[/caption]Carol Forsloff - As more and more states have moved to legalize marijuana for medical purposes,elderly patients now stand in queues at state offices to get their medical cards, seeking pain relief from the illnesses of aging and turning to the claims of cannabis, even as the practices of buying and selling have yet to catch up with the culture.
A downtown side street bordering on the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon boasts an alternative medical clinic with a doctor’s office boldly displaying the black-and-white art prints of Beatlemania and more that were once symbolic of the pot culture of the 1960’s.
Anyone believing that getting “the card” is an easy way to drug heaven hasn’t gone through the Oregon routine at its best. The Portland Alternative Clinic is one of those places with the marijuana look in some of its décor, but the doctor inside is the real McCoy. She gives a routine examination, but then addresses the real medical problems that are cited on medical records required before meeting with the doctor. A diagnosis of neuropathic pain from diabetes and elevated eye pressure from glaucoma at the front of a report makes the application process reliable at the outset, but the culture of being different remains some of the signals that reflect a disconnect between the medical need and pot’s potentials from greed. The medical clinic happily offers information and evaluation but resists touting any particular product or clinic for the actual marijuana goods.
The two-story house with the Cannabis sign out front mirrors the older architecture of early Portland, near town for accessibility to the marijuana product from city medical offices where doctors review applications and conduct examinations in order to qualify patients for the use of medical marijuana. The first visit to this dispensing clinic is free. Subsequent visits cost $5 with a $20 monthly membership or $10 per use. This allows patients the use of a room with an older television and a few casual seating arrangements for the puff of smoke that some of them have come to associate with the best and most immediate medical benefit.
On the other side of the smoking room is the retail section where growers offer their overage production for a reimbursement they refer to as the cost of the grow itself. Official growers are named by marijuana patients as part of the application process. Many of those named may be the family of the patient or the patient who hopes to produce the drug from plants after receiving instruction on the planting and growing. There are plenty of instructors, paraphernalia and books for that instruction. That overage amount offered for reimbursement comes in the form of the dried plant itself as well as edibles that include tinctures for the tongue and butters that can be used as an ingredient for muffins, cookies and other goodies for those not wanting to smoke the weed in that alternative image once part of the 1960’s coming of age. The license offers that legal protection for grower, caregiver and user in the State of Oregon.
The actual medical marijuana license costs $100, but the fee is being raised October 1. Most of those standing in line during September have been told that the fee will likely double to $200. The Oregon legislature is being buffeted by conservative arguments against the proliferation of dispensing facilities by tightening up medical specificity for the drug itself and reducing the number of potential applicants to offer product in various Oregon locations. There is now concern that Oregon may make broad changes to its marijuana laws, even as the medical marijuana community called NORML challenges rules that some believe are being made to reduce, if not eliminate, the use of the drug in Oregon.
Oregon was one of the leaders in the legalization of marijuana, as California’s moves in marijuana legislation have reinforced the image of both states as having liberal policies that could actually result in the legalization of the drug for recreational use. So far California voters have voted against recreational use of marijuana, while the medical marijuana community remains circumspect in its public dealings, while still displaying the cultural overlay of drug art and paraphernalia in corridors to dimly-lit rooms where mostly-young males sit in semi-official stance offering products for reimbursement.
Sometimes marijuana is given to patients with additional alternative therapies that include massage and special ointments to offer muscle tension relief along with pain reduction. The new medical marijuana convert is able to enter the once-forbidden city of California dreaming’ in an atmosphere that gives the right message to reduce those anxious feelings once associated with an underground culture. Now Grandma and Grandpa can find their first marijuana experience in some places that have some of the right moves.
Medical marijuana has a flourishing network of support in Oregon, a blue state on the forefront of changing laws in the United States. The red states, however, continue to refuse consideration of marijuana’s medical uses in state legislatures and among the general public, making it illegal to take a drug that is legal in Oregon into Louisiana regardless of the age or medical condition of the patient.
