Medical Marijuana Helps Combat Pain and is Reducing Stigma with Legalization
Smith is not the subject of the interview’s last name, but they chose it in order to protect their identity in the story.
Kayla Smith started smoking weed to control her migraines.
A byproduct of her fifth concussion that she sustained when she was 16, Smith reported having these migraines on a daily basis, making it hard to go to school and perform basic tasks. The pain was excruciating and she had to sit in the dark and silence when a headache occurred.
“I was on a bunch of medications that weren’t working,” Smith said. “Once I got into college, I sort of had them under control with that medication, but I was still experiencing them [the migraines] a few times a week, so I decided to look into medical marijuana.”
Before using cannabis to control her pain, she tried many other practices to help her, which all came up short. Smith tried yoga, acupuncture, going to a chiropractor, and even considered getting an ear piercing that she heard would help.
New York signed legislation on Sept. 21, 2021 announcing that all cannabis would be legal in the state. Anyone over the age of 21 will now be allowed to purchase, smoke, or ingest the products and purchase them at dispensaries across the state.
There are multiple places in the Hudson Valley who sold cannabis products prior to marijuana becoming legal. These places were required to sell CBD (cannabidiol), a separate strain of marijuana that does not give you the high that most people associate with the drug. CBD is used to help people with insomnia or seizures, for example. Most people also know CBD as hemp, which is used in multiple products ranging from lotion all the way to fabrics for bags or clothing. The part of marijuana that does get an individual high is THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), this helps people like Smith, who experience migraines and other painful ailments.
The use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has been around for years. There have been multiple progressive practices in treating people for cancer, pain management, relax muscles and calm anxiety.
Smith is a resident of New Jersey, but says that obtaining a medical marijuana card is a universal process.
“My neurologist just wrote me a letter that said ‘I have been treating this patient for migraines for the last several years’, and I took it to a doctor who had a license to prescribe medical marijuana,” Smith said.
While there is no “application process” that comes with weed becoming legal for New York residents, dispensaries are very strict on their policies. All of the dispensaries local to the Hudson Valley declined to comment on their businesses success and future now that the plant has become legal.
A medical dispensary in Kingston called Etain Health has four lines of medical marijuana products on their website. They list out the science and have a portal for both patients and doctors to fulfill prescriptions. This process also asks if individuals are 21 of age and will not let people into their store without a medical ID.
These strict regulations that are placed on regular people also come with rules for the patients who are prescribed it. Smith notes that her prescription is only an ounce a month.
“I usually buy a half-ounce every time I go [to a dispensary],” says Smith. “And that usually costs me around 200 dollars.”
While expensive, it is worth it for the results that patients show.
“Before getting my medical card, my migraines were a ten, without a doubt,” says Smith, referring to the pain she would feel. “Now, I would say it’s about a three, but I get them less frequently now.” Smith’s mother also has her medical ID for back pain, who has also seen an improvement in her symptoms.
Smith also notes that she feels more relaxed and she sleeps better, which is a complete turnaround from the sleeping pills she used to have to take.
Even though she is under 21, because she has the ID card, she can purchase any item in the dispensary except for vaping products, which is against smoking laws. Gummies, oils, pre-rolled joints and the plant itself are all fair game. She will also be able to walk into dispensaries in New York once she is over the age of 21, which will save her the time of driving home to New Jersey and back to get it, which she does about twice a month.
Smith’s preferred method of ingesting her prescription is by smoking it, which she does about once a day.
“It just feels like the easiest to control for me,” she said. “I control how much I put in when I set up to smoke, and it helps me to not burn through my prescription as quickly.”
Now that New York opens up the purchase of cannabis products to a wider audience, the people who need it for their health are more excited than ever to see stigmas surrounding the drug reduced.
“I think a lot of people see it as, like, a drug that makes you lazy or gets you high out of your mind,” Smith says. “I think people do not want to really recognize the benefits of it because it was something that was considered illegal and bad for a number of years. Now people will be educated on it, and it can help people in so many more ways.”
