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“A Long Strange Journey of 1 Cannabis Patient’s Colorado Cannabis Activsm”or“All About Breezy Kiefair”some of you may have already read most of this on my fb/various blogs/in print magazines… but…. for those who didn’t here goes….. your gonna need a few bowls and maybesome tissues…. just saying:cigar: :candle2: :bong: :candle1:Article I wrote to be published in Cannabis Health News magby on Monday, January 18, 2010 at 2:58amThe below piece is to be published in the next issue of CannabisHealth News Magazine whose editor is Jason Lauve. Jason was acquittedof all charges by a jury on August 6, 2009. He has been a tirelessadvocate for Medical Marijuana patients in Colorado before this dateand since.Kiefair Keepsakes…. How we came to be, Why we give backCopyrightedmaterial All Rights Reserved see message at the bottom of essayI tell you this story, not for myself, but for those in similarsituations without the strength or ability to speak.The government of the United States and the State of Colorado (as wellas other states) are all saving a ton of money due to the growth inthe medical marijuana industry and so are the dispensaries andcaregivers. As a patient caught in the middle, I decided that I mayhave a unique perspective on this issue and have decided to throw mytwo cents in on the topic.If you listen to the news, it seems to be the government officials vs.the dispensary owners. here in Colorado. This should not be the case.The patients needs should be at the heart of this discussion,particularly the needs of low income medical marijuana patients onSocial Security Disability and Social Security Income (SSD/SSI)I posted much of the content you will read here all over the internetin an effort to help myself and others in my position. I sat in theonline forums begging:“Is there someone, anyone out there who hears my plea and wants tohelp me actually do something other than sit in online forums andcomplaining about the problem and hope someone does something”I was heartbroken to find little positive response and a lot ofnegative/cruel responses by persons who clearly are recreational usersand not medical users. The treatment of women in some of thesecannabis forum rooms was often appalling. I finally decided to stopbeating a dead horse and set up a store front to help me get the fundsI need for my own medicine, food and other needs and to donate 10% ofour profits to provide medical marijuana for free to low incomepatients in need. Currently we have only one dispensary signed on withus, GreenBelly Co-op LLC in Eldorado Springs, Co.We encourage other dispensaries and caregivers to join with us in thiseffort. The funds to be donated will be held in trust and dispensedwhen/where they are needed according to the needs and location of the
 
patient in question. A patient from your area would contact me, then Iwould contact you to confirm you have the stock necessary for thepatient and to confirm availability of time, I would then depositmoney for their medication into a paypal account owned by yourdispensary. The patient could then come in and pick up their necessarymedicine. I require no investment on your part. Patients would reporton the quality of your medicine and I would then write their reviewsand forward their recommendations (no names attached) on the net.Everybody wins. People who wish to provide money for the trust canpurchase anything in my online gift-store or my personal catalog. 10%of my profits go to this fund. Hopefully a larger and largerpercentage of profits will got to the trust when my personal financesallow me.When I began to write the essay that I posted in the online forums, Idecided that my joining the Medical Marijuana Registry was myChristmas Present to the American Taxpayer for the year 2009. Andposted the title as “My Personal Christmas Gift to the AmericanTaxpayer.”Now, you may imagine me as the stereotype of a “stoner” that has beencreated by the media. Let me correct youFirst of all, I am a female over 25 and under 40 with severe anddebilitating Fibromyalgia, the kind that forces doctors to shake theirheads and prescribe one ineffective man made medicine on top ofanother while I waste away and my quality of life diminishes. Theonset of my symptoms began almost instantly after my birth in CanonCity, CO and I have been fragile ever since. I’ve even been told by adoctor or two that may well have one of the worst Fibromyalgia caseson record. I was a ward of the State of Colorado until I ran away whenI was 16 due to horrid abusive conditions within the state foster careprogram and completed my high school in another state.My sole health insurance is provided to me is under medicare/medicaid.This is because I am completely disabled and the doctors do not allowme to work, or even to attend school. I assure you that this is onlyfor the time being… I am getting stronger all the time!In 1994, I was awarded Ginsberg Scholarship up at Naropa during the20th anniversary festival. I dreamed for years of attending, but myhealth prevented it. I finally got stubborn and bullied my doctorsinto letting me go. I was accepted into and attended Naropa Universityfor two semesters in 2007-2008 school year in an effort to get adegree that would give me access to jobs more suited to my bodiesabilities, and was pulled out by my doctors both times. Naropa wantedme there, I wanted to be there, but government programs required I beenrolled a certain amount of credit hours (beyond the abilities of mybody) in order to keep my funding. I attempted a semester at GrandCanyon University online in Fall 2008 to the same effect. Now I havemany thousands of dollars in student loans I can’t pay because Iattempted to get a degree so I could get a job my body could handle.I was forced to be on government programs like Social SecurityDisability and Social Security Income (SSD/SSI) at a young age. I wasin middle school when I was put on SSD/SSI for the first time while Iwas a ward of the State of Colorado.Let me clarify, the first time I was put on disability, I was a minorand the State decided as my sole legal guardian to place me ondisability. The state “adopted me” in a sense.My name was changed
 
legally and my parents rights to me as a child were formally, legallyand permanently terminated. None of it was not my choice (except thename change after years of foster care), it was not discussed with me,I was a child. My medical care as a child was much as it is now, withthe exception of the fact that kids get a bit more coverage. Being onthe program at a young age, I did not accumulate much in the way ofwork money in my SSI account, although I did attempt to work severaltimes. Unfortunately every time, an employer or doctor would get tiredof me being sick and put a stop to it one way or another. That is whymy monthly amounts from SSI/SSD are so low, not because I am disabled,but because I couldn’t work to pay into the system like the people whoreceive these benefits only when they reach retirement after a fulllife of paying in. Also did you know the government actually Penalizedpeople for getting married if you are both on disability? They treatyou as one person and give you one person’s pay! For love, and forspiritual reasons I decided that was a risk I would just have take.So, I married my love who happened to be on disability also anyway.Now I ask the members of the Government of the Great State ofColorado, if you had an adult child who was sick and suffering wouldyou leave them to languish in pain and poverty just because it was nolonger your legal responsibility? Of course you wouldn’t. You would dowhatever was in your power to make your child as comfortable aspossible.As an adult child, I now boldly but humbly step up to my adoptedparent, the Government of the State of Colorado, and ask, “GuardianColorado, do you it intend to focus on the dispensaries who are themoney in this discussion, or do you intend to focus on your citizenswhose LIVES are being saved by this plant? You discuss care giving somuch in this debate, but the treatment of patients on the part of manyin this debate has proven differently. I know you have hearts, pleaseuse them as you consider these policies. This shouldn’t be a partisanissue. This should be a people issue.Before I was placed on the Colorado Medical Marijuana Registry in June2009, I would have to visit a doctors office several times a month,sometimes several times a week, sometimes with several appointmentsbooked the same day with specialists and tests, painful and difficultphysical therapy that seemed to harm more than hurt, etc., and therewere to many trips to the emergency room to count.I went to the ER out of sheer desperation, I went just so I could getcomfortable enough to have a bit of sleep after a week or more oflingering in a painful place that seemed to be located in deep withinthe realm of a narcotic distorted pain haze, a no-where-land thatseemed to be somewhere between life and death. The doctors in theemergency room and elsewhere often treated me as though I was anaddict, and not a pain patient, AND I WAS MISERABLE!Since I was approved for the medical marijuana registry I haven’tneeded near the amount of services from the medicaid/medicare program.In fact, I’ve had to see a doctor twice since June 3, 2009 when thedoctor signed my forms.Once to have 14 teeth pulled, a little bit of dental work madenecessary by a combination of years of no dental benefits unless myteeth couldn’t be saved and needed to be pulled, being on narcoticsfor almost a decade, and dealing with severenausea/vomiting/malnutrition.
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