Why is Society Steering me Back to my Murderer?

 

Waking up and thinking; Why do I have a catheter? Man this is irritating. Aren’t humans silly? Here I am waking up after a night of flat lining and then being brought back to life, and I’m complaining about discomfort. I should be thankful that I can still experience discomfort; I was just dead a couple hours ago. That was the morning I woke up at the Hospital in Kennewick Washington. I actually started racking my brain for ways to just slink back in to the shadows like I can just brush this under the rug and act like it didn’t happen. Get to school and take that test for which I have been studying, no one will ever know. But everyone did know, there was no way out. I was stuck there in the hospital bed on my back, dried charcoal on the corner of my mouth because I had recently overdosed on alcohol and aspirated my own vomit.

That’s what they do when you come into the hospital having recently consumed a lethal dose of alcohol. They pump a charcoal milkshake into your stomach, let it absorb, then they vacuum it back out. This is the legal option. This substance that is used by many as a way to relax after work can cause death if not handled with caution. I’ve been dead from alcohol. The doctors pumped my stomach, they used the defibrillator, they brought me back to life.

As I take that first step out into the sun and into my second life what do I see? Not far from the hospital there is an advertisement for a particular type of alcohol, outlining the ways in which purchasing and consuming this product will improve your social life. This is the legal option. When someone wants to relax after work, they have options. Some of those options are legal, some of those are not. Some of the illegal substances have pretty serious side effects, others not so much. Some of the legal substances have some pretty serious side effects, more serious than one illegal substance in particular.

If you know the author of the article you’re reading you’re probably on the edge of your seat about now waiting to hear the famous catch phrase. “Marijuana is safer than alcohol” is a true statement but it is also a rally cry. After reading the book Marijuana is Safer so why are we Driving People to Drink? by Steve Fox, Paul Armentano, Mason Tvert, and Norm Stamper I thought about my career in Safety and Health Management. But on a deeper level I thought of that cold night years ago when I consumed too much alcohol. I thought of how there is no such thing as “too much marijuana”. And I thought of how society is steering me back toward my murderer. When I buy my murderer they ask me to show ID and I’m on my merry way. When they catch me with safe herbs they take my fingerprints and hit me with mandatory minimum sentences.

I told this to the Centralia City Council meeting recently when they were considering a moratorium on collective gardens and I think it needs to be repeated. If you are looking at two substances and one of them has to be consumed cautiously because over-consumption might kill you , and the other substance will never make you die no matter how much you consume – the second substance is safer. Adults who make the safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol should not be punished. Society should not steer me back toward my murderer.

 

-Jared Allaway: Sensible Washington Steering Committee Member and State Volunteer Coordinator.