Dad and Medical Marijuana: The World is Going to Pot

My dad graduated from high school in 1961, but he is not a child of the 60's. My dad was more Buddy Holly that the Grateful Dead or Jimi Hendrix. He wore button down shirts and khaki pants. He graduated from college in 1965, got married in 1967 and I was born in 1969. When the hippies were flourishing, my dad was already an old man working for the man. My father is a retired accountant who busted people for fraud. He is a rule follower, which has been fine because the rules generally have worked in his favor. While my dad never said anything bad about hippies, he never smoked pot or took drugs. Sure, he smoked cigarettes until he was thirty and drank Miller Lite, but nothing worse. My dad's brother was in Vietnam. My uncle was one of two people in his platoon who didn't do drugs. Instead of smoking pot, he lifted weights and was into body building.

Fast forward to when my brother is in his twenties. My brother has a major mental illness and self-medicated with marijuana and other drugs. Michael was not shy about his thoughts that marijuana should be legalized. One Christmas Eve in the 1990's after dinner and opening presents at my grandmother's house, Michael and my mom got into a very heated argument about legalized pot. Most people when confronted with someone who is not fully rational will nod and smile when a person presents their idea. They might not actively agree, but they will not argue the opposing view. My mother didn't see it that way. She was fine with Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign in the 1980's, not recognizing the complexities that surround addiction and mental illness, let alone the dual diagnosis like my brother had for both addiction and mental illness.

Fast forward another twenty-plus years, and my dad was kvetching when Ohio had a referendum to legalize marijuana. He posts stuff to Facebook once in a blue moon, but he posted that he was voting against legal weed. Which is fine.

We have legal weed in Washington. When the referendum passed, my dad asked how we voted. Jack and I split our vote. I am not in favor of criminalizing people for drug use, but I wasn't sure I wanted to live in a town covered in pot fog.

In the past few weeks, the governor of Ohio signed a law legalizing medical marijuana in Ohio but it won't be available until Sept. 8. One of the diseases listed for treatment was Alzheimer's.

I talk to my dad once a week, if not more, to hear how my mom is doing and how he is doing. As you may know from previous posts, my mother lives in a Memory Care Unit in Columbus, Ohio because the demands of her Alzheimer's were too great for my father to manage. My mom is officially in Hospice, is wheelchair bound and has to be spoon fed pureed food. She doesn't talk, but she can smile. When she isn't happy, she blows raspberries. We have no idea how long she'll live--week? months? Probably not a year, but who knows? These things are impossible to predict.

As I am talking to my dad, he brings up medical marijuana as a possible cure for Alzheimer's.

"Some studies show it could reverse Alzheimer's," he said. "I am not sure how it would work. If she were to come back, she would have large gaps in her memory for the past few years. I wonder though if I could get her some medical marijuana. It won't be legal here until Sept. 8.

"If she makes it that long," he added after a long pause.

Before Washington had legal weed, we had medical marijuana available. People could be advised to take cannabinoids in non-smokable forms for pain relief and for neurological disorders, among other things.*

"I wonder how I could get her some," my father said. The man who has been against pot his whole life is considering medical marijuana for his wife who was also against pot her whole life.

Jack overheard the conversation between me and my father. As fast as my dad was asking questions, Jack was googling for find out how many years I would get in prison for sending my dad pot thought the mail. He was freaking out, shaking his head "no" at every suggestion.

"It is illegal to possess pot in Ohio," Jack said. "You can't bring it into the state." Then he found the article online about the governor legalizing medical pot. He continued to google.

"You can't bring it on an airplane," Jack said. "It is illegal to bring pot to an airport." Driving? The longest road trip I've taken as an adult has been to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Driving to Ohio would take days. I could drive there, but if God wanted people to drive that far, He wouldn't have invented airplanes. Given my schedule, the odds of me driving to Ohio in the next three weeks are slim to none.

Jack ruled out driving. "Our luggage might then smell like pot," Jack said. "We might not get into France if drug smelling dogs smell pot in our luggage, even if there is no pot in it then."

"Maybe you could mail it," my dad said. "You could pack in coffee beans or something." Jack was turning purple at the thought.

"It might be a federal offense to mail pot to another state," Jack said.

"I don't think FedEx uses drug sniffing dogs," my dad said.

A few weeks ago, I talked to my brother. He said my mother was the luckiest woman in the world for having such a devoted husband who takes care of her so well. He is right, but now it is official: my dad would do anything for my mom, including skirting federal laws to get my mom some relief.

My dad asked how come pot can be so bad for someone like my brother but okay for someone with Alzheimer's? It has been shown the pot exacerbates schizophrenia. I suppose it is like chemo. A healthy person wouldn't poison their body with radiation, but it could save the life of someone with cancer. Or it could be like alcohol. Many people drink but aren't alcoholics.

"Maybe I could get her a prescription here and have it filled in another state," my dad said.

Jack furiously googled. I relayed to my dad, "You need to be a resident of Washington to get an authorization and it needs to be written by someone who has a license here."

There was no way my father could drive my mother to Seattle for evaluation. (Technically, he wouldn't have to drive all the way across the state. He could stop in Spokane right on the Idaho border.)  My mom has a massive wheelchair and needs someone to change her diapers. "You could get a medical flight out here," I said. "I have no idea what it would cost. $8,000? $25,000?" My father didn't agree or disagree. I think he was thinking more of the challenge of moving her than the cost.

"Maybe you could get some legal weed in another state," I told my dad. "Maybe Washington, D.C. You should also talk to her doctor. There are different types and doses. You just can't give her pot brownies or whatever."

Now I am thinking of edibles, the bane of the middle school and high school teachers and administrators. Maybe I could send my mom some pot brownies in mail. That might be hard to detect. The last time I was at Seatac Airport, the security lines were long. They had a guest relations person there helping people navigate the scene.

"Which line is the shortest?" I had asked.

"The one to the right. It has security dogs," she said.

Maybe I could bring pot brownies through the airport if I wrapped them in a plastic bag and didn't go through the dog line? Was it a bomb smelling dog or a drug smelling dog? Claire Adele once got stopped coming back from Japan by the TSA dogs because she had dog treats in her bag for Fox and the dog went berserk. Maybe I could make mocha brownies? Would the coffee mask the post smell? Do edibles smell like pot? Can a dog tell? Are brownies too obvious? What about banana bread or pumpkin bread or cranberry muffins? Would it look suspicious if I tried to ask which line didn't have the dog? I bounced these ideas off Jack.

"If you get caught, I'll pretend I don't know you," he said.

"That will be hard, Dad," said the Boy. "You are married. It would be hard to prove you don't know her when you live at the same address."

I googled states with medical marijuana. Pennsylvania was on the list. Maybe he can pop over the state line and pick up a dose.

This conversation was surreal. If you told my family back in 1990-whatever when my brother and mom were screaming at each other that one day my father and I would be trying to figure out how to get my mom some weed, the world would have stopped spinning on its axis. What a difference a diagnosis makes.

*I just read a letter to the editor in the Seattle Times from a 68 year old veteran with spinal injuries complaining that since medical marijuana dispensaries are now rolled into recreational pot shops, actual medicines are harder to find. The guy has a point.