your highness

I'm often amused by people's reactions when I reveal I'm a medical marijuana user.

Even anti-weed types will say "Well, that's all right. You're using it for a medical condition."

Or in other words, that use is legitimate, because I'm not using it to get high.

When people say that kind of thing they're unconsciously revealing their belief in an Aristotelian universe, which consists almost entirely of mutually exclusive things and categories. If something is X, then it can't be Y. This "either-or" orientation, derived from Aristotle, is fundamental to our culture.

The fact is, though, I use it for both medical and recreational purposes, because for someone like me, you can't have one without the other.

I just had a slice of my special banana bread, spread thickly with medicated peanut butter. In about an hour I'll be showing ø symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. And most likely, I'll be giggling about something that's really not all that funny, because I'll be higher than a bat.