Sleepless

This is the story about why I use medical marijuana.

1. The former solution: a narcotic sleep-aid.

My doctor used to prescribe a narcotic sleep-aid. He warned me that it was slightly addictive. That concerned me, but it was a (slight) risk that I was willing to take. Because otherwise I would wake up at about 2:30 in the morning and lie awake until I gave up on slipping back into sleep. Then I would open a book or surf the internet until I became tired enough to close my eyes a couple of hours or less before the alarm went off.

I tried alternatives to the narcotic. I invented strategies. For example, I learned to read books before sleeping instead of watching television. Books put me to sleep; television made me awake. And if I woke in the early morning, sometimes I could coax myself back to sleep by recalling what I had read; television lacked that power. But books didn’t always work.

I had a lifestyle that should have favored uninterrupted sleep. I exercised regularly. An exercise regimen is well known to favor rest. Maybe it helped. Just not enough.

I went months without the narcotic. But work projects would become oppressive in size and in too-soon deadlines. And then, when I most needed a good night’s rest, I wouldn’t get it. Then it was back to the doctor, with a few more sleep-deprived nights while I waited for the appointment.

2. The problem with the narcotic.

And the narcotic was no perfect solution. When I took it, I would feel leaden in the morning. If I closed my eyes after the alarm sounded, I wouldn’t open them again for at least 45 minutes. And if I had not predicted interrupted sleep, and then my sleep was interrupted that night, the narcotic would be useless. I couldn’t take it if I woke up in the early-morning hours, because I needed to take it at least eight hours before waking; otherwise, waking on time would be difficult. So the first sleep-deprived night always came without relief.

3. Medical-marijuana seems appealing.

A few months ago, I had a sleep-deprived night and called my doctor the next day. I left a message that asked for a phone renewal of my prescription. It seemed worth asking for an instant prescription for help right away.

A nurse returned the call and said that the doctor didn’t want to renew the prescription over the phone. The doctor had speculated that I might have sleep apnea, and he wanted to run some tests. In the meantime, the nurse recommended an over-the-counter sleep-aid and suggested that I make a medical appointment. I tried the over-the-counter sleep-aid. It worked for a couple of nights, then it didn’t. I never made the medical appointment, because I had something else in mind.

What I had in mind was medical marijuana. I had researched it and discovered that it was recommended for sleep problems. Feeling a little felonious, I called to make an appointment with a Saturday-only clinic that issued medical marijuana certificates.

4. Getting a medical-marijuana prescription.

When I called the clinic, the person on the phone asked whether I was under a doctor’s care. And she required me to bring to the Saturday appointment a copy of my sleep-prescription. This impressed me with the seriousness of the medical investigation that the doctor proposed to conduct before permitting me to access medical marijuana. I went by Kaiser and got a copy of my old prescription.

But when I got to the clinic, they seemed unaware that I had an appointment. I got in line behind the walk-ins, which was everybody but me. They were a healthy-looking bunch. (In fairness, so was I.) Nobody asked to see my prescription, even though I had it in my hand expecting someone to ask to see it. It was as if the telephone requirements were just for show, in case I was a law-enforcement officer doing a lazy telephone-trawl, looking for lax practices among medical-marijuana doctors.

The doctor called me in. I expected him to inquire about some of the contra-indications to medical marijuana on the form that I filled out. But he didn’t. He spent most of our time cautioning me about how not to run into trouble with the police with my medical marijuana. He recommended that I carry my medical marijuana in my car trunk, not on the front seat next to me, in case I was stopped by police for any reason.

5. Going to a medical-marijuana dispensary.

Then it was off to the medical marijuana dispensary. In the dispensary I went to, I encountered a big but pleasant man who guarded an inside door. He looked me over and asked me some questions. Learning that I was a first-timer, he gave me a form to fill out. Then he invited me to go inside.

Inside, the receptionist made a copy of my driver’s license and my medical-marijuana certificate. Then she called my prescriber’s office to ensure that I had not given her a forgery. After that, I was buzzed through a third door into the small, neat room where they sold the marijuana, the paraphernalia for smoking marijuana, and edible marijuana products.

I had researched medical marijuana, so I knew the difference between strains of marijuana. Sativa is the strain for people who enjoy a stimulating buzz. It’s the good-time stuff. Sativa and Sativa-mixes are most of what the dispensary had in their glass jars in their glass cases in their inside room. Indica is the strain that has the most medical benefits, including help with sleep. I bought the Indica. (Since then, sometimes I have also bought Sativa.)

6. Marijuana gets the job done.

The Indica works well. When I take it, I sleep soundly. And I need less sleep to wake refreshed. Usually, after smoking Indica, I wake up a little before the alarm goes off. And if I don’t smoke before I sleep, and I wake in the early-morning hours, I can smoke a small amount, and it puts me back to sleep. An early-morning smoke doesn’t keep me from waking on-time and refreshed.

I was worried that I might have the same problem with marijuana that I had with alcohol. When I drank, I would start when I got home from work, and I would continue drinking until I fell asleep. And one or another reason would induce me to get in my car and drive when I shouldn’t – for example, if I ran out of alcohol. If I had been sober, I would have known not to drive while intoxicated, but I wasn’t sober when I made that decision. That was a big reason why I quit. It’s easier for me not to drink than it is for me to drink and not to drive.

Marijuana isn’t like that. I rarely smoke before 9:00 p.m., and usually not until 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. or later. And a pipe-bowl or half of a pipe-bowl of marijuana costs next-to-nothing, especially compared to the fifth of scotch-or-gin-or-vodka-or-tequila that I used to drink each night after work. I never drive after smoking marijuana. Also, because I take only small amounts of marijuana, compared to the amounts of alcohol that I used to drink, it doesn’t endanger my health like the alcohol did.

7. Coming out.

My medical-marijuana use isn’t something that I’ve talked a lot about before now. My brother Peter knows, and my house-mates know. I myself felt slightly felonious when I first sought out a prescription, and I wonder if some people who read this will look past the prescription and past the need, and judge me a pot-head. What I do is legal, but some people consider it only "legal" – in quotation marks. But I am who I am.

And a good night’s sleep is priceless.