Last Tuesday morning, I visited my regular doctor to renew various prescriptions, fill out lots of paperwork and have some basic tests done. Tuesday afternoon, I visited my medicinal marijuana doctor, filling out lots of similar paperwork and running the same basic tests.

It was interesting to compare the experiences, since it was my first time visiting both doctors. If anything, the MMJ (medicinal marijuana) doctor’s paperwork was more comprehensive, covering a wide range of questions about my symptoms and understanding of possible side effects of cannabis. I guess they can’t be too careful.

As I’ve learned more about medicinal marijuana, I’ve discovered a paradox. Those more knowledgeable than I are already aware of it because it seems to come up so frequently in a humorous, “tongue in cheek” fashion.

The paradox is: “stoner vs. patient” and the question is: which are we really.

Certainly, there are legitimate patients who use cannabis and could not live productive lives without it, but the law in California is vague enough that, as a friend of mine put it: “Frankly, if you live in LA and can't get a prescription, we're sending you back to Baton Rouge without passing Go OR collecting $200!”

I can’t decide if this was meant as a compliment, an insult or a commentary on the ambiguous medicinal marijuana laws in California. Am I so messed up that I clearly need medication and no right thinking physician would deny me, or am I so messed up that using cannabis couldn’t possibly make it any worse?

This is the first time I’ve ever been hired based on my lack of experience.

It’s true. While you may not believe it, prior to November 2010 when I attended an Oaksterdam University weekend seminar, I’d only had three experiences with marijuana. So, to provide full disclosure about my cluelessness about all things cannabis, following are those three experiences.

I graduated from high school in 1972 and sometime during my senior year my friends and I decided it would be “cool” to try pot. Our intentions were good, but we failed miserably when it came to the execution. Not only did we not know where to find any, we didn’t even know anyone we could ask who might know where to find any. As I recall, none of us ever thought of ourselves as part of the “in” group, but it became clear that night we didn’t even know anyone in the “in” group.

In our defense, this was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, not exactly a hot bed of social revolution.
But still…While I was too young to participate, and my parents wouldn’t have let me anyway,
I was intrigued by the “Summer of Love” in Haight-Ashbury, Woodstock, and “make love, not
war.” Somehow though, the social chasm was too wide for me to cross and it stayed that way for
a long, long time.