He turns to me and asks, “is this doctor dude mellow?”
“Mellow?” I ask. “What do you mean by mellow?”
“Like, can he get me a prescription?” He asks.
“He’s a doctor. That’s what doctors usually do when they find something wrong with you that they can treat.”
“Oh wow, dude, I got something bad!”
At this point, I am not too sure I should be sitting next to this kid. “Bad? How bad?”
“It’s my eyes, dude. They got like guacamole!”
Trying unsuccessfully not to laugh too loud, I said “guacamole? Do you mean Glaucoma?”
“Yeah, that’s it. I need a prescription for like some medical marijuana, dude.”
“Well in the first place, that problem should be seen by an optician. This is a family practice doctor. I doubt he would see you for Glaucoma. In the second place, they will usually give you eye drops for that.”
He sat there for a while with a miffed look on his face and said, “Bummer! Well, I have like Arthuritis too. You take pot for that don’t you?”
“I don’t. But if the doctor truly believes that would help, I suppose he might give you a prescription for that. Some doctors seem eager to issue prescriptions for marijuana to cure anything from hangnails to heart attacks. I don’t know how this doctor feels about it, though.”
“I been smoking the stuff for like a while now and got busted the other day. Dudes on the street said I should like get a medical marijuana card and be legal. They all like have one! Dudes said that gauca… what was it, like Glaucoma stuff was like a sure thing for a card.”
“So you’re what, eighteen, nineteen?”
“Nineteen, dude.”
“And you’re going to tell the doctor you have arthritis?”
“Yeah, dude. I gotta get that card.”
“That would be a real stretch of medical probabilities, but I suppose if this doctor doesn’t prescribe marijuana, another one will. I would wish you good luck, but for your own sake I hope he is more ethical than that.”
“Why dude? It won’t be long and weed will be like legal everywhere. It ain’t hurtin’ no one, and ain’t as bad as alcohol!”
“And how would you know? Have you seen any scientific studies that tell you that?”
“My friends all like do it, and there’s like nothing wrong with them.”
“Well, son, I have seen studies, and they all say that crap is bad for you. One study published in Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers for the first time comprehensively describe existing abnormalities in brain function and structure of long-term marijuana users with multiple magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques. Findings show chronic marijuana users have smaller brain volume in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) a part of the brain commonly associated with addiction, but also increased brain connectivity.
“To put it another way, pot shrinks your brain. How many of your friends are rocket scientists?”
“Uhh?”
“Okay, here are some facts from Colorado, where pot has been legal since 2012: The majority of DUI arrests involve marijuana and 25 to 40 percent were for marijuana alone. In 2013, 48.4 percent of adult arrestees tested positive for marijuana, which is a 16 percent increase from 2008. From 2011 through 2013, there was a 57 percent increase of marijuana-related emergency room visits. Hospitalizations related to marijuana increased 82 percent since 2008. I won’t even bother to tell you the bad things that happen to school age kids, but believe me it ain’t pretty. It’s all in a report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area titled The Legalization of Marijuana in Colorado: The Impact.”
The kid had a blank look on his face. “Dude, those are just like… facts. Pot makes me feel good! I hear these dispensaries have like special blends of pot that will like blow your mind!”
About that time, he was called into the doctor’s office. I guess it is true about pot shrinking your brain, if this kid was any example. The sad part is these kids will be running the country before long.
No comments:
Post a Comment