Hillary Says She Never Used Pot When She Was Young... And Doesn't Plan To Now

I started using pot when I was very young. And about 5 years later I quit, when I was pretty young too. Overall it was a good experience-- with some drawbacks-- and I have no regrets that it was a big part of my life, especially when I was in college. I've had no regrets since I swore it off on December 1, 1969, on the border between Pakistan and India. 

But about 45 years later I began treatment for cancer. The treatment-- chemotherapy-- is devastating and the side effects are horrific. Many of my friends and neighbors urged me to alleviate those side effects with medical marijuana. I thought medical marijuana was just hype by potheads trying to get the stuff legalized. Was I ever wrong!

My doctor told me she didn't want me using any pot while I was getting chemo. She's the boss. But afterwards, when I was recovering (suffering) she said it would be OK. The ameliorative effects were instant and profound. Suddenly I was able to sleep-- and sleep deeply-- and eat, two things that are essential for recovery. The pot also helped reregulate my digestive system, another godsend, and helped me combat the excruciating pain chemo leaves with so many people. I become a believer.

If you follow DWT with any regularity, you've probably noticed me cheering legalization legislation by Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) in the last several months. My concerns, though, are for medical marijuana, not recreational marijuana. I don't particularly care about that one way or the other. The libertarian in me is fine with it. If people want to get high, it should be up to them. But getting high, personally, isn't something I can relate to any longer. It used to be the center of my life. Now it's an unwanted side effect of the medical marijuana I use in my treatment.

But legalization, recreational legalization, seems inevitable. Colorado and Washington have already implemented it. It seems de facto legal in California, and it became legal in Oregon on Wednesday and will become legal in Alaska next year.

All that said, it is still illegal federally, and the clash wreaks havoc on the pot business and on the use of medical marijuana. Example: Medicare, a federal program, still denies essential treatments to patients who they decide are drug users based on urine samples that show traces of marijuana, even if it is prescribed by doctors in states where it is legal. Under federal law it is still a Schedule 1 substance-- as "dangerous," at least in theory, as heroin or meth or other truly dangerous drugs. 

These states have legalized (or decriminalized) medical marijuana:

• Alaska
• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Mississippi (quasi-decriminalized)
• Montana
• Nebraska (same bizarre, confused system as Mississippi)
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• South Dakota (on Indian reservations only)
• Tennessee (for seizures an epilepsy only)
• Vermont
• Washington
• DC
• Puerto Rico

All of the congressional candidates endorsed by Blue America favor medical-marijuana legalization. The only presidential candidate for legalization is Rand Paul, although Bernie Sanders seems open and to be headed in that direction. The more conservative creepy candidates, like Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio, oppose decriminalization and seem to still be living decades in the past, proof they are really not fit to be leaders. Some of them say it should be up to each state, and some, like Chris Christie and Bobby Jindal, want to throw everyone in jail who uses it for any reason at all.