THC

[DMDC]

Hi as I read someof these posts re pot, Marijuana etc. I realize it is not legal at the federal level.

Here is my experience. I'm disability retired and still work on occassion. I'm a excellent nurse and have been for over 30yrs. With letters and evaluations to show for it. When I was retired I was told I would never get off the couch again and given many narcotics, muscle relaxants, etc. I knew and thought there was another way. I was right I only use them on a prn basis. Now I'm very active and work part time. Marijuana is part of my treatment. I have nerve, muscle and bone damage. These are what I use I have rx for fiorinal with cod., They give me 100 for a month. I use that many in about 6 months not one. Motrin a few times a week (and I am a bleeder so that is very limited), xanax once or twice a month as it works for my muscles spasms and broken sleep at night. He tried klonopin but it gave me a hang over type headache. Soma does nothing but make me sleepy) as does all the other stuff tried over the years. The thing that has helped the most that doesn't cause me any side effects is Marijuana. So as my condition worseness I am more limited but what has helped me the most is movement (excersise 6 hours a week)prn for all my meds, including MJ. I may use a little over a 1/4 ounce per month. I do not do anything before working. At my job we detox patients from all the narcotics they get from thier MDs. SO those of you that think that its for drug abusers, or excuses, think again. For me my meds are prn only and I have a serious condtion or I would not have been disability retired since 1997 and working part time now. The fact that it MJ stays in your system so long is a problem. I see people hired that use meth, and many other things. They just doesn't show on the test because of the time frame. Everything can be abused even food and that causes problems but we don't monitor that. Just tired of people who don't know blaming everyone using it being drug addicts or users etc. There are a couple of companies I know that do not drug test becasue they hire patients that use, and they cannot test them and test the nurses. All hires are tested or they are not. I work for one that does drug test. So you quit when you need to. My supervisor herself has a card. Unless you know what your talking about you shouldn't judge if I listened to my MD's in the beginning I would be 6 feet under or a heavy drug addict by now. Alcohol is more of a problem and it is legal. It's all about the person and how they use thier meds. Thank you for reading my opinion.

[NurseGirl525, ASN, RN]

The fact of the matter is, if you have a drug test you are toast. You have to decide what is more important to you. I know that stinks but until it is legal for nurses I would maybe look into other meds.

This comes from someone who also lives with chronic pain but has gotten it pretty much managed with meds. I had to jump through hoops for nursing school because they required a drug test and I came up positive. Which I knew I would but I had a script and it ended up being fine in the end. But it was only fine because it is legal with a script. Your med is still not legal in the eyes of the government even with a script.