The Rationale for Self-Medicating, Cannabis and Big Pharma

I believe each individual should explore the rationale for self-medicating. I’m not suggesting to anyone that they fully ignore conventional wisdom, medical evidence or your doctor’s advice, but I am advocating for some common sense and trusting your own intuition when it comes to your body.

What I hear about entirely too often is someone going to see a western (by “western” I mean modern, traditional medicine) doctor for a set of symptoms and getting either a prescription or the promise of surgery. I have many thoughts on western medicine that I won’t go deeply into at this point. I do not believe that western doctors are evil or intend to keep people in pain (that’s Big Pharma, after all, there is much more money in treatment than in curing), but I do believe that they have a very limited tool chest. It has been said that when your only tool is hammer, every problem is a nail. Well, if your only tools are pharmaceuticals and surgery, even a mild condition presents as a “nail.”

My personal experience with this is somewhat broad so I will speak directly about one instance (this happens to be an instance where cannabis is the self-medication I chose and it has worked beautifully; since this IS, after all, a weed appreciation blog, it seems a good story to tell).

I have/had wicked insomnia. I only say “had” because, since cannabis has been in my daily life, my sleep problems are nearly non-existent. Prior to getting my medical cannabis authorization, I visited many “sleep experts” to try and help me with my insomnia. Western medicine just really let me down on this one. Every doc I visited couldn’t wait to prescribe me the hottest, new sleeping pill. I tried Ambien, Halcion, Lunesta and a host of others. At best, they were completely useless. At worst, they gave me horrible cottonmouth and symptoms of the flu. I tried Lunesta on a plane trip to Europe thinking that a sleeping pill might knock me out for part of the flight. I shit you not, within 20 minutes of ingesting the pill I started to sweat and shiver simultaneously, my face went pale and I immediately got diarrhea. They should change the name to Ebola with the slogan of “doesn’t simulated hemorrhagic fever take your mind off your insomnia?”

So, none of that Big Pharma crap helped me at all. In fact, it caused more pain (see above). I should have trusted my body and relied on my own evidence; I had smoked weed for fun and always was able to slip into the sweetest weed-naps. No side-effects, no damage to my liver, heart and kidneys from god knows how many chemicals were in those pills. What the experience really gave me was the confidence that I could make good decisions for my own health.

My wife had a similar experience, though not directly related to cannabis. She went to a western doc with a slightly irregular menstrual cycle and, on her first visit, the doctor suggested that she just have a hysterectomy and be done with it. She then visited her naturopathic MD and he gave her a tincture made from herbs and other natural stuff, told her to manage her stress (this is where the cannabis helped!) and in 2 weeks she was feeling normal again. Within my household, my wife and I generally use western medicine for emergency care and for its diagnostic abilities. There is some remarkable technology out there that can give you a clearer idea of what’s going on under the skin. But then we take that diagnostic info and bounce it off our alternative practitioners.

I’m not saying lets set our own broken bones or perform at-home appendectomies, but let’s not use hand grenades to kill houseflies either. Cannabis in particular is a great cure-all for many ailments and is one of the safest “drugs” known to man. All I’m saying is that a joint and some light stretching might be worth a try before you sign your name on that anesthetic liability release form. Don’t accept what the white-coats tell you without a second thought. If something feels suspicious to you, it probably is.

This is your health, people. No one knows what you’re experiencing or how it affects your life better than you.  Trust yourself and ask questions. In the end, we all self-medicate anyway. That cup of coffee you just “need” in order to function; that glass of scotch at the end of the day to relax; the yoga class you hit after work to unwind. It all accomplishes the same end: to increase your quality of life. Just make sure your medication of choice is safe.