In the rush to decide what to do with medical marijuana dispensaries and growing operations, the voices of those who say they need ways to access what they consider their medication are not always heard.

In fact, many of the people in Morgan County who use marijuana as a medicine are reluctant to come forward and talk about it, said native Fort Morgan resident Timothy Morland, who has a medical marijuana license from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment.

Morland’s Veterans Administration disability papers indicate he suffers from degenerative spine disease, joint disease in his hands and knees and choroidal colboma, an ailment of the eye.

He is also treating incipient glaucoma with medical marijuana, he said.

Morland’s journey with medical marijuana did not begin with himself, though.

A little more than a year ago, Morland began researching the uses of marijuana when his mother was suffering from colon cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, he said.

She was bedridden and the family feared she was facing death, Morland said.

He began working to find out if marijuana would help her, and eventually helped her get medical marijuana, he said.

Within a month, she was up and walking again, going out with friends and resuming her life, Morland said. Not long after, she discovered her cancer was in remission.

His mother continues to use medical marijuana in the form of cookies and brownies and a kind of vaporizer, he said.

“I’m grateful I can tell her good morning,” Morland said with evident emotion.

Marijuana can do amazing things for people who are undergoing chemotherapy and nausea, Morland said.

It is also a help to people like him, who suffered from pain in all his joints after a severe automobile accident when he was in the U.S. Army, he said. He was in the hospital for two months after the collision with a bridge pillar.

Morland admits to being an alcoholic and having abused illegal drugs, but says he is now on a medical marijuana regime in which his doses are measured in quarter-grams rather than the huge overindulgence he did before.

His life has turned around since the day he started working to help his mother and ended up helping himself as well, he said. He feels like he’s entered a spiritual journey of sorts, and is glad he can now take more responsibility.

He feels younger and more alive than he has in years, Morland said. His doctor and his counselor both know how he is using medical marijuana and are watching over him.

The difference in his life is like night and day, he said.

Although he is thankful to have medical marijuana in any way, he would like to see a medical marijuana dispensary in Morgan County, so that he does not have to drive all the way to Denver to buy it, Morland said.

However, he does not want the kind of dispensary which has given legitimate dispensaries bad reputations, he said.

During the time when he was researching medical marijuana, he was at dispensaries where security is strict, with armed guards and video cameras watching, and those are the kind he would like to see in Morgan County.

It is easier to get in to see a jail inmate than to get into those kinds of dispensaries, Morland said. These are professional outlets which do background checks.

Currently, he often has to get a ride from friends to make it to Denver to buy his medical marijuana, but that does not always work out, he said. It would be nice to have at least one dispensary he could go to in the area.

Many people use medical marijuana to deal with pain or nausea or a list of other ailments, and — like Morland — are not the kind of people who are successful growing their own marijuana plants, he said.

Morland said he was surprised how little he knew about medical marijuana before his search began.

Many physicians also do not know the advantages of medical marijuana use, either, he said, which is why so many people have to get their licenses based on prescriptions from the few doctors who are willing to write them.

These are not the kinds of things city councils or county commissioners may hear when they make decisions about medical marijuana, Morland said.

“Most people who are disabled are not going to make it to a city council meeting,” he said.

He said he is not too thrilled to talk about it himself, but is willing if it will help people who need medical marijuana.

— Contact Dan Barker at business@fmtimes.com.