Pot smoking and medicinal marijuana aren’t the same

• By The Newnan Times-Herald
  The recent news of the Drug Enforcement Agency deciding to leave marijuana a Schedule I drug (having no commonly accepted medical use) is the classic example of how inept our government has become, especially considering the widely publicized success of cannabidiol and THC-A compounds in the treatment of seizure patients. 
  
  The Newnan Times-Herald article by Sarah Fay Campbell duly demonstrated how families from all over our county, and most certainly America, are outraged by the careless lack of concern and priorities by state and federal legislators who try to scare the populace by preaching "slippery-slope" recreational marijuana scenarios to buy time for Big Pharma's attempt to synthesize that which is made naturally from God. 
  
  I worked with an officer whose young son had 80+ seizures a day with no success from doctor-prescribed pharmaceuticals. His family doctor actually recommended moving his family to Colorado in order to obtain cannabidiol and THC-A legally, which he did.
  Their success with these compounds was dramatic, reducing his little boy's seizures down to about two per day. My friend still works for the Atlanta Police Department and numerous extra detail jobs on the side to support two homes for one family.
  
  Recreational use of weed should in no way be confused with medical marijuana. Pot smokers are selfish in the respect getting high is not a team sport, can't be considered a family outing, and you couldn't have a family member’s obituary read: He loved fishing, hiking, and toking giant doobies. I had no aversion to arresting folks for possession of marijuana no matter how they protested they were merely conducting clinical trials of the leafy material.
  
  I have arrested substance-abuse counselors for growing 3-foot tall marijuana plants in their living room. Hard to explain the irony to her substance-abuse supervisor.
  
  I arrested a man that got spooked out of his house by a burglar one night, prompting us to find a couple hundred marijuana plants in his basement thriving in a hydroponic paradise. He asked me if I found the burglar, I said no, but what do you know about the marijuana downstairs? Marijuana must have affected his memory because he said he couldn't remember.
  
  On a traffic stop one time, a female motorist was outside of her car rummaging through her purse looking for her driver's license, handing me makeup, lipstick, bag of marijuana, car keys, perfume....bag of marijuana? How'd that get in there?
  
  On a routine complaint call, a fellow officer and I walked up some porch stairs noticing two large marijuana plants growing out of a pair one of those Greek concrete planters sitting on either side of the staircase. I asked the old woman who answered the door about the plants, and she said, "Oh, my son planted those ugly weeds sometime back and spends a God-awful amount of time watering them."  When I told her they were marijuana plants and that we would be taking them to police property to be destroyed, she said, "Good for you. Could you replace them with some rose bushes?" I told her politely, "We would not."
  
  I agree with all the families who suffer, right along with their children with seizures, that there is earnest hope with these debilitating syndromes if government would just stop its obstruction and let medical science lead the way to effective treatments.