Marijuana can help those in pain

To the editor:

After reading Bud Herron’s opinion column concerning medical marijuana that ran in the July 12 edition of The Commercial Review, I thought maybe a few insights might be presented.

He states how his mother was in very much pain battling cancer. He had asked the doctor if there was anything else they could give to help the pain and nausea.

Hesitatingly, the doctor said quietly “Marijuana could help but it’s illegal and I can’t prescribe it.”

Having been in such a situation numerous times, as Bud was, I can sympathize with him 100 percent. 

I am not saying I think that marijuana should be as easy to get as cigarettes, but I feel the law has fought this for so many years without any real results.

If, as I have done so many times, you are sitting with your wife who is in so much pain that she cannot sleep or relax at all, having a time trying to keep her stomach from emptying the contents, of what little she has in there  is not an experience anyone should have to go through, especially the patient.

Waking up from a sleep with a text from your wife saying she is in so much pain, please don’t let the medical people come in the morning, call the minister and give me an overdose of morphine. If this doesn’t drive a stake in your heart, then you are not human.

If you have a feeding tube in your stomach, a trach in your throat, a picc line in your arm, taking chemo, getting blood and water infusions many times each week, massive doses of antibiotics, taking morphine every four hours, potassium twice a day, nebulizers treatments every day, laxative and diarrhea meds, anxiety and depression meds, fentanyl patch every three days, then I feel you would maybe know just a little of what my wife dealt with every day.

I had to make a spreadsheet to be sure I gave her what she needed every day. Going to the doctor, ER or hospital was another item — had to schedule in-between her feedings.

That is what she endured for too many months at the end of her life. If we had access to medical marijuana, not in smoking form, it might have at least given her some comfort and relief the last few days of her life.

When you watch your wife slowly slip away day by day, you want to do everything in your power to help comfort and console her. There is no other feeling as helpless when a loved one is dying and both you and those in the medical profession are unable to do anything more for them.

I do not do any drugs, but I feel that a loosening of the laws surrounding medical marijuana could help and benefit many people that have reached the end of a pain-free, comfortable life, with no hope for any other help than high-powered narcotics that only can cause more problems than they help at times.

This I feel should be given serious thought by our political legislators in Indianapolis.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Tague

Portland