Danny

Danny (requested his last name be omitted) 

Age: 39

Location: Southern California

Condition/illness: I
have a sciatic nerve pinched in a degenerative disc in my back that causes my
left leg to go numb, maybe like 20 hours out of the day it goes numb.

Using medical cannabis since: 1998.

Why did you start using medical
cannabis? 

Any prescription medicines for pain made
me sick.

Did you try other methods or
treatments before cannabis? 

I did. I tried whatever the
doctor recommended, and would end up back at square one.

What’s the most important issue or
problem facing medical cannabis patients? 

Everybody is
hiding. To me, it feels like . . . “Is it legal? Is it not legal?” I want to be
able to buy it and not feel like a drug dealer.

What do you say to folks who are
skeptical about cannabis as a medicine? 

I don’t
really say much, I usually ask them if they ever experienced cannabis for
themselves. If they say, “yes,” then I say they had a bad trip. If they say,
“no,” then I say, “If it isn’t for you, then it isn’t for you, but you
shouldn’t knock it if you don’t understand it.”