We have a legitimate alternative to conventional pain medication that is barely used.

My latest adventure has been with a bout of Shingles. The pain from this at the start was absolutely Immense.
It would start in the form of a major muscle cramp which I thought had developed from riding a four wheeler all day. Then I would start thinking maybe it was from an insect bite as I saw some red bumps appearing.
Soon those red bumps expanded and I could not understand why I was being assaulted by spiders.
I would wake up two days ago with so much pain in my head it felt like a spike was being driven into my skull. Apparently this was being caused by the effected nerves in my shoulder sending those wonderful signals to the brain box, uhgg.

Keep in mind I am someone whom normally has very little sensitivity to pain. I can cut myself open and rarely feel it, so having a pain so bad I could barely function was a unreal event to me.

I would be diagnosed with Shingles and the Anti Viral Medication I was given would help the pain immensely as Shingles attacks your nerves.

Now I was faced with a dilema, the anti viral made me congested, a bit short of breath even, and the pain medication given to me was Acetaminophen which of course is nasty on your body. Now I kept taking the anti viral as I could deal with the mild allergic reaction to stop the pain, but was it really necessary? Is there a better solution?

The answer is probably yes.

While I am not saying the anti viral medication is not something we need, clearly it helps and should be used, however it seems that if we simply went back to what mother earth gave us, we would be better off.

I am talking about Marijuana, a plant which seems to have little side effects so long as it is eaten, and not smoked. Smoking Marijuana is a cause for lung cancer, which we can all agree is not a good thing. But eating it seems to be nearly the cure all for pain management, and it even acts as a PED.
Keep in mind that I come from the anti drug side of things. Dad was very conservative in this regard and would have broken my legs had I so much as sniffed a drug.
Seeing side effects of conventional drugs has always made me shy away from them as well. Now that I am older and it seems my hard life is catching up to me maybe it is not such a bad thing to use some wacky weed.
Whether you agree or not, one thing is for sure, it should be our choice, and our choice alone and not for the Government to dictate this on our lives as well.

So far the legalization of Marijuana in Washington and Colorado have been nothing short of success stories, so let us make the rest of the nation the same, let us give people real choice in their treatments and stop the limited choices of potentially harmful Pharmaceuticals.