I don't see a newbie section for medical users so I must assume it goes here… A little about myself… I grew up about 30 miles south of LA in the Covina/west Covina area… I am 66 years old now with a very bad back… I grew up in the 60's and the only pot I could get was from Mexico… $10.oo an ounce, that was half stems and seeds… The other half was leaf and some crushed up bud… Every now and then some Thai stick would come through town for $20.oo and that was a real treat… I started smoking pot at 13 about twice a week… I got off into other drugs like LSD, uppers, downers… I even sniffed glue a few times… I was pretty stupid back then… I got arrested at age sixteen for selling uppers and downers… I was under age so I got a hand slap for that… I told my parents that if I were to get away from drugs, I would have to get away from my friends, so we ended up moving 30 miles north of LA in Thousands oaks… In my senior year at 18 I get arrested for 43 marijuana seeds, that were in-bedded in the carpet of a 56 Chevy I was sitting shotgun in. This one cost me a $250.00 fine, 2 1/2 years informal probation and that cost my parents $2,500.oo in lawyer fee's… Once again I tell my parents, if I am to get away from drugs, I will have to drop out of school and get away from my friends… They agreed but said I would have to get a job and pay them back for the lawyer… So that’s what I do… I get a job with a landscaper digging holes and ditches… I would come home so tired and dirty that I would pass out on the floor because I'd be to wiped out to take a shower… My dad said if I was going to work like a man I could drink beer… I stayed away from the drugs but I started bar hopping… At 19 I got drafted and got sent to North Carolina… I hated the army… I felt like I was kidnaped by the army and put into a job that wasn't needed, so I felt useless… My MOS was truck driver and I would have to go to the motor pool everyday to check the oil and tire pressure on trucks that never left the motor pool… It was a little mind numbing and everybody in my barracks smoked pot so when in Rome… The time I spend in the army was the first time I went a long stretch without ever coming down… I stayed high for 2 years… After the army I tried to quit again… It was a hit and miss effort for the next 10 years…At age 24 I move to Sacramento and met my wife.. Her brother-in-law introduced me to Colombia… At the age of 33, I start getting anxiety attacks about every 3rd time I smoke pot, so I finally quit… I didn't know anything about sativa and indica back then… I finally quit drinking at the age of forty because I started getting acid reflux with it… After smoking cigarettes for 35 years, and trying to quit for about 20 years, I finally make it and quit… By the time I was 60 I had a back operation that didn't work and I am pretty much chair bound… I can stand or walk for about 10 minutes but that’s about it… After 27 years of not smoking pot, I keep seeing on the news all the help these people are getting with it… A friend comes over and says is it ok for me to smoke this here? I say sure, in the bathroom and follow him in there to take a hit… I can't see where it helped at all… I didn't want to give up that easy so I went down and got my medical license went straight to a dispensary and got a gram each of 4 different strains and nothing… So I go back and try 4 more strains and nothing… By now I am pretty discouraged… My brother- in-law comes over to my home with Granddaddy purple and wants me to try it. So he finally talks me into doing a one hit test, which I do… about 45 minutes later I realize I had been standing in the kitchen for about 45 minutes and was unaware of my back pain… That was about 6 years ago and I haven't been down since… It's not like it's this almighty painkiller… What it does for me, is allow me to get my mind off my back and onto other things… To take me from the oh woe with me stage, to the C'est la vie stage… My problem now is I have been smoking buds out of a small pipe for 6 years and have one really, really bad cough… I've ordered a dry herb bong from China but that’s about 4 weeks out before it arrives… So that’s my story guys… Sorry it's so long…