Brandy Johnson and son , Tres story was featured in the April 2020 issue .
“ It cost me $ 400 to get Tres a medical card . I have to go to a rec dispensary and try to figure out his medication and pay retail prices now ,” Mom , Brandy Johnson moaned as she tries to find a way to finance moving her son back to Missouri , back to family .
“ Our clinic closed . We have to see two providers at two locations to get certified . There are limits now on what pediatric patients can receive . We are just reeling ,” Chris Gordon , mom of 12-year-old Autumn , sighed . “ It ’ s the reason we came here , and now we ’ re just screwed .”
son . Within a six-week span , she lost a child , became a widow with a teenage son , and they lost their health insurance 30 days later . She was on Prozac for post-partum , post-dead baby , post-dead husband depression , but with no health insurance , she had no way ( money ) to get her scripts filled .
At the encouragement of a friend , Linda bought $ 40 worth of meth . “ It was better than nothing ,” she told me . She got busted the second time she went to purchase meth . She had been in jail for three weeks with no one to put any money on her book to make a phone call and obviously no Prozac . She had no idea where her son was and no way to find out .
We hope Missouri dispensaries will maintain their current medical MMJ patient-first focus and related help .
We have met the enemy , and he is us .
According to a disturbing article in Politico last July by investigative journalist Natalie Fertig , many states with adult use are lobbying to keep cannabis on the schedule , including the democratic senator from Montana , where medical marijuana is legal . His concern is how federal legalization will affect Montana ’ s prolific marijuana industry .
Weirdly , I get it . States have been forced to take the bull by the horns and figure something out while the Federal Government can ’ t get out of the outhouse . I wonder — “ We need weed to stay illegal , so our thriving illegally-legal weed economy doesn ’ t get hurt ” — if anything sounds wrong to them when they say that out loud ?
The Death Penalty is Always on the Table
Being in jail in America has taken a perilous turn these days . According to Wendy Sawyer , research director at The Prison Policy Initiative ( 1 / 22 , NPR ’ s Michel Martin interview ), prison deaths are up 46 % between 2019-2020 — almost doubled .
Suicides and opioid overdoses are responsible for over 60 % of these fatalities . “... I think part of that can be explained by the fact that correctional populations , by and large , have higher rates of chronic illnesses that would make them more vulnerable ,” said Sawyer . Most people in prison are there for drugs . People look for drugs because they feel bad , and they feel bad because they are sick . It ’ s not rocket science folks !
What it all boils down to — every prisoner in America has a chance of getting the death penalty ( in one form or another ) regardless of why they are there , and we incarcerate too many mentally or physically sick people . Ending the Federal Prohibition on cannabis could create a tax base to provide healthcare for sick citizens instead of locking them up in concrete cells and giving them an alternative to self-medicating with black market / underground drugs like meth and fentanyl — responsible for over 100,000 dead people last year .
We ’ ve gotta change this , folks ! It ’ s going to take a “ United States ” group effort , not fifty states doing fifty pieces of legislation . Together we are more . Divided , we die !
Dolores Montgomery Halbin , RN , BSN , and Ordained Nurse Minister , resides in SW Missouri . After her husband passed in 2015 , she retired from nursing . She worked with the 2014-2018 Missouri campaigns for legalized medical marijuana . She continues as a cannabis reform activist volunteering with Canna Convict Project and working toward Federal decriminalization through educational speaking and freelance journalism . Dolores Halbin ,
doloreshalbin @ gmail . com .