It appears that medical marijuana has a new high profile supporter – United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). In an interview with the Las Vegas Sun Harry Reid expressed his support for medical marijuana. During the interview Senator Reid talked about a personal friend’s son that had effectively used medical marijuana.
“He was so skinny and doing so poorly and somebody told him and his mom, you know, you should smoke some marijuana, because one of the side effects is … you get the munchies, you get extremely hungry,” Reid said in the interview. “He tried it and sure enough, he was able to eat for the first time, he got hungry. So I thought, you know there might be some medical reasons for taking another look at this.”
This is why personal stories about how medical marijuana has worked are so important. Here you have Senator Harry Reid, who admitted that a decade ago he was absolutely against marijuana altogether, changing his opinion because of a first hand experience he had watching a medical marijuana patient alleviate some of their suffering with medical marijuana. Senator Reid is now sharing that story with the rest of America. How many more people will change their minds now as a result?
If you are a medical marijuana patient who has used medical marijuana successfully, tell people your story. I hope more federal politicians jump on board. Harry Reid stopped short of endorsing full legalization, but did say that it’s an issue that needs to be looked at more. I’m confident that just as Senator Reid evolved on medical marijuana, so too will he evolve on recreational marijuana and offer up his full endorsement sooner than later.
