[420 Girl]

Inside Doc420 the décor is remarkable, red tones, lots of golden filigree trimmed mirrors on the wall - Dr. Sona Patel designed the room to reflect her roots in India - mellow music plays on a boom box that sits on a table. Rows of elegant straight backed chairs hold maybe 12 other people, and since there were chairs for about 40, this was likely a slow morning.

It’s dark in there. Not your ordinary doctor waiting room, not an old style hippie place to legally get marijuana either, as some of the earlier clinics were. My trip this year is for a renewal, as I’ve been to Doc 420 before, so it goes fast.

On the first visit a year back, the doctor and I had a long talk, she copied my medical records, she confirmed with my regular clinic that the medical records were real. We talked about side effects and what benefits I get from the medical marijuana. This is much more legitimate feeling than when the medical marijuana doctors first started writing referrals.

Of course, if you read the original law no one is even supposed to have to get a prescription. All this structure developed in the decades since the Compassionate Use Act passed in 1996.

She gave me a list of side effects to watch for. Weight gain? Hmm, i've actually lost weight since being on med MJ because I feel so much better, I get out and do more. Problems with concentration? Actually my job in reality TV production requires intense concentration and endurance, so much so that most people can't do it. And I inhale medical marijuana all the time, in order to be able to do the work, physically.

Only side effect on the list I had noticed was shakiness. I had noticed some shakiness lately. So I switched to half-decaf coffee, and the problem is solved.

My forms filled out I paid $85.00 and got my beautiful embossed golden medical marijuana card. They handed it to me in a black birthday card-sized envelope. It has an engraving on the page, a seal, like your birth certificate. it allows me to buy marijuana and have a small amount of it with me in public, even smoke in public in areas that are legal for any smokers, for one more year.

I often wonder what a mess I would have become if I had not discovered how much this medicine helps me. Eleven women went to Dr. Kevorkian in the 1990s because of the relentless pain of the same disease I have.

If only they had lived in California where we have compassionate law.

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