We watched as Lisa played a full set of eight Chakra singing bowls laid out in a semicircle accompanied by her husband Griff on a native wooden flute , surrounded by dancing fireflies and the flickers of flame from the fire pit . It was mesmerizing magic , and I do love magic .
This woman , sitting on a blanket under the Ozark stars making music with her man , no more resembled the woman I met in 2018 than a butterfly resembles the tiny butterfly eggs we find on our cannabis plants . I needed to know how her metamorphosis had unfolded .
The next morning , joined by my travel buddies April Hatch , RN , and Jessica Evans , RN , we sat spellbound as this woman embraced her vulnerability and unfolded her story .
Transformation
The Egg
According to Native American teaching , the medicine of the butterfly represents the four stages of transformation : the egg , the larva , the cocoon , and the birth of the butterfly . The egg stage represents a thought or idea .
Most of us don ’ t have much good to say about getting old , but I think all of us old folks would agree on one blessing — watching the metamorphosis of other younger humans . Dr . Lisa Roark is one of these women I have been blessed and privileged to watch , painfully at times , travel through all four stages of her transformation to become this stunning butterfly playing the Chakra bowls .
Dr . Roark was an egg laid on a cannabis plant , although she didn ’ t know it at the time . A longtime supporter of alternative medicines , she has cringed and cried over opioid deaths . When she read that New Approach Missouri ( NAM ) was holding a ballot signature event for Amendment 2 ( A2 ) in her hometown of Cassville , she planned on attending . Unfortunately , we all spent that evening in storm shelters as tornadoes , lightning , thunder , rain , and hail passed through . I remember I was supposed to work the event . I had the cellar door at my grandmother ’ s house open , but no way was I going to descend to that creepy place unless I saw daylight through the roof as it blew away . In hindsight , the storm almost seems prophetic for the upcoming path Dr . Roark had no idea she was about to hatch into .
Still wanting to sign , Dr . Roark contacted the leadership of NAM . Before the conversation ended , she had offered her clinic as a signature sight . “ I made a split-second decision that felt right ,” she explained .
The Story Breaks
“ Honestly , it didn ’ t cross my mind to be worried about public judgment or public support ,” Dr . Roark reflected . “ I had no idea this thing was going to blow up like it did or what any of this would mean for my life . I didn ’ t know I would be writing recommendations , and we sure didn ’ t know we would open a dispensary !” She also had no idea what the incoming stress was about to do to her physically .
Anger
What prompted my desire to write about this woman , physician , wife , mother , human was her social media post on March 17 , 2023 .
Dr . Roark wrote : “ I had a pleasant surprise this week that has taken a moment to process . Almost 3 years ago , one week after returning home from Mexico from HSCT [ hematopoietic stem cell transplant ] for my MS , I received a call from the Missouri Board for the Healing Arts ( my physician licensing board ) to let me know my license was under investigation for doing medical marijuana certifications . Amendment 2 and Amendment 3 clearly protected physicians from this unreasonable invasion . But not me . I had to quietly pay an attorney to fight on my behalf . I had to keep my mouth shut in an unjust situation , and I ’ m really bad at keeping my mouth shut . I ’ ve paid thousands of dollars over the last three years to fight the board every step of the way . I refused to submit patient charts . I refused to allow them to intimidate me . … I should feel joy , relief . I still feel hurt . I ’ m a dang good physician . I care about my patients , and I do everything I possibly can to advocate on their behalf . I didn ’ t deserve this and neither does any other physician . Now I can speak out .”
I can relate . I couldn ’ t say a word from 2016-2018 until the Missouri State Board of Nursing cleared me of Moral Turpitude . It ’ s hard to believe how badly our licensing bodies hammered both of us financially , physically , and emotionally and how many resources they were willing to put into our persecution over those years .
2016 , The Epic Failure
With the leadership failure of 2016 , when we , the collective boots on the ground , found out we had another two-year deployment , depression set in like a set screw . I could speak out now without “ kicking the rattlesnake nest when I was in it ,” but the very last thing either myself or Lisa ( Dr . Roark ) wanted was to be on the local paper ’ s front page . However , if we were going to get the signatures from District 7 , we had no choice .
I recently caught up with Julia Kilmer Dembo , the young reporter assigned by the local paper , The Cassville Democrat , to cover A2 . When Dembo interviewed me in early March 2018 , she had never heard of medical marijuana ( MM ). “ I just thought it was a street drug ,” she said . I asked what prompted her to call Dr . Roark .
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