Medical marijuana debate rages on in California with medical dispensaries and municipalities battling each other through the courts — and the court of public opinion — over the benefits or ramifications of decriminalizing casual cannabis consumption.
Dennis Fomond, owner of the All-American Healing Group, a medical marijuana collective in Inglewood, Calif., just outside Los Angeles, says he supports the passage of Proposition 19, which would legalize weed, even if his business is negatively impacted.
“If passed, it would hurt my business,” he says. “But even if it passes, I’ll still be in business. Because not everyone will be able to have access to the quality of the medicinal marijuana that I have. I would have to just expand and think outside the box and use [hemp] for more of what it really is instead of just medicine.”
Fomond has been a patient since 1997, a year after they passed Proposition 215 in California, also the Compassion Use Act, which enables those with terminal or extremely painful medical maladies to legally use marijuana to ease their suffering. And, until such time that California passes a casual-use bill at the ballot box, Fosom said that only individuals who have a medical recommendation in writing from their physicians can access the medicinal marijuana at the All-American Healing Group.
With that being said, the benefits of intertwining cannabis into the fabric of California’s economic and social life far outweigh any negatives the opponents propagandizes about marijuana, Fomond says. For starters, Fomond says:
- Cannabis has had major medical benefits to him and his family: “That’s one of the reasons I had a prescription. I had a back injury from football [at the University of California-Berkeley] and I suffered from back spasms. If I stand up for long periods of time, my back will have spasms and tighten up and all kinds of stuff. So cannabis will help loosen those tight muscles,” he said. “It helps people who suffers from arthritis. My grandmother used to use marijuana rubbing alcohol. She’d slap it all over her elbows and knees and then go walking and not feel any pain. You can get some quality marijuana and soak it in alcohol for a couple of weeks and then, bam!”
- There are the other medical benefits that folk-pop singer Melissa Etheridge pointed out during a recent press conference regarding how cannabis helped her offset the effects of chemotherapy treatment following breast cancer. “Some people during those times don’t have an appetite, Fomond explains. “This helps you get an appetite. Some of the different kinds of marijuana, it helps you with stress-related problems, sleep-related problems [and] pain management.”
- Cannabis does not cause the harmful long-term damage that legalized drugs, he says. “Marijuana doesn’t have any of those effects of those other man-made drugs like alcohol, cigarettes. It’s not a gateway drug,” Fomond said.
- Environmental benefits: “There will be no drilling, no digging, none of the typical things associated with getting fuel and none of the equipment that is typically used to make the fuel and the toxicity of the fuel. There’s no toxins from growing marijuana. It comes from the earth. Earthworms in the earth produce castings to help make the marijuana grow. We have nitrogen already in the soil. We have potassium already in the soil.”
- And there is another, lesser known benefit, Fomond advises. “I can start a clothing business. I can get a textile company and take the hemp and start a clothing manufacturing company.”
