What’s the stigma?
People over the years always come to the debate of the recreational or medical use of marijuana, also known as Cannabis. Cannabis is also the least toxic drug that there is to the human body.
The more the issue is looked at, the more it points to a stigma view of the drug in some cities. Older cities with higher senior citizen populations seem to neglect the welcoming of medical dispensaries’ much less recreational ones. Cities with younger citizens seem more open to the uses of Cannabis, and these rising cities might tip the scales in their favor in the upcoming ballot vote.
Fort Myers is not just home to Florida Gulf Coast University students but to a lot of snowbirds and skeptical citizens. November 9th, 2016 marked Florida’s milestone of legalizing medical marijuana although it’s not that simple in some Floridian cities.
Dr. Green Relief in Fort Myers is a medical marijuana doctor service. They diagnose patients and help them get their medical marijuana card certifications not only in Florida but also in Nevada and California.
A recent scientific study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine found that cannabis is the least toxic and contains the least amount of health risks. These low risks have raised many questions of changing government policies about the drug. Many have petitioned to make the drug recreational in their own states. The policies many people want to change are the legal approach and they suggest to legally regulating its medical, and recreational use rather than inflicting felonies and jail time.
The eight states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use are Colorado, California, Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Maine, and Massachusetts. There are more than 20 states that legalized its medical use and among these is Florida.
But what is the Stigma in these small cities in Florida?
Dr. Alexandra Bodden, who is a clinical psychologist in Grand Cayman, says the stigma can come from many different personal factors. Grand Cayman has a strict medical marijuana law. The country has no tolerance for recreational use and forbids a medical marijuana dispensary on the island, similar to Fort Myers.
“Every country, state, and city regulate the drug differently, and the majority of the final say is the politicians that propose certain policies,” Bodden said.
Smaller cities tend to neglect the welcoming of things that are acceptable to younger generations. Something that is new, especially with older individuals, tends to be patronized quickly.
“Here the stigma has always been that this is a Christian country and the older generation object the new changes for policies like these because of the way they were raised and so on,” Bodden said.
Fort Myers residents are composed of older Republicans, as well as the state of Florida in itself, which makes it a long process to propose ideals of medical dispensaries of cannabis. Some of the older residents of Estero refuse to talk about their dislikes of a dispensary in their area, while the younger residents are more open to talk and debate its pros and cons.
“I think its because it opens up a different market and young money is profiting from places like dispensaries, medical or even recreational,” Patty Ciccolo, 40, an Estero resident, said.
Ciccolo was the only one willing to talk outside the Estero Wal-Mart parking lot about the issue, other than younger college students. According to Ciccolo, some people are ignorant and instantly repute something they are not educated in badly.
“As long as people are smart, responsible, and keeping up with what they have to do to be a good community member, I don’t see it being an issue in Estero, but that’s my personal opinion,” Ciccolo said.
Ben Pollara, the lieutenant in John Morgan’s medical marijuana Amendment 2 campaign, believes that it’s going to take a lot more funding to get approval from many residents for recreational use of the drug in Florida.
Pollara’s efforts alongside with Morgan have made a change and gained the amendment approval for the medical use of the drug. This approach can be taken however way by different cities throughout Florida.
The stigma originates with popular Mexican beliefs in traveling to America. Isaac Campos wrote a book called Home Grown, which explains how the stigma was taken by the United States and what made it get militarized. The idea was born in connecting the violence going on with the Mexican drug war with the substance. The stigma can also be conceived by how indigenous people use the drug and during the time period, which was a poor and uneducated thing to do.
Now cannabis is being used medically not only to treat chronic pain, seizures, cancers and other physical painful diseases but also can treat depression, PTSD, and AIDS/HIV. The drug can treat other symptoms that may qualify you to obtain a medical marijuana card.
It is by no means easy to obtain a medical marijuana card. An individual has to surpass many exams that are physical and psychological. Dr. Green relief in Fort Myers is the only place close to Estero that helps patients in this way. They take in people and exam in them, but it can take months for a card to receive approval.
Many documents and educational articles point to the use of cannabis medically to be socially acceptable, but some residents are not educated on the serious rules that medical dispensaries implement. Stigma can go back to a person’s racial views or even their uneducated knowledge of what a medical dispensary entails.
To fully agree on accepting something that can be the unknown to many residents, it is best to do your research and ask questions before psychologically pushing away something not fully understood.
