It's difficult for me not to be a bit flamboyant about this but as Oregon's number one leading marijuana doctor with more than 4,000 patients, I do feel exuberant about it.

The Oregon Department of Human Services estimated that only about 500 patients would be eligible for the marijuana permits. (they are not prescriptions) If I remember correctly in the first year we registered 1000 marijuana patients and about 500 were mine. This was my only practice as I have a spinal cord injury which prevents me from running around a regular office.

The DHS State Medical Board, the powers that be (idiots!) couldn't figure out where all these patients were coming from but subsequent investigations by the U.S. government estimated that Oregon had about 300,000 regular users. Most are self-treating for a variety of medical conditions.

It has been nine years since medical marijuana was legalized and as of January 1st 2008 we have NOW 16,000 medical permit holders with 7.700 caregiver and growers and 1,700 more pending issuance permit cards.

Many physicians were totally paranoid about signing applications for this "devil weed" which the U.S. government said was "highly addicting and dangerous." (they watched their own movie, "Reefer Madness" which is so absurd even high school kids laugh at it).

Marijuana is less dangerous and less addicting than Starbucks lattes. The worst adverse side effect from a high dose of the pure medicinal agent hashish is maybe sleeping for 24 hours although the pure synthetic THC as prescription Marinol causes severe panic attacks in many people and they avoid it and often use the natural plant instead.

There are many disbelievers that marijuana is truly a good medicine through its been used beneficially for at least 5,000 years and never killed anyone. Frequent writers to the Oregonian decry the legalization of medical marijuana and cite disproved U.S. government propaganda.

The procedure to get an Oregon permit is very strict and now 2,782 doctors have signed applications. If anyone thinks patients are faking symptoms and duping doctors and the system they are deluded by using too much narcotics or anti-depressants. Both are far more dangerous than marijuana.