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“I gave away 2000 dollars worth of stuff.”
I finally have a minute to do some Hot Box notes, and a friend of mine who works down the road sent in a piece he wrote about cannabis, and the whole natural vs. pharmaceutical argument. Read this and understand that what happened there, is happening all over the world right now, and the companies that are making the drugs that are supposed to help us, are actually profiting from our sickness. They make more money when we stay sick. This is just one example of a system human beings built, then exploited at the benefit of themselves, and the detriment of the rest of us. If you write, or like to write, or just want to help me out with some show notes, send your piece to info@hotboxpodcast.com or get a hold of me on Facebook. And now ladies and germs, I present to you, the writing of Paul Poindexter.
Natural vs Pharmaceutical
by Paul Poindexter
Has anyone noticed an increase in the pill popper sub-culture? Has anyone asked the question why? I have a story to tell you and you can decide for yourself why the increase.
When I was a child my parents took me to the family doctor and voiced concerns about some of my behaviors. The doctor decided was ADD and prescribed Ritalin to “help me cope” with the symptoms. I took Ritalin for a few months everyday at noon and a pattern soon emerged of me falling asleep 30 minutes later. I had no control over it, and there was no waking me up until it had run it’s course. After the pattern was noticed there was another round of talking and testing and in the end I was taken off the Ritalin. I don’t remember if I was on anything or not from then till I was nine years old.
At the age of nine my parents took me to see a Psychologist, and after more talking and testing he said I was bi-polar. They institutionalized me and immediately started me on three different medications. These medications were adjusted and changed many times until I was seventeen. The whole time I was on these meds, they were slowing down my body in both a physical and mental way. My metabolism slowed down while my appetite increased, my thought process and cognitive responses slowed down, and waking up (though that has always been difficult) became even harder than before. It also interfered with my sleep patterns so I wasn’t sleeping sound, or regularly.I dealt with all of this until I was seventeen. That’s when I told my doctor that I wanted off all the pills. He finally agreed, and we talked longer on that day than we had any other. We had to step me off of the medications slowly over time, and a couple of months later I was finally pill free.
You might ask what this has to do with my subject matter and the sub-culture. Well, about a year and a half later I joined that pill popping sub-culture. I took any narcotic I could get my hands on, and it turned me into a liar and a thief. I’ve been clean from those for about ten years now but when I asked myself how did it ever go as far as it did, I had to admit that it was easy. Because after all, I’ve been taking pills most of my life. Over the years I’ve put that same question to other ex-users and 99% of them gave me the same answer as I had to admit to myself. It was easy for them for the same reason it was easy for me. I realized after a time, many people in their youth were on one form of medication or another for a long period of time.
I now smoke medical cannabis to control chronic pain and have my prescription but with the new laws taking effect I will have to make hard decisions like whether to endure my pain with no help or to take the risk back on the street. I also have come to believe that I was misdiagnosed not once but twice when I was a kid. I will admit to dealing with bouts of depression over the years but this is true of most people alive today. These bouts are handled by my own acceptance of the problem and making the decision to pull myself out by not giving up. There is too much beauty in the world to stay down for long.
I understand that parents love their children and want them to have a fair chance at life, but I think medications have become over used and are to easy to get. Life moves so fast anymore, that whatever family time we get is precious and not enough to satisfy the needs of our kids. I say this as a parent who gets to see his children less then most, due to a large distance of land between us.
Pharmaceuticals are usually synthetic copies of things provided to us by mother nature, and because they can increase the potency I think the fact that it’s a copy makes them a “dirty” version and tends to be very addicting. Meanwhile, naturals work with the body and tend to be “cleaner” drugs unless altered by man. I’m not suggesting that we all sit around and smoke weed with our kids or that it’s the right choice for everyone. I’m not even saying that doctors and pharmaceuticals don’t have a place in the world. I do believe that it has become more about the money then the patient though.
This is meant only to be a cautionary tale that happens to be very true. I know, because it happened to me. The rest is up to you to decide for yourself.
– Paul Poindexter
Thank you for that insight. It’s great when people reach out to us, whether they are local down the street or in another country. Anyways, thanks Paul, and here are the links from this episode.
– Help out the cause! The MTCIA is helping you and me. Help them out if you can. Lawyers are expensive these days. If you can help out collecting signatures for the petition to block SB-423, click here.
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