Richard Branson and Friends Gathering Tomorrow in NYC For Drug Legalization

• May they all have a great day that are meeting, and hopfully some way forward will be born.

• I am a medical marijuana patient.  I have been a medical marijuana patient for several years.  The state has taken my money and issued me a card so I can now admit that I am a medical marijuana patient.  I am not now nor have I ever been on unemployment, welfare or food stamps the only time I have ever collected workmen’s compensation was when I received a single check in 1979 in the amount of $382.00, It was compensation for lost wages when at the age of 16 I had all five toes on my right foot cut off while working on a ranch in the Colorado Mountains.   Now I would like to tell you why I am a medical marijuana patient. It was over 20 years ago since the first time that I went to a doctor to talk about the pain I was feeling. At the time the pain was not so bad it was like I had worked out to hard the day before. It felt like I had worked out so hard it hurt; it wasn't that bad, I could live with it.  I was just really curious why it was there so I went to doctors. Lots of doctors they got me tested for just about everything, after all the tests and money they came back and said they had no clue.  Therefore I went another five years before I said or did anything about it.  Then about five years later, the pain got exponentially worse.  Now if I had been sedentary for more than an hour or so doing something like maybe sleeping, when I woke up my muscles were hard like stone.   It hurt just moving my arms in the morning, to take the covers off my body was very painful, standing on my legs was like jumping on top of two very long needles that went from the floor through the heel of my foot shot through my calf muscle exploding in my thigh and then piercing my hip. I could feel every bit of that needle as it came up from the floor to my hip every single inch of muscle screaming as the pain tore through it. Once I was standing I could walk it off in about an hour or so.  Then the rest of the day it was the same as before as long as I didn’t sit still too long. Sitting still for periods of time would cause me to feel the same pain all over again. Sitting on the couch and watching an hour long show on TV with my arms crossed would cause every muscle in my body to feel as if it was being ripped from the position it was in when it came time to move.  I went back to the doctors, I actually went back to the very same Dr. that I went to the first time, I figured I needed somebody to know that this was not a brand-new thing. I knew they would have some record of it. They thought I was just angling for painkillers at first but when I never asked for painkillers, and I left the office they dug up my old files.  They called me back two days later and scheduled another appointment.  After that appointment and many thousands of dollars of tests they sent me to see a neurologist, because they definitely did know something was going on, they just  had absolutely no clue what it was.  I spent the next 15 years going to doctors and taking tests and having people stick metal things in my muscles adding a dose of electricity and calling it a test, all sorts of crazy tests and muscle biopsies and still nothing conclusive. The pain had gotten to the point that it didn't go away; I could no longer walk it off in an hour or two, every movement I made felt like each and every one of my muscles was being pulled to its limit and beyond like Salt Water Taffy when it’s on the pulling machine. Fifteen years after resuming medical attention and twenty years after seeing the first Dr. about the muscle pain I had been feeling I was feeling at my very worst, so bad in fact my doctor told me I needed to get my affairs in order because she didn’t think I was going to live long enough to see spring. My muscles were disintegrating from the inside out and they had no idea why. Because it was not Lou Gehrig's disease or some other well publicized muscle disease there was no money or interest in trying to resolve the problem. The testing and medical care would eventually cause my wife and me to file bankruptcy.  One morning I could barely stand without help it was then that my wife drove me to the Dr’s. Office then got me in my wheel chair and without any help pushed me through the underground parking lot and up to the fifth floor, when she got to the doctor’s office she said “See this is what I am talking about!” The Dr. took one look at me and said it’s your thyroid; (my TSH was the highest ever recorded in a living human)  It took another five years before another Dr. discovered that I had Hashimoto's thyroiditis or chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, it is an autoimmune disease in which the thyroid gland is gradually destroyed.  In laymen terms my thyroid does whatever it wants whenever it wants. Some days my thyroid works double what it should some days it runs perfect and other days it does nothing at all. The years that it took to find the cause and a way to stop the damage caused irreparable harm, the best anyone can tell is that my muscles were dissolving from the inside out slowly but surely, the only way to prove the theory is to have an autopsy; I am not quite ready for that test yet.  My muscles will not repair them self and today there is no method of repairing them with science, but the damage has stopped getting worse and will not get any worse as long as I control my thyroid.  The pain is constant and at times it is unbearable yet I find solace in the fact that it has stopped getting worse, that was such a hopeless feeling when the pain just got worse and worse and all the Dr.s could do was give me stronger and stronger pain killers never knowing how to stop the damage that was being done.   When the pain would not go away I had to agree to start taking painkillers, as time went by we worked our way through all of your typical painkillers, basically we tried every single pain killer available at the time.  After several years we finally worked our way up to morphine. It was during the time I was on morphine that my wife woke me one night, the house was burning down and that there was fire not 3 feet from me raging out of control, I was sleeping soundly until she started screaming.  After that I refused to take the morphine, I started taking OxyContin instead increasing the dose more and more every few months. Over time it became clear that I was going to have to get off of the OxyContin so I could concentrate on one thing for more than 15 seconds at a time.  It was harder for me to get doctors to support me, coming off of the OxyContin then it was to get doctors to give me OxyContin.  It got to the point I had to personally check myself into the Seaton drug rehabilitation Hospital in Waterville because I thought I was going to kill myself and the doctors would not help me other than to give me more OxyContin.   I finally got myself off of the OxyContin; I was still in pain though.  I went and found another Dr. who specialized in pain management.  I explained my situation to him and after he went through twenty years of my records.  He asked me “From the first time that you had this checked out too the second time you had this checked out you waited five years. Were you still in pain during that time?” I told him I was and that it wasn't that bad because I didn't feel it all that much.  Then he asked me if I was taking anything for pain back then.  I said I wasn't so he asked me if I was smoking pot back then, I said yes I was, quite a bit in fact He then asked me if it had ever occurred to me that the reason I didn't hurt so bad back then was because I was taking painkillers. The fact I was smoking marijuana was why it didn't hurt that much. You see when I grew up I quit smoking marijuana and doing all of the things that I had used unwittingly to take away the pain. I grew up and stopped taking the very pain killer that was helping me not feel the pain and still allowed me to be a full functioning adult.  My Dr and I Then discussed the pros and cons of becoming a medical marijuana patient. I am medical marijuana patient and my pain is mostly under control.  I still have bad days, and because medical marijuana is expensive and hard to obtain legally I don't always have any.  And when I don't have any the pain causes me to be mean and hard to deal. Pain causes me to be someone I don't like to be, the pain causes me to treat my family the way they do not deserve to be treated, marijuana gives me relief from the pain so I can treat people the way they deserve to be treated, pain does strange thing to one's brain, it just makes you mean after a while. Now I am not some hippie that likes to sit around and smoke pot all day, in fact when I got my medical marijuana card I went down the Winslow police station to show them my medical marijuana card and I asked them if they had a police officer that can sit down with my child and explain to him how important it is that he treats it like any other prescription in our house.  I wanted to make sure that my son understood that all of his hopes and dreams could be crushed by taking even the smallest amount my prescription to school, to destroy his future because some cute little girl talked him into it, or some bully bullied him into it would be a tragedy. I hope this helps someone understand why anyone would become a medical marijuana patient in the first place.  

• When Governments in "democratic" countries declare War on their own citizens as they have done they commit TREASON against the people and should be tried for their atrocities and breaches of human rights. When they seize food and medicines (protected items) from civilians in those "theatres of internal armed conflict" they breach the Geneva Protocols and commit war crimes. Why are we the people not calling for them to be indicted?  Anyone who thinks it is not a real war has obviously not heard the "formal declaration by the recognised political leaders" or seen the "state militia" raised to fight it on the streets in full modern warfare dress and armed to the teeth.(did someone say SWAT). I am yet to hear Obama or here in OZ Gillard declare a formal end to the hostilities that were declared. I hate living in a war zone. End the WAR, Try the war-mongers for their crimes and get on with living in a far more peaceful society I say.

• We all need to ensure that this gets out to the people around the world. Here in Australia we are hearing none of this. At least the fight against this war has begun, now we must take up the banner and add our voices to the fight. Thank you Richard Branson, finally a good man stood up.

• ha ha - Bart Simpson

• Thanks to all those involved. I wish I was there. Eventually, lawmakers will hear the voice of the billions of individuals who choose a less dangerus form of comfort from any other chemicals. My ailment, my choice of treatment. Lawmakers need to be more humain and less conplacent with data that only hold us back from a quality way of life.

• ron paul

• can he run for president?

•          look i tried of hideing because I smoke weed for medical reasons More people need to come to the fourfront and stand up 4 our rights

• Once out of power, they reveal the hypocrisy.  While still in power, they're drunk on the payola and pure power the "Drug War" awards them.  Who, still in proper position, will step forth first and shun the money to play "Prohibition Politician"?

• I'm highly pleased that after so many years, things are getting sorted out. 

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