Thursday, April 27, 2017

Can an old dog learn new tricks?



Last week, many of my readers responded very positively to my column concerning pain and pain management. It appears from feedback that severe pain is very common and a real problem to control and treatment and management can be very costly. Our politicians are making some pain drugs much more difficult to obtain for people who are sincerely dependent upon it to carry on a semi-normal life.

For a long time I've made the claim that anyone who challenges me to define what I believe is my friend. It is the easiest path to throw up your hands anytime you don't agree with something and say, "Sorry, but that's the way I see it and I'm not going to change my mind." I want to challenge you with this column and I want you to ruminate on what I am about to assert.

Steve Wold, better known as Seasick Steve wrote these insightful lyrics in the song, Can't teach an old dog new tricks:
"There must be something wrong with me
What it is I can't quite see
I can't seem to do nothing right.
Maybe I need to change my style
Been this way for a long long while
Maybe there's a few things I ought to fix.
Can you teach an old dog new tricks?"

Before you judge me on what you are about to read watch this amazing video and then chew the cud.
In this video, a man with Parkinson's disease is shaking so badly, he couldn't take a drink of water to save himself. He is offered a marijuana solution and he puts ONE drop under the tongue. Within ONE minute, he begins to calm down. In FIVE he sits up with no shakes and comments that his voice is coming back and then sings. The transformation is incredible or miraculous and the man appears healthy.

If after watching what one drop of this plant's extract can do for just one single disease, you cannot see the need to open it up for expansive research, then Steve's got another set of lyrics for you to embrace.

"Maybe I should leave well enough alone
I might not be perfect but I'm me to the bone
I don't need to change my style
Been this way for a long long while
There ain't nothing that I got to fix
You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

At 65 I do not want to be this old dog that simply refuses to adjust my thinking to adjust to science's onward march, especially when the original information was flawed.  Reefer madness is one of the biggest lies ever pushed on the American public, except maybe the need for underarm deodorant. BO as an advertising term was invented by Odo-Ro-No in 1919 (wisely targeting women's critical self-consciousness) to buy deodorant when all they needed was to bath regularly and wear clean clothes. Offensive body odor is caused by a buildup of bacteria and it simply does not grow that fast. However, stinking is not a crime. Maybe it should be. To substantiate my claim, I haven't used deodorant since 1977.

Marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 narcotic in the same category as heroin due to their dangerousness and potential for addiction. What idiot pushed this one past reasoning people? Heroin yes, cannabis, no. I can't substantiate my next statement with cold hard facts, but I am pretty danged sure no one has ever overdosed on marijuana alone. They may have laughed themselves to death, but overdose? Nope.
Now in the early 70's, I smoked this stuff like a chimney every single chance I got, so I am backing up my claims with personal experience. I quit because I turned my life over to Jesus and I felt like it was a bad witness. I haven't smoked it since. However, it is illegal and on top of that and I'll be honest with you here, even if it was legalized - I still will not smoke it again for recreational purposes.

The reason for this is twofold. One, pot or Mary Jane, etcetera, makes a person complacent or lazy, or content to the point that for many, including myself, I become unmotivated. Why go to the beach, when you can go to the beach in your head? Two, it gives you the munchies and that's all I need is to want to eat more than I already am.

But let's look at the hundreds of illnesses, aches and pains that engineered cannabis extracts can cure or remove. I ask those of us who have been led to believe that the medical use of opium derivatives is okay, but marijuana is not, to do a little research. Watch videos of people being given this plant and see for yourself that it is high time to declare medical marijuana legal and pursue it to the nth degree. Remember what I said in my column last week; when putting a gun to your head seems like a viable option to stop pain, you will take whatever you can get, to stop it.
.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Charlie Farrar: Good column, long too.

Anonymous said...

Karen Isom: I agree wholeheartedly, Bert. (With the deodorant thing, too, by the way)

Anonymous said...

James Baker: Well said Bert.
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Bruce Marshall: Legalize. For medical reasons and reduce wasted taxes and law enforcement efforts that can be spent on removing dangerous people from our society. Write your President, Governor, Senators, State Representative and Mayor. You can submit letters by mail. Links to their contact pages are listed below. I can help you with their addresses if you need.

Texas

Governor Greg Abbot https://gov.texas.gov/contact/

Texas Senators
John Cornyn https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact
Ted Cruz https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=email_senator

Texas State Representatives http://www.house.state.tx.us/.../find-your-representative/

It would not hurt to write President Trump and your city's Mayor.
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Terri Baker: I've often thought that it should be available for medical purposes and I'm not so sure that being illegal is the best use of our law enforcement.
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Melody Marshall-Sievers: Legalize bc the government shouldn't be able to tell u what to put into your body to begin with.
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Marian Marshall Herbert Hoover started this whole fictitous info . I just watched a program how this all started.
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Gordon Little Until it is legalized on the federal level, it will never really be legal.

As a chronic pain sufferer who has neared some of those drastic ends for relief myself, I must agree... when the pain level is high enough, one will do almost anything for relief. If I were told that a drop of liquid, a pill, or even an injection would truly relieve the pain, I feel it would truly be open for additional consideration.

Remember too, there are new cures and treatments discovered for illnesses all the time. If nobody ever tried anything new, where would medical technology be today? How many diseases would still be believed incurable?

Anonymous said...

Mark LaCroix: Good article. A friend of mine with Colorado plates tells me he can't drive through Texas without getting pulled over for no real reason but the obvious.
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Wade Hickman: "You stinka!" :) But you are right on the 'money'. Not a pot effienando myself, but the healing/therapeutic applications alone decry any more prehistoric mindsets about this plant.
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Larry Larue Caplan: In Washington state it has been legal for Medical use since 1997 or 98. However physicians would never prescribe it. Why? Because there was no kickback from big pharma. Federal legislators are also reliant on campaign donations from drug companies that want to sell you addictive pain medications so don't expect a federal change. What is worse are the local yocal law enforcement agencies who for years stole property from marijuana related arrests. Without these property seizures many police departments would go broke. States have woken up to the revenue potentials from taxing the plant and Washington and Colorado are making a killing from legalizing it for recreational use. There has been no negative consequence from all of the weed sales either. To my knowledge there has not been anyone killed from smoking it and driving in the 3 years or so since the pot shops opened.

Anonymous said...

Betty Lansford: Well said!
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Gordon Little: Point being though, even if states decriminalize it, it is still illegal on the federal level. If DEA had a whim to, they can still come in, sieze property, make arrests, and prosecute on the federal level.
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Deb Hearn: Good read Bert. You wrote this while in pain? I'll have to try pot when it's legal. I don't do deodorant either. Don't want breast cancer
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D.J. Brewer: Can an old trick learn new dogs?

Anonymous said...

SL: Great Article. Yesteryear I would have opposed it. I see the light.

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