Cannabis Is Medicine

Patient Story: Michael McNamara

Cannabis Is Medicine: By Michael McNamara

My journey with cannabis did not begin in the same way as other people began their journey. I was 23 years old and a musician with a serious stomach injury, and a history of anxiety. I was having a tough time. That was in 1984.

When a band member talked me into trying cannabis as a possible way to combat my stomach issues, I wasn’t sure what to do. All I knew is that the up to that point what the doctors prescribed me was making me worse. So I tried it and my life changed for the better.

Within an hour I was hungry, ate, and kept down my food.  When I continued to use cannabis it made my stomach better and from that day forward, my approach to using cannabis was as medicine. I could see how much it improved my stomach condition and I was also less anxious.

Flash forward to 2015 and now I am 56 years old. I have broken my back, my coccyx, and crushed 3 disks in a fall.  That was 3 years ago, and when I first showed up at my collective here in Washington state, i could hardly walk.  Today, I still have daily pain but it is managed and maintained with only cannabis as my medicinal treatment. Today, I prefer dry cannabis and also use salves, and teas.

A couple of year ago, my stomach took a turn for the worse and the accident I had with my fall, put my family and I into dire straights since I couldn’t work. We became homeless.

My nerve issues and pain came and went but with the stress my condition was what I knew more of a post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) and the bleeding began from ulcers in my stomach.

I did not consider teas to treat my stomach until my wife,  a proud Native American women, persuaded me to try drinking the cannabis tea as my medicine. The relief was fast and I have been using that tea daily for over two months now and all symptoms and bleeding have stopped. I am more healthy in that area then I have been in years.  Nothing that I got from doctors helped me at all.

Cannabis is medicine and I have lived that reality for over 20 years. With all that is broken and healed as best as I can be it is important to RECOGNIZE that cannabis can heal you too.

Now, I use nothing else to manage my condition and that is a blessing because all the conventional medicines that my doctors prescribed for me caused more anxiety, pain, and only made me worse.  I couldn’t function.

Today, I am in great shape, healthy and the best way to help others as much as I help MYSELF and my family, which is a spiritual way…cannabis may not be the answer for all, but for many it is and no one has the right to take that from us.

Spirit put cannabis here for us to us as a spiritual, emotional, and physical medicine to help provide a good quality of life, even with
the bumps and BRUISES that life can deal us, but cannabis can manage and heal people.

I will continue to do as I have done as a human and my right to determine my own path to healing and health. It should be everyone’s right.

That is a natural and important blessing for all of us.

That’s my story…well, a good summary anyway!  Thank you for allowing me to share

-Micheal McNamara

Learn more about Medical Marijuana here: The obvious, not so obvious facts, research, and insight into Medical Marijuana. A primer that even the most knowledgeable will find useful.