Medical Marijuana from the Perspective of a Patient

By Stephanie Annis

Michigan legalized medical marijuana in 2008; at the time I had just been released from the Cleveland Clinic after a 45 day stay, emergency surgery, weighing only 98 lbs, and unable to walk well. I got home and the first thing I did was smoke a joint. Within two months I was up to 125 lbs and was able to walk down the aisle and stand up for my little sister at her wedding in Key West.

During Christmas 2009 we all gathered at my sister’s house in Las Vegas to celebrate the holidays. My dad had picked up a High Times magazine at a bookstore and on the back was an advertisement for the first Michigan Cannabis Cup. I grabbed my laptop and was quick to offer my story. This was something I had to be a part of and they responded on New Year’s Day, letting me know that I would be able to give a speech and be a guest judge.

As we were getting ready to leave my mom and I were packing up. She’s always been the one who never smoked or drank, and she made sure we always went to church and private schools. She had never been a supporter of marijuana and had always been opposed to it, though mostly in silence. We were discussing me standing in front of a crowd giving a speech and she said to me “Don’t back out, this is important; you have something to say that people need to hear.” As of that moment the legalization of medical marijuana, sharing my story, and trying to reach people who don’t know anything about the politics has become a mission in my life.

Due to some legal issues they were not able to have the Cup competition but they succeeded in putting on a great Expo with all kinds of educational information. I was amazed and got to meet the men who put this together. They had opened the first member dispensary in Michigan. They invited me to join and ever since my life has changed. No longer do I have to illegally search for marijuana of questionable origin and potency. I can walk into a nice building and meet privately with an expert who can advise me as to the differences in the medicine that is available. I now get my medicine that has been inspected with microscopes and is top of the line medical marijuana.

Everyone needs to stand up for decriminalization of marijuana because it can actually help to clean up the war zones of our inner cities and create jobs for the talented people in our communities. We need to have a safe environment for patients to get quality medicine. This is now a viable industry in our country which needs to be set up and organized. However, there is always going to be that opposing group that wants to stop us.

My one real hero in this fight I have to give props to Irv Rosenfeld, who is a patient that gets his medicine from the United States Federal Government! I hope some day that I can meet this man in person and thank him for coming to speak at the meetings of our Michigan State Congress. You can see his testimony on YouTube and it is educational, informative, and moving. We are the proof along with many others that marijuana is a medicine.

In the future the laws are going to be ever changing as they have been for years; such is the nature of our legal system. We have to be proactive in developing the laws supporting the use of medical marijuana. If the supporters aren’t writing the laws then they are going to be biased and unsatisfactory. We need the support of the politicians to write laws that allow for dispensaries to serve patients. It is up to us to show that medical dispensaries provide a vital and important service to the community which our politicians need to support.

A number of cities in Michigan have put moratoriums on allowing medical marijuana businesses to open. They are using the excuse of zoning issues. I grew up in Saginaw, one city that is using zoning as an excuse to stop a dispensary from opening in the city. Saginaw, once upon a time, was a great farming community, which turned into an auto industry city, but now the buildings stand vacant. Why are these factories not being used to grow quality medical marijuana? Creating factories and developing farmland where medical marijuana can be grown is a good way to consider revitalizing cities. It is important that we be involved or we will have marijuana that’s grown in houses by amateurs and not quality medical marijuana.

I challenge President Obama to keep his promise of change and add medical marijuana as a patient’s right to his health care initiatives.