An EndProhibition Personal Account: Robert Ling

The following is a personal account from one of our End Prohibition members in Ontario. He is one of thousands of Canadians who suffer from a malady that can be alleviated by the use of cannabis (marijuana). Although 4000 people in Canada are exempted from criminal sanctions for their choice in medication, many tens of thousands more have been unable to access this respite from the drug war.

In this account Robert relates his experiences with his illness, his medicinal use of cannabis, and the bureaucratic labyrinth of the Canadian Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR). He is one of many thousands of Canadians who use cannabis safely and should not fear criminal penalty for this personal health decision.

There have been hundreds of deaths from prescription pain-relief pills, and none from cannabis (also shown to be effective in pain relief) which is far more difficult to obtain. We must end this system that endangers Canadians by misrepresenting the risk and benefit of pharmaceutical and natural substances available. Drug policy must be set by rational, evidence-based research by experts, and not by an ideological agenda. We thank everyone, who like Robert, participate in their communities and in the Canadian political process. Together we can end prohibition!

"My Cannabis Awakening"
By Robert Ling

About two years ago, I suffered a grand mal seizure that would change my life forever. At the time I was on a drug called Clozapine, an anti-psychotic prescribed to improve my sleep habits. My neurologist performed a variety of tests and came to the conclusion that my seizure was induced by this anti-psychotic. I was banned from taking any other anti-psychotics: my seizure threshold was so low that I was not to be put on any substance that could lower it any further. I suffer from bipolar disorder and at first, this information was crushing. I lost my sleep aid, and went through a terrible withdrawal.

This was not the first standard treatment that would end up giving me complications. Risperdal made me a numb zombie, and Zyprexa and Seroquel both landed me in the hospital for stomach complications. Other pharmaceutical sleep aids were either ineffective or caused too many negative side-effects. Without a sleep aid, I would go days without sleep. When you don't sleep for 4 days in a row, you cannot function. Fortunately I was introduced to a natural substance that allows me to function productively. That substance is cannabis.

I now am a lifetime advocate for the drug and will continue to be as it has been of great benefit to my health. I can now sleep, keep a social life, and get decent grades at school. Before cannabis, I could not finish a university year, but now I am able. In addition to helping me cope with bipolar disorder, I use cannabis to relieve my suffering from chronic abdominal pain syndrome. Chronic abdominal pain syndrome is another way for your doctor to tell you, “we know you come here and experience blockages, we know that your intestines are reddening and we know that you are in severe pain but we have no clue what is causing it.” I take antibiotics for this issue and it leaves me severely nauseated, and cannabis helps me with this. This discovery was bittersweet, as my use of medical cannabis would also introduce me to societies' view on the substance, and into the hypocrisy surrounding it.

Before I used cannabis medicinally, I accepted the stigma of the “unproductive stoner”. Who would want to use a substance that kills brain cells? Anti-drug and anti-cannabis propaganda can be effective and as a result of my medicinal use, I became a target of discrimination. For a substance that is impossible to overdose upon, you need to file a 40 page license form every year to legally possess your medicine, and need to renew this license every year. Most patients cannot see their doctor on demand, and on top of this you have an 8 to 10 weeks wait for processing. As a result, you get people who suffer from terminal diseases such as cancer who die before receiving their license.

So, as a disabled person who benefits from cannabis, you usually have a choice of suffering or becoming a criminal. Now with Stephen Harper playing out his obsession with mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders by introducing bills like C-15, patients will no longer have judicial discretion, and will be thrown in jail. What opened my eyes the most was Harper's 100 million dollar investment into the prison system at a time of economic recession. Statistics Canada was saying in 2008 that the crime rate has been lowered all over the country, and yet most Canadians still believe the crime rate is increasing.

Chronic pain sufferers like myself live a life of suffering. Why put us through more pain over a substance we find medicinally beneficial? The prohibition of cannabis (or any substance Canadians find beneficial) is a crime against the sick in our country. We are denying Canadians the right to happiness and this is not fair.

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