Pubdate: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 Source: News, The (New Glasgow, CN NS) Copyright: 2014 Transcontinental Inc. Contact: http://www.ngnews.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3343 Author: Sterling MacDonald Page: 6 NONSENSICAL LAW DENIES ABILITY TO CONTROL PAIN To the editor, It seems ludicrous: a law that prevents me from healing myself. I have a rare disease (cramping fasciculation syndrome) which keeps me up night after night with plenty of pain and no sleep. The medicines prescribed for this disease have so many side effects that they should just be called poison, for me at least. I have been smoking marijuana oil for a full year now and I am pain free. The oil does not ease the pain, it stops the pain from coming. It's truly a miracle. I am on a pension and my miracle would cost me $200 weekly. My only option was to grow my own marijuana and make my own oil. I figure, what's the harm, I'm not selling it, I only want to be pain free and perhaps continue to do the things I enjoy such as skiing and skating (they recommend you do not exercise with this disease) but which I was able to do for 54 days last winter with the help of my medicine. Last week a helicopter flew very low over my private property and they ended up taking all my medicine (marijuana plants). What do I do now? Come up with the money somehow and buy who knows what from the bikers? I am far more interested in being pain-free than in being stoned. Like the poppy plant (some have opium, some don't) there are strains of marijuana (Charlotte's Web) that have very little THC, the drug that makes you high, but still retain the CBD (cannabidiol), which is the drug that stops my pain. It's ironic that two of the substances you can legally grow or produce at home are tobacco and booze. That's right, two of the most destructive substances known to man. My heart goes out to all those who lost their plants this way and were growing marijuana to help with the symptoms associated with their cancer, seizures, epilepsy, MS, arthritis, autoimmune diseases or some other strange disease that modern medicine can't help. Hope you have a pain-free day! Sterling MacDonald Little Harbour - --- MAP posted-by: Matt