Medical Marijuana in San Diego County

Medical marijuana seems to be a hot topic in California now. It gets a lot of news attention from both pro-pot and ant-pot sides. Unfortunately, the anti-pot side has won in San Diego (for now).

I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease when I was 13 years old. Not a serious case, fortunately, but enough to land me in the hospital for about 2 weeks on an all liquid diet. I went through steroid treatment and my conditions faded. I occasionally have flare ups of the condition but they usually don't last long if I continue my medicine.

It was around 14 that I first tried marijuana, it was the summer between seventh and eighth grade. My friend who had been smoking for about a year due to his older brothers was the person I talked to. He told me to come with him to a different neighborhood with him over to the more "ghetto" Mexican side of town. I was nervous but I went along with him on my bike. We scored some schwag Mexican weed from a friend of his and he rolled it into a joint to pass around. When it got to me I took one big hit and swallowed a lot of smoke. I started coughing really hard and I could hardly breathe, my throat was so irritated all I could do was keep swallowing air and I thought I was going to die. My coughing started to cease and I attempted to pass the joint to my friend or the mexican guy and they both refused, saying it was my first time so I should smoke it all.

I finally got through the whole joint. Still burping some of the smoke back up the Mexican guy pulled out a pipe and started passing it around. After the pipe consumed the rest of our small purchase my friend, the Mexican, and me headed off on our bikes to Round Table Pizza. That's when it happened, I started feeling "strange" and in a few minutes I was high as hell. This was a new feeling and I was really enjoying it and it kicked off my smoking for the past few years.

Fast forward to about a year ago. My friend who I had first smoked with has been living in Mexico for a year so I hadn't seen him and I hadn't smoked for months. That's when a new medical problem arose. I was put on a new medication for my liver than gave me a severely upset stomach and cause vomiting so that I could not eat for days at a time unless I stopped taking the pill. An old friend of mine called my phone one day as I was laying in bed sick, he wanted me to come smoke a few bowls with him. I had been inside sick for about a week so I was happy to go out, sick or not. We rode around the city in his car hot boxing the inside, after 20 minutes or so I realized that I didn't feel one bit sick so we went to get some McDonald's just so I could have something in my stomach.

After this amazing reaction to the marijuana I did some research on the internet, finding that my condition is on a list of things you can receive medical marijuana for in California. I went to see a medical marijuana clinic doctor to receive a "recommendation" for medical marijuana. And I finally had a legal way to get what I needed to make my stomach stop hurting, or did I?

As I came to find out, San Diego county had previously shut down every medical marijuana dispensary in San Diego county saying they were influencing youth to take up dangerous drugs. In my area we have no readily available source for medical marijuana other than grow it ourselves (which is what I do) or go to a "dealer". This needs to be brought to the publics attention as it is leaving many legitimately sick people such as me without the access to the medicine they need.