Why I Support Marijuana Legalization

I first smoked pot when I was 17 years old at a concert. I enjoyed it but of course, had no idea what I was really doing! lol... After I graduated high school, I used it a lot more just for the pure enjoyment of getting high.. and ohhhh how I enjoyed it. As I got older, I began to see the real value of Marijuana and not just the enjoyment of being high. I began actually reading up about Marijuana use and the pros and cons of it in comparison to drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. I'm not going to quote what researchers have said or what studies have proven.. I'm just going to give you my experience and opinion.

I remember the first time I heard about the benefits of Marijuana was with a friend of mine's boyfriend at the time..  He had some serious stomach issues that he dealt with.. I mean, to the point where he couldn't leave the house because he never knew when he was going to have an attack and he would be in excruciating pain, vomiting non stop for hours. He even had to quit his job and go on disability because of it. He had gone to various hospitals around the state including Cleveland Clinic and no one could figure out what was wrong with him or how to treat him. All they could do was try various medications that never worked and give him high doses of narcotics to try to ease the pain. He was on Oxycontin and just about every other pain pill you could think of. He grew resistant to these narcotics quickly and it wouldn't be long before they stopped working. The only thing that gave him any sort of relief was Marijuana.

Then I remember watching Montel Williams talk about Marijuana. Montel has M.S. (I think that's what it is) and he said the doctors had him on numerous pain pills but none of them worked. He said if it wasn't for Marijuana he wouldn't have been able to continue doing his talk show for as long as he did.

I began reading information about N.O.R.M.L. and about legalization of weed. I met my husband and he also had a lot of stomach problems (after years of testing, was finally diagnosed with IBS).. he would be up almost every single night vomiting, and the only thing that could calm his stomach was Marijuana.. not the hundreds of medications that doctors had given to him.

I suffer from severe Depression. I have been on medication for about 3 years. The medication helps a lot, but it also comes with a shit load of side effects that I really fucking hate. Before I was on the medication, I always felt like my head was out of control. I cried all the time. I couldn't control my emotions at all. My body would become tense and I couldn't calm myself down at all. Marijuana was the only thing that could calm my nerves and help me to stop crying. It relaxed me and helped me to see things differently even after the "high" wore off.

My husband and I both have problems sleeping. Sometimes my brain never wants to turn off.. or I will wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back to sleep. I've taken various PM meds and sleeping aids but they didn't always work and some of them had some annoying side effects. If I smoked Marijuana before bed, I would sleep all night long and wake up feeling like I had the best sleep ever.

I smoked Marijuana for the first few months that I went to college. I had As in every class. But wait, I thought if you smoke it, it kills brain cells????? Hmmmmm

We quit smoking weed a few years ago. For a few reasons, one was because of the cost, and another reason was because of the kids, and me being paranoid. We never, ever smoked it in front of the kids, only when they were not home or when they were asleep. It always made me paranoid though that we were going to get caught and get in trouble and have our kids taken away.

When we quit, there were no withdrawal symptoms. I wasn't craving it or sitting their biting my finger nails trying to figure out how I can get more! I think it CAN be addictive to people who have addictive personalities.. but if someone already has that kind of personality, they can become addicted to anything.

I still read up on a lot of new research that comes out on Marijuana and I've written quite a few articles on the subject:

The Pros and Cons of Marijuana Use... Is It Safer?

The Benefits of Legalizing Marijuana

I wish I could smoke again.. I do. Even though my meds help, I still have my bad days. Days that I just want to run away and my mind feels out of control. Now, I just have to ride it out instead of get and kind of relief. My kids see me like this... but I can't have the help that I need.

These are just the positive things I have experienced from Marijuana, not even the other numerous benefits it has that I'm not even going to list here. I mean, if they can make it legal for Medical reasons, why shouldn't it be legal completely? Why is alcohol legal? It shouldn't be!! How many people are killed in one year by alcohol whether it be drunk driving or alcohol poisoning? People get mean and evil when they are drunk. When someone is high, they just relax and enjoy the people they are with, drama free. OH, that reminds me. My husband used to work with a kid (he was 18) years ago who had severe ADD. I mean, this kid couldn't sit still, couldn't stop talking, he was actually a bit annoying because of it. He was on meds, but they obviously didnt help. What helped? Marijuana. As soon as he would smoke, he would calm down completely.. and he was actually fun to hang out with. It was as if he became a completely different person.

Marijuana doesn't make you stupid. Not everyone who uses it is a loser that sits at home in their mommy and daddy's basement acting like a dumbass. I know people who have professional high paying jobs (even government jobs) that come home from work and smoke. No one knows or even suspects because they maintain their appearance, personality, and smarts.

I would much rather smoke Marijuana than drink alcohol. I don't like drinking alcohol that much. It makes my stomach feel full and bloated... and I usually feel like shit the next day. (No one has ever had a weed hang over!). I like common sense. I do. It makes absolutely NO sense to me why alcohol is legal and Marijuana is not. Even the negative side effects of alcohol are worse than Marijuana. How does this even makes sense? Hmm.. Marijuana has hundreds of benefits and almost no negative side effects but it's illegal. Alcohol has no benefits and hundreds of negative side effects.. but yet it is legal. Why is our country spending soo much money on keeping it illegal and putting people in prison for using Marijuana where there are sooo many worse things things in the world?? Maybe our leaders need to put down their glass of Scotch, Cocaine, and hookers,  and pick up a blunt to experience it for themselves.