By Enedina Stanger
After using cannabis for 1 ½ years to keep myself alive, I was recently reported, apprehended, and charged with a felony.
Now a medical refugee in Colorado, I'd like to explain why I need
cannabis — and why I'll be working to change Utah's laws to allow people
like me to have safe, legal access.
Like many people, I have a disorder that is
hidden — unseen and ignored too easily. I have an unclassified form of
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rarely diagnosed disorder that causes a
mutation in my collagen. It is hereditary; we recently learned that my
two young daughters have it as well.
I did not choose this life of excruciating
pain. I did not choose to have the collagen in my body betray me, and
within a year of the initial diagnosis have all the bones in my body
dislocate. I did not choose the frailty of my internal organs and my
whole nervous system, the constant dislocations that shred my tendons
and wreak havoc on my muscles.
For too long, I was in a haze of prescribed
pills — a drugged up mother whose life was passing as if I was in a
glass house. These pills resulted in round after round of ambulance
trips and emergency room visits with no relief.
I prayed. My husband watched his wife's body
fall apart. I saw the life I wanted gone in an instant with a condition
that I had never heard of. I cried.
The nerve pain and the muscle spasms threw me
over the edge. I contemplated suicide. Aside from the horrendous pain of
bones constantly dislocating, the tendons, muscles and nerves around
all my joints were strained, and most eventually gave out.
I do not hesitate to state that medical
cannabis saved my life. It saves my life every day — not because it can
ease the horrendous pain, but because it relaxes the muscles that are
cramping and calms the never-ending misfiring of nerves. Opiate
medication has nearly killed me; my frail body could not withstand the
side effects.
Cannabis brings relief without the side effects. To me, it
is a miracle — albeit an illegal one.
I am — and want to be — a mother who can
nurture and raise her children. Prescription drugs made me dazed and
bedridden. Using them, I was an incapable mother and fully dependent
upon my husband. Using cannabis, I can function and be a part of my
daughter's lives.
I am a patient — not a criminal. I have great
respect for the law; my father is a retired FBI agent. Marijuana is
easily accessible for those who want to break the law and use it;
law-abiding citizens are denied its legitimate medical benefit. Like
thousands of Utahns hiding in the shadows, I want — I need — legal
access to tested cannabis from regulated sources. We cannot be ignored
any longer.
Far too many people have died, or lived their
lives in constant pain because they were not given the freedom to choose
a natural, God-given plant to save or improve their lives, or the lives
of their loved ones.
Government should help — not hurt — its citizens.
Medical cannabis must be legal.
Critics of medical legalization are guided by
fear. Myself and thousands like me are guided by hope. Sen. Mark
Madsen's legislation helps patients. It would allow my family, and many
other medical refugees like us, to return home. It would give us access
to the whole cannabis plant that we need.
Competing legislation meant to derail Sen.
Madsen's bill claims to be "cautious" by only legalizing cannabidoil —
one of many components in cannabis. I could drink the stuff by the
gallon and it would do absolutely nothing for me. Like countless others,
I need all of the many cannabinoids in the plant whose properties
interact with and complement one another.
This competing bill, sponsored by Rep. Brad Daw and
Sen. Evan Vickers — a pharmacist whose business is selling drugs that
cannabis competes against — won't help cancer patients, those with
chronic pain, MS, ALS, veterans with PTSD, and many more. It will
continue to criminalize us. That is unacceptable.
As a mother, I teach my children the difference
between right and wrong. They see their mother doing the right thing —
keeping herself alive to be present in their lives — while doing the
wrong thing in the government's eyes. Now I need cannabis to help them
as their condition worsens. Please help me fix the law and return home
to my family, my caretakers, and my support system.
Our lives, quite literally, depend on it.
Enedina Stanger is living in Colorado.
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