Patient:
Bobbie Oliver
Age:
43
Condition:
Anxiety, debilitating panic attacks
Home:
Los Angeles
Using medical cannabis since:
2007
Why did you start using medical marijuana?
I had been taking medications since the age of four, but the drugs made me into a zombie. When I smoked marijuana, I noticed that I didn’t need anything else, so I got off of my old medication and just used pot. I finally got a medical marijuana card because I was at the age where I was tired of waiting in a Taco Bell parking lot to buy medicine from some stranger. I wanted to sit in the waiting room of a professional office like an adult. I also really wanted to legitimize it for myself.
I’m a professional comic (www.bobbieoliver.net). I have to be able to deal with the public. I teach and speak for a living. I’m a product, and if I’m stressed out I can’t function. Because of my anxiety and panic attacks, there are times when I can’t even go to the grocery store. With pot I can smoke out and still perform onstage.
Did you try other methods or treatments before marijuana?
When I was in high school I was on Benadryl and Lithium. This worked, but it made me into a zombie. It was very hard to socialize until I started smoking out.
What I like about pot is it doesn’t make me dull. It takes care of my anxiety, but I’m still highly functioning. What I love about the clinics is that they can even suggest certain strains for specific problems. I find that the sativa strains really help me the most.
What’s the most important issue or problem facing medical marijuana patients in California?
The fact that it’s illegal on a federal level. For instance, it’s legal in California and legal in Hawaii, but since it’s still illegal to the federal government, I couldn’t take any medicine with me on my vacation to Hawaii.
Right now, the federal government has the ability to use marijuana as an excuse to mess with a person’s life because it’s illegal. I really liked Obama, but he let medical marijuana patients down. Arnold Schwarzenegger did more for us than the president.
What do you say to people who are skeptical about marijuana as medicine?
I tell them how if it were legal there would be so much cash in the economy. Big Pharma, tobacco companies and alcohol spend a lot of money on lobbyists because they know that people could grow their own medicine or recreational drug. There are so many economic advantages.
Our “Profiles in Courage” features are intended to highlight the problems—and solutions—that medical marijuana patients face every day.
