PAIN ... the Great Equalizer

I just learned last night about another young adult, this one from my home town who has been living with chronic pain for the last year or so.  Fell off a horse~ let’s just call him Joey.  This kinda hits home for me, because I have fallen off SO MANY horses just like Joey ... some more times than others.  But yikes.... this could have been me so easily and so often!

Can you imagine being in your early 20's and knowing or surely feeling like you're going to be in major chronic pain for the rest of your life?  Can you imagine that?  Even minor chronic pain is debilitating within months.  Chronic is the operative word here.  Never-ending, never-easing, 24/7 pain.  Many can imagine it; others live in it every day.  Pain ... the great equalizer eh?  What the hell are we doing?  In the year 2013, we can perform open-heart surgery on a fetus, but we can't safely kill pain.

There's a plant.  Have you heard about that plant?  It's a Gift from Mother Nature.  It helps kill pain by firing up receptors that already exist in our brains, livers, gut and many other organs.  My home town is in the middle of Farmerville ... acre upon acre of fertile land.  And guess what?  This plant grows like a weed :-) 

Here is something to ponder.  As of December 10th 2013, if Joey lived in Uruguay, he could grow this plant in his fertile and safe rural back yard.  Uruguay of all countries has legalized all use of this plant in an effort to push out violent gangs.  If he lived there, Joey could go online and buy seeds from gardeners who breed strains of this plant that are effective for any combination of symptoms.  He could grow six plants—which is therapy in and of itself--then harvest, dry, and convert the herb into tinctures, cooking oils, and concentrated oil to make food to kill his pain.  He'd be able to go back to work.  He’d want to go back to work.  He’d want to live again.  Joey would want to dress like he’s on the cover of GQ again.  It would truly be a win-win!!

Are you aware of how many Canadians live with chronic pain?  This is pain that never stops.  This is pain that gnaws at your inner sanity, changes your perspectives on life, and leads one to wonder about all the ways to stop the pain-none of which are good.  As time goes on, depression sets in.  Tears are ever closer to the surface as your life, and the lives of every single person who loves you changes….because of a four-letter word.  PAIN.

I try to put myself in the mind of a capitalistic employer, an insurance company, or even our government’s disability support programs when I think of the benefits of safely killing pain.  Staff attendance and fewer sick days would no doubt drive profits up for employers.  Fewer monthly insurance payouts keeps the all-important insurance companies’ money making money.  And fewer Government disability support payments speaks for itself.  Killing pain safely and without side-effects and addiction is good for the economy!

Then I revert to my mind, which is one that feels the immensity of chronic pain even though I don’t suffer from it.  A mind that knows first-hand what depression and a warped sense of self-worth can do to you and your decision-making abilities in the long-run.  A mind that also knows first-hand the zombifying effects of prescription depression meds,and has heard the horrors of nauseating, constipating prescription pain meds.  I see that the economy is important, but I see that it’s nothing without its workforce—you and I that is.  They can’t make effective robots to stir your double-double or wrap a pita just the way you like it, not to mention care for anyone!  My mind sees what the average human needs to be happy….and the rest in theory and practice will follow.

 If I were running the show, we would grow our own medicine with our dill weed and our tomatoes.  Work, class, life attendance would be up because when people can live pain-free wondrous things occur … slightly melodramatic sounding … unless it’s you that wondrous things are happening to.

Humans are not meant to live in pain for any length of time.  We are biologically resilient, and mentally fragile in a world of additives and nutritional shortcuts.  This plant that I speak of is Cannabis.  Big Pharma tried to put what Mother Nature makes into a pill but it just never seemed to measure up.

You cannot make in a lab, what the Sun, Earth, and Moon can make in a season.