A man with a history of epilepsy (petit mal) reports that he had
been taking Dilantin to control his seizures, without much effect. In 1968 he was advised by a friend to try marijuana instead. He has smoked two joints a day ever since and has not had a seizure since he began. His only complaint is its high price.A young man suffering from bronchitis, who eats grass instead of smoking it, finds that when the high is over, he can breathe more easily for up to twenty hours.
Andrew Weil, noting the frequent unauthorized use of marijuana for minor pains, offers an explanation of why marijuana works, especially for headaches. Like all physical ailments, headaches are psychosomatic, meaning that both mind and body are involved. Weil suggests that the physical discomfort of the headache captures the mind's attention, which in turn gives more energy to the physical problem, resulting in a vicious cycle. "Shifting attention to a high, by any method," he points out, "will break this cycle and permit the physical aspects of the ailment to subside. People who respond favorably to marijuana can use it as a tool to make this shift."
A Chicago woman writes at length about her own experience, which serves as an interesting elaboration of Weil's thesis. Having heard about the analgesic properties of cannabis, she has used it several times when she has been in severe pain. She has a ruptured disc that sometimes causes pressure on the sciatic nerves, resulting in a crippling pain in her legs. At its worst, the pain confines her to bed for a week or more; at other times, she carries on despite the discomfort.
She finds marijuana not wholly effective as an analgesic. And yet, as she explains, it is still very useful to her:
What
marijuana seems to do for me, and quite effectively, is to relieve the
sensation of pain of its negative qualities. The pain becomes simply another
sense experience like warmth, or wetness, and as such I can accept it, and
sometimes even enjoy it, although I am not by nature masochistic. In other
words, when the pain already exists, pot can make me appreciate those
sensations that I would otherwise shrink from and find wholly negative.
I have not come across any similar accounts of marijuana and
pain. Marijuana seems to transform my pain into an acceptable sensation that
does not then hamper my ability to cope with situations. My legs may still
cramp and buckle under me; I may still be confined to bed or unable to pursue
my normal activities, but the pain is no longer the focal point of my
consciousness, but is, rather, just another part of me in much the same way
that the sensation of wearing a hat or carrying a knapsack for a long time
becomes part of a person.
I have found similar effects in dealing with other usually
negative factors, such as extreme cold, and in this friends concur. Marijuana
seems to open a doorway allowing one to enter the sensation—pain, cold, or
whatever—totally, stripped of its usual negative connotations, and then accept
it as a condition of present existence, and to continue with whatever the hour
invites, unhindered. So I have walked miles with friends in below-zero winds
and felt exhilarated, at one with the cold, and have endured excruciating pain
and still managed to enjoy company, thoughts and surroundings.
I should add that neither I nor my friends become insensitive to
potential dangers when we are stoned. I am not inclined to court more pain or
muscular atrophy by lifting when I should be reclining, or things of that
nature. But situations that might normally be hateful or at least difficult
become enjoyable with marijuana.