When you’re sick and there is medicine that can help you, and the consumption of that medicine doesn’t hurt anyone, I think you should be able to use that medicine. It seems like a simple principle, but for some reason cannabis opponents can’t seem to fully agree with that statement. They think that the statement applies for some medicines, but not all medicines. And in the case of a Vietnam veteran in Topeka, Kansas named Gary Dixon, marijuana opponents feel that he shouldn’t have any medicine at all because he tested positive for consuming cannabis within the previous 30 days preceding the test. He went to fill his prescription at the Topeka VA and was denied. Per ABC 2:
“I went in to get a refill on my pain medication and they refused to let me have it, because I have marijuana in my blood,” Gary Dixon, Vietnam veteran.
Gary Dixon is a 65-year-old disabled Vietnam veteran. While in Vietnam he was exposed to Agent Orange.
“I hurt, and I hurt from something I got fighting for my country,” says Dixon.
Now he’s got stage four lung cancer, doesn’t have much time left to live and readily admits to smoking marijuana.
A suffering patient who served our country proudly cannot get his prescriptions filled simply and only because he has cannabis present in his system. What kind of country do we live in? This story is absolutely disgusting. If I had stage four cancer, you better believe I’d have cannabis in my system too, in addition to whatever else I thought would help my situation. If anyone disagrees with that, they don’t have any compassion at all as far as I’m concerned. I hope that national media and organizations will pick up this story and spread it far and wide to help bring attention to Mr. Dixon’s situation.
