Growing up in the quaint coastal town of Santa Barbara was nothing less than like, super chill, man. It wasn’t uncommon for me and my beach-bum buddies to pass around a weed-packed apple on lunch break in high school, or roll a spliff on the sand while watching the waves break after a long day of play rehearsal. Smoking pot was almost an expected part of growing up in California, just as maybe shooting heroin into your neck is a right of passage in Philly. Tokin’ on that green was either a phase you eventually grew out of, or a personal pleasure you adopted for life. It was simply never an issue.
I wasn’t introduced the concept of medical grade marijuana until I moved to Los Angeles – and that wasn’t because my friends were all simultaneously undergoing intensive chemotherapy. You could easily purchase a medical marijuana card on Venice Boulevard for $150 and have full access to the innumerable local dispensaries. Still – not an issue. Of course no matter where you are and what substance is concerned, someone will always find a way to abuse it. But for the most part, the distribution and use of marijuana stayed regulated.
When I came to Florida for treatment, I was shocked to discover that the smuggling of marijuana was a statewide concern. I have always been relatively interested in the subject of legalization, despite that fact that I was one of the Santa Barbarians who eventually ceased smoking – mainly because, you know, the whole sober thing. I dove into further research on the subject as pertaining to local regions such as, for instance, Panama City.
One story in particular warmed my soul and confirmed the accuracy of my opinions on the subject. Holley Moseley, a pediatric nurse in Pensacola, first met her future daughter RayAnn a few days before Christmas. RayAnn was a blue-eyed two-year-old with cerebral palsy, born to a drug-addicted prostitute and currently under the care of the state. Holley brought RayAnn home to join the family for the holidays, and the rest is history.
For a while now, the Moseley family has been trying desperately to become one of five medical marijuana dispensaries under the new law that cultivates a strain of marijuana high in CBD, the chemical that calms seizures. It is proving to be an uphill battle, and the family has resigned to the fact that they may need to move from Florida to Colorado (where this strain originates from) in order to improve their daughter’s quality of life without breaking state law.
In cases such as this, the need for partial legalization becomes increasingly apparent. However, Florida government remains firm. Perhaps instead of focusing so much attention on marijuana regulations, more emphasis should be put on further regulating prescription drug abuse and the increasingly widespread heroin epidemic. Just a thought.
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