In 1990, Eric Boyds life came crashing down.
While sandblasting the inside of an enormous water tank, Boyd said the scaffolding collapsed and he plummeted more than four stories to the ground causing internal injuries and fracturing his back, neck, pelvis, legs and hands.
I couldnt walk for three years, he said. I was in a walker for another year. The pain was bad. ... Ive always been disabled and Ive always had to live in pain, from that accident.
Boyd said pharmaceutical painkillers did not work and he was afraid of becoming addicted.
Ive had addiction problems with alcohol, he said. Anything addictive, I stay away from.
Initially opposed to medical marijuana, Boyd stopped taking the pain pills and found himself turning to marijuana as a treatment.
Its not like a painkiller, he said. It has nothing to do with killing the pain. But it does ease the mind. If youre in pain, every day, all the time, trying to sleep at night is really hard. So if you just eat a little bit, it helps you get a good nights sleep. And it helps your body rest and then you feel better.
Further, Boyd said marijuana helps alleviate the mental aspect of living with constant pain.
If youre in pain every day, all day long, it just gets to you, he said. It eats at you. You sit there and think, Well, if I have to live another 30 years, I gotta do this for 30 years? It just weighs on your mind. And if you just smoke a little, it takes that anxiety, that edge off, where you dont dwell on that.
In 2004, Boyd said he was diagnosed with cancer.
My weight was about 250 to 260, he said. I got cancer and went down to 164 pounds. All the expensive drugs that they kept giving me were making me sicker and sicker.
Boyd said he was unable to eat or swallow pills.
I found out a little marijuana was the only thing that kept me where I could eat and not vomit, he said. That was like a miracle.
The marijuana alleviated the negative side effects of chemotherapy treatment and helped him to regain weight, he said.
Boyd recovered from cancer and said he has changed his mind about medical marijuana.
In some ways Im still against it, he said. You get these people that are going to abuse it. Anythings going to get abused. But for the legitimate people that it benefits, all these laws just get in the way.
Children and individuals not licensed should not have access to medical marijuana, Boyd said.
One of the reasons I was against it is that doctors need to buckle down, he said. They just cant give them this because they have a boo-boo on their thumb.
Boyd said he continues to eat a gram or half a gram of marijuana before bed. The treatment has no negative side effects on him.
Some people are different, he said. Everybody handles things different. You never know. Most (patients) I know, theres no problem.
Marijuana is not as addictive as cigarettes, Boyd said.
To appease drug testing employers, Boyd said he has stopped taking marijuana and switched back to pharmaceutical pain killers for periods in his life.
You cant sleep. You cant eat. Youre just grouchy all the time, he said, adding he always went back to marijuana as a treatment. And my wife loved it. She said, Man, you really calmed down. Youre a normal person now.
Films have created a negative stereotype of marijuana users, Boyd said.
Thats what I call the Jeff Spicoli syndrome, he said, referring to Sean Penns character from the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Hes like the stoner surfer. Just like Reefer Madness did it to my fathers era its a joke.
If medical marijuana were banned, Boyd said he would continue to use it.
It can really help people, he said. Theres people out there that are going to abuse it, but for us, we do benefit from it. And someones trying to take that away from me, it seems like, all the time.
Reach Reid Wright at reidw@cortezjournal.com.