The Drug Enforcement Administration announced this month that it will maintain its classification of marijuana as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. According to the DEA, a Schedule I drug is one that is “not currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Meanwhile, eight states are preparing to vote on legalizing marijuana in November, 25 states have already legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes and four states have legalized use for recreational purposes. All of these states are technically in violation of federal law.
As more and more Americans are becoming supportive of legalizing marijuana (a recent poll showed support at 61 percent). Legalization is a hot topic. There are countless books, articles and documentaries about weed, and why we should or should not legalize it. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of information. So I wanted to provide a more personal side to the story.
I used to consider myself anti-marijuana. I grew up in an upper middle class suburban town, where people who did any kind of drug were considered losers, low class and criminals. In elementary school, I was required to attend the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program, which taught me that marijuana caused severe memory loss, brain damage, personality changes and lung cancer. My school’s DARE curriculum at the time (the early 2000’s) insisted that marijuana was a gateway drug, and that people who used it were lazy, jobless addicts. Everyone knew that if you wanted to be a good person, get good grades and go to college, you could never touch marijuana. Though DARE has since changed its curriculum, I feel that it was responsible for essentially brainwashing me to be against marijuana at an extremely young age.
Even during my high school years, I was naïve and ignorant about weed. When a boy I had been crushing on for years was caught with a bag of it on campus, I decided I didn’t like him anymore. When my friends began hanging out with people who had medical marijuana cards, I cautioned them not to “get in with the wrong crowd.” When someone told me that my favorite band was composed of a bunch of potheads, I was devastated and disgusted. In my mind, people I loved were doing this horrible, trashy thing. I couldn’t reconcile it. This prejudice also had profound racist and classist implications, which I was unable to recognize until years later.
My mom was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001, when I was seven. She was 42. She used medical marijuana during her chemotherapy treatments to help with the nausea. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. Her cancer was relatively easy to treat, because it was Stage I, and she was cancer free for several years.
When she was 48, she was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. Stage IV cancer is metastatic, meaning it has spread from the original site to other parts of the body, and though it can often be managed, it cannot be cured. In my mom’s case, it had spread to her bones and the lining of her lungs. This late-stage cancer was scarier and more aggressive than the cancer she had before, and much harder to treat. According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate for Stage IV breast cancer is 22 percent. This was a death sentence.
When my mom first told me that she was going to start using medical marijuana, I was angry. I couldn’t see past the stereotypes and exaggerations about weed smokers that I had been socialized with. I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t just use prescription pain medication. My biggest fear was that she would turn into a different person, that the marijuana would alter her brain chemistry. But what I didn’t understand at the time is that her cancer and all the treatments she was going through were already doing that, and that weed would just make her more comfortable.
I am glad to say that since my mom has been using medical marijuana, I have realized that I was wrong about it. It has made her pain more manageable, and has also helped stabilize her moods, which I feel has improved our relationship.
In talking with my mom about medical marijuana, I’ve come to realize that she’s very lucky to live in a state where it’s legal. But I’ve also come to realize that even in states where it’s legal, we have a lot of work to do to make it more accessible for people like my mom who need it.
While doctors cannot prescribe medical marijuana, they can recommend it to patients and make it possible for them to get a card so they can legally obtain it. Even so, many doctors are reluctant to discuss the option with their patients. “They don’t really talk about it very much,” my mom said. “My old doctor didn’t really want to talk about it, I don’t think. They write it on the paperwork, on my list of drugs. They don’t say, ‘Use it.’ They say, ‘Oh, okay, you’re using it? How much?’ I could’ve told [my doctor] anything and she just would’ve written it down. She doesn’t want to know. Which is sad.”
Even in states where medical marijuana is legal, individual cities and counties often try to prevent people from accessing it. “[Cities] pass their own ordinances that prohibit growing, taking delivery… they will not allow any dispensaries. They shut them down. It’s like prohibition.” In addition, there are often discrepancies between state laws and local ordinances that can make it confusing to patients who want to grow their own marijuana for personal medicinal use.
My mom has been living with Stage IV breast cancer for almost eight years, which is remarkable for someone with her diagnosis. She believes medical marijuana may be partially responsible for her survival. “It could be why I’m alive,” she said. “We don’t know. But it’s also my mental state. It makes everything kind of recede so that you’re not living in the state of fear or the state of anxiety. So it’s a big mental thing for me.”
When you’re considering your stance on marijuana, consider people like my mom. Consider people with cancer, AIDS, epilepsy or any number of other conditions that can be managed with medical marijuana. There is absolutely no reason for something that has eased my mom’s suffering – and the suffering of so many other people – to be categorized as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. That, along with attitudes about marijuana use in general, needs to change.
