Why does Attorney General Jeff Sessions hate epileptic children? Did one of them have a seizure during a photo-op and make wee-wee all over his Confederate dress grays? Sure must have been something pretty awful for him to renounce the “states’ rights” mantra espoused by his ilk since before the Civil War in order to save us all from marijuana.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact all the cigarettes and hard liquor produced in this country come from southern states. Certainly, it can’t be related to some deeply embedded racism, such as the kind that inspired former Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger, to assert smoking marijuana causes Blacks and Latinos to “forget their place in society” and inspires white women to desire sex with black men. I’m thinking it has to be something really personal.
On behalf of all the epileptics of America, especially those too young to speak for themselves, I want to apologize. I’m not sure what we did to you, J Beau. But it really wasn’t intentional. (I’m sure you’ll permit us to blame the drugs.) And I know you are a good a decent human being – the quintessential Southern gentleman – whose primary concern is for the people of America; not a corporate shill deeply in the pockets of Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol or Really Big Pharmaceuticals.
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So, we all hope you’ll reconsider your position on medical marijuana, especially as it applies to our children.
I’m sure you’ve never had a seizure, nor been compelled to take the “legal” drugs designed to prevent them. The episodes begin as a warm, almost pleasant sensation in the back of your head. Then you hit the floor with every muscle in your body in spasm. You scream and shake and drool. Sometimes you wet yourself. In the worst case, your heart stops and you die. In even the best cases, you are in incredible pain for at least a day after you regain consciousness and can sometimes not lift your head from wherever it happens to be lying. You find yourself desperately wishing your heart would have stopped, instead.
And you never know when it’s going to happen, again.
Many of the pharmaceuticals developed by the industry are ineffective or have side-effects nearly as unpleasant as the seizures. Some cause emotional rages. Some cause sleepwalking. Some cause the seizures they’re supposed to prevent.
None treats the condition without side-effects as well as marijuana. And you want to take it away from patients so that…
I apologize, again, J. Beau. But I can’t seem to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why that would be. The “debate” over the medical value of marijuana is as decided as the one over the “theory” of evolution. It is no longer an open question. And the only people who maintain they believe that to be the case are either misinformed or manipulative.
Someone in a position as prominent as yours can only be misinformed if he chooses to be. All the information is available to you – not just the “studies” conducted by tobacco companies, booze peddlers and pharmaceutical phlunkies. You must know the truth. Why are you jeopardizing the lives of sick children with your lies?
I was lucky enough to find a competent doctor a while back who came up with the right combination of “legal” drugs to stop my seizures and I have been free from that curse for twelve years. Many epileptics – a lot of them children – can’t make that claim. Many of them rely on the medical weed you’re about to try to take away from them because…
Sorry. I just can’t seem to make it past the point where I attempt to describe your motivations. Marijuana doesn’t lead to opioid abuse. Many studies have documented the fact that the abuse rate has decreased in legal states. It doesn’t make the user pound his piano keys and go wacky. It doesn’t even make white women want to have sex with black men.
Its white men like you who do that, J. Beau. Its pedantic jerks who’d rather contribute to the misery and death of children than admit they were wrong all along.
If your Republican colleagues in Congress have any sense, they will act swiftly to reclassify marijuana before you can use it to start the Bizzaro Civil War with Southern gentleman, such as yourself, on the side of federal authority over states’ rights. But that’s a pretty big “if.” It would be so much easier if you’d simply change your mind.
Maybe if you tossed down some JD with a Viagra and sucked on a Camel it would help you see more clearly.
I’d suggest you smoke a bowl and see what happens. But the black men of the world have asked me not to. Better safe than sorry.
[Featured image by U.S. Marshals Service / CC BY 2.0]