Despite medical cannabis having been decriminalized in at least thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia, it is still not considered a mainstream treatment for any of the qualifying conditions found on most state lists. Patients also do not access it by way of traditional prescriptions. So how they get to a place of starting to use medical cannabis is a little bit different.
Visit Zion Medicinal medical cannabis pharmacy in Cedar City, UT and you will hear people talking about the ‘journey’. Medical cannabis consumption is considered a journey because there are very few standards. Patients rely on trial and error to figure out what works best for them. And because medical conditions change over time, patients need to adapt to where they are at the moment. Thus, medical cannabis is a journey rather than just a simple treatment.
Likewise, how patients arrive at that place is also a journey. Medical cannabis users can tell all sorts of stories describing how they first arrived at the decision to get their medical cannabis cards. Some of those stories are both intriguing and disheartening at the same time.
Longtime Users Going Legit
I remember when I first began writing about medical cannabis some six years ago. Back then I heard plenty of stories from legal medical cannabis users who had been using illegal recreational marijuana for years prior to their states legalizing medical products. But once medical products hit the market, they gave up street weed in favor of regulated medical marijuana.
This may be a bit strange considering the fact that black market street weed is demonstrably cheaper than legal medical cannabis. But the benefit of going legit is having access to products that are tightly controlled through state standards, testing, and labeling. A medical cannabis user purchasing from a state licensed dispensary theoretically knows exactly what they are purchasing every time. The same cannot be said for street weed.
Cannabis When Other Treatments Fail
Another group of patients tells of landing on the medical cannabis doorstep after trying more traditional treatments for their conditions. This is actually a pretty common story among chronic pain patients. So many pain patients spend years searching for answers among countless doctors who cannot offer anything more than prescription painkillers.
Users in this particular group tell stories of how they’re prescription painkillers made them miserable. Some speak of addiction while others describe that their prescription meds made life unbearable. They finally ended up seeking out medical cannabis as a treatment of last resort.
Cannabis From Day 1
Perhaps the smallest group of medical cannabis users willing to tell their stories went straight to the drug from day 1. They can be chronic pain, PTSD, or even cancer patients that never attempted to alleviate their symptoms in any other way. They knew about medical cannabis when first diagnosed. And because of that, they went straight for a medical cannabis card without trying more traditional treatments.
This group can credit ongoing education and advocacy efforts with steering them toward medical cannabis. However, some may still benefit from other treatments. It is a matter of being willing to try alternatives. As for medical cannabis, millions of patients across the country now swear by it.
It’s my opinion that no two medical cannabis patients take the same path to arrive at the beginning of their individual journeys. Just as their journeys are all different in some way, their paths to medical cannabis differ in the details. That’s okay. The important thing is that they found a way to get there.
