Patient Story Victoria Zavala, Part 3

Interview with Victoria Zavala

Transcript:

Time went on, and I lost my jobs, because I couldn’t go get my medicine. And I couldn’t medicate and keep up with my duties. Finally a doctor said “you’re sick, you’re really bad” and it was a doctor that is here local, that actually is pro-cannabis now. He just said, “you are to the point you can’t do this”.

So fine.

That was my summer of ’07, but I needed help, I had no insurance for her and I was getting worse, and the treatment moved on. I was like no more, I’m done with all of this. Why are they going to put me back in treatment? Because I had MediCal and I was going back to those doctors, they wanted to put me back on all that treatment again. And I was doing fine. So the state tells me, and I tell them I’m a cannabis patient, and they say get your state card. I followed the rules, I did every thing they said to do. I documented everything. I did that, I was doing that. I got a job. I sought employment out in the valley.

If anything it was more volunteer work and it educated me more. It educated me to the point that come 2008 when Oaksterdam was coming and they were real about this, I took the class. But before that, I joined an organization, Americans for Safe Access, and that was truly the beginning. Because, wow, I didn’t know there were other people out there like me. I didn’t know that people out there that were scared. I didn’t know there were people out there that were still hiding in their closets, and I was one of them. And there were those people in that small room with voices and all this knowledge, and I though how do you get like that. I left like that. I changed my life.