabis here if you
want a smoke.”
WHAT? First of all, we were riding a motorcycle. We had no interest in
getting high, especially when we had a 150-mile trip ahead of us on a
motorcycle!
“Gosh, Don, we really don’t smoke
at all.” I said gently. “Our interest
in a plant is so we can experiment with making salves and ointments that might
help with my arthritic wrist and knee.
How soon can you know if you can get a plant for us?”
“Well, I can call Mickie – he might
have a plant.”
He left us sitting on the porch
while he went inside and made a few phone calls.
“Well, he doesn’t have a plant, but
he can sell you some dried for now and get you a plant later.”
I was ready to abandon the whole
project, but Ron knew how much I needed some pain relief at times, so he said,
“We can do that.”
“Let me go make another call.” Don left us again sitting on the porch.
“It is getting kind of late – we
are a couple of hours from home and we don’t want to be on the freeway in the
dark.” I said worriedly.
“Well, it is better than waiting
for a possible plant next month or next year, so let’s just do this for now.”
“Okay.” I said, but began fidgeting
while we waited another 15 minutes for Don.
Finally, he came outside and told
us, “Mickie only sells in one ounce increments – is that okay?”
My experience with measurements is
that an ounce is about a tablespoonful, maybe a little bit more, but it sounded
about right, so I quickly said, “That is fine if we can get it pretty
soon. We don’t want to be in rush hour
traffic through Bellingham or on the road after dark.”
“No problem – but it is kind of
expensive.”
“How expensive?” Ron asked.
“It will be $300.”
Three hundred dollars?!?!?! I was appalled but before I could protest,
Ron said, “That will be fine.” And immediately pulled out his money clip and
peeled off three one hundred dollar bills that he gave Don.
“I can meet him right away, but he
doesn’t want you to come to his house, so maybe you can follow me and wait
somewhere while I meet him?”
“Okay.”
“But I do need to make a quick stop
on the way and get some hay for the horses – is that okay?”
“Sure. We will just follow you.”
So we set off in caravan – Don in
his big old carryall and Ron and I on the bike. After a confusing series of turns, Don suddenly pulled into a
driveway along a white plastic fence bordering a large pasture with a few
horses grazing along the edge. We
followed him until he came to a series of barns. When he suddenly drove straight into one of the barns, we pulled
over in the parking lot of one of the other barns and waited, even though we
could no longer see his vehicle.
“Can I help you?” An angry looking woman in a blue Jeep drove
up alongside the bike and looked at us suspiciously.
“We just followed my brother-in-law
here so he could pick up a load of hay.
We are taking him out to dinner later, and….” I realized then that I was
babbling so I shut up.
“Well, fine, but he should
have let us know!”
We waited uncomfortably for another
15 or 20 minutes until Don’s vehicle came out the other side of the barn and
approached the road. We fell in behind
him and followed him to his next stop – a gas station in Bellingham, where he
pulled up to the pump and began filling his rig.
“Do you want us to just wait here?”
I asked as he finished filling up.
“That would be fine.”
So we sat for about a half hour
before we realized that we were a bit conspicuous on our bike just sitting
there as people came and went looking at us skeptically.
“Let’s just move to that parking
lot,” Ron suggested, pointing to a large vacant warehouse looking building
about a half block away. “We can park
behind those trees but still watch for Don to come back.”
After nearly an hour, we were both
getting nervous. “Shouldn’t he be back
by now?” I asked tentatively.
“Boy, you would sure think so!”
“It is nearly 5 p.m. We will be riding in the dark for sure. Maybe we should just go home and forget
this. By then I was feeling like the biggest
drug addict on the face of the earth.
“He already has my $300 and has put
most of it into that big land boat of his.” Ron answered reasonably. Still after another 20 minutes, even he was
ready to just head for home, when our phone rang.
“Hey, its me – I am over at the
Shop and Save – do you know where that is?”
“No.”
“It is just around the corner –
take a left at the corner by the gas station and just go straight and you will
see it as you approach the freeway.”
So at least we were moving toward
home, which made both of us happier.
Sure enough, in the parking lot, we spotted Don standing outside his
vehicle. As we rode up, he handed us a
grocery bag. We put it in the trunk of
the motorcycle, said goodbye quickly, and headed home.
To our dismay, when we got home and
looked in the bag, we found a whole quart zip-lock bag full of marijuana
buds. “Good grief! That has to be a
life-time supply, and we are probably well into felony mode!” I observed.
“Well, honey, you can start your
experiment now!” Ron said happily.
I froze the bag and started my
research. I found that to make brownies, which seemed the easiest for a
beginner, I first needed to melt a pound of butter in the crockpot, add a
quantity (how much?) of buds, and cook slowly for 24 hours. Then discard the plant matter and use the
butter to replace the oil called out in the brownie recipe. I tentatively added five buds to the
butter. For the next 24 hours, we anxiously
watched the driveway, worrying that anyone might visit, as our entire house
smelled of marijuana.
The next day I used the Costco
brownie mix to make a batch of brownies, using a third of a cup of my new
butter. Even though my wrist wasn’t
bothering me that evening around 5 p.m. when the brownies came out of the oven,
I ate at least a full brownie as I cut them into squares and ate the crumbs
left in the pan.
By about 7 p.m., the TV picture
seemed to be fading in and out and I felt almost dizzy. Not entirely like being dizzy – more like
being in a trance or something. I went
to bed early, had strange dreams all night, but slept through the night and
woke up refreshed. I was encouraged to
continue experimenting when I woke with a feeling of well-being.
That was three years ago. I have come a long way since with my
knowledge of cannabis and its effects on my body and mind. In the interest of keeping this a short
story and not a novel, I will tell of my quest to grow a plant, make salves and
ointments, and become legal in the state of Washington in future stories.
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