Behind 'The War on Weed': Christof Putzel's painful pot epiphany

Christof Putzel is a "Vanguard" correspondent.

I was doing squats in a gym with a trainer when I slipped a disc in my lower back. Within days I could hardly walk. Several doctors recommended surgery, and after some hesitation and trying homeopathic techniques without success, I opted for minimally invasive surgery to remove the offending disc at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

A month later, I was back in the field, running through woods outside Moscow to report on a guerilla training program for Neo-Nazi skinheads. My back began hurting again on the flight home, and after seeing 11 doctors, I was back in the hospital, unable to walk and with no diagnosis of what had gone wrong. The physicians pumped me full of pain meds, muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatories, but nothing helped.

In a few days, I was to be married in a long-planned wedding on the East Coast, and I had no idea how I could get there. Determined to at least make it to my bachelor party in Montreal, I checked myself out of the hospital, but walking from the taxi to my apartment, I was hit by a muscle spasm so strong and so painful that I went down and couldn’t get up. Climbing the flight of stairs, even with help, took almost an hour.

I lay in bed, almost paralyzed, but the slightest movement -- sometimes even just taking a breath -- triggered another body-twisting spasm. They seemed to be coming more often. Friends and co-workers came to visit and tried to help, but all I could think of was how I could possibly get to my wedding, now only days away. The medications numbed my mind somewhat but did nothing for the furious pain in my back or the wrenching spasms.

When a brave new co-worker stopped in, he offered me a carrot cake laced with medical marijuana. I was desperate but skeptical. He had a prescription for the stuff under California’s medical marijuana law, but I hadn’t smoked a joint since college, and my days of attending Phish concerts were long over. I had heard that medical marijuana helped people with glaucoma and reduced nausea in chemotherapy patients, but I was far from marching in a legalization parade. I cautiously ate a piece of the carrot cake and lay back, trying to relax my back enough to ward off the next awful attack. A few minutes later, I giggled, and it didn’t hurt. Within hours, I was sitting up in bed, higher than I’d ever been but also more relaxed than I’d been in two weeks.

Within 48 hours, thanks to the magic cake, a wheelchair and the patience of Jet Blue attendants, I was on my way to be married. Where I landed in Virginia, however, the marijuana that was keeping me ambulatory was illegal, and I was technically committing a misdemeanor by having it, even for my personal use.

If I’d been in New York City, I might have been one of the 600,000 people stopped and frisked every year in a relentless crackdown by the Bloomberg administration. An estimated 50,000 people are actually arrested during those stops.

The seemingly ridiculous contradictions in the way different states and the federal government treat marijuana led to "The War on Weed," my new story for "Vanguard."

"The War on Weed" explores the schizophrenic marijuana laws in the United States. Under federal law, marijuana remains illegal everywhere in the U.S. However, 16 states have legalized it for medical use, choosing to ignore federal law.

In states such as California and Colorado, the legal marijuana business is booming. In the worst economy since the Great Depression, marijuana entrepreneurs are creating jobs, scientists are formulating new marijuana-derived “medicines,” developers are transforming abandoned warehouses into high-tech growing facilities, and states are collecting tens of millions of dollars in marijuana taxes. The Colorado Department of Finance employs a team of inspectors to track every ounce of marijuana from grow room to consumer, not to track down lawbreakers, but to make sure the state is getting its share of the take. Live video feeds from marijuana facilities stream into regulators’ offices. The industry is a portrait of entrepreneurs and government working hand-in-glove.

But in New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a crackdown has racked up more marijuana arrests than the three previous administrations combined. Although possession in New York is a minor crime akin to jaywalking, marijuana is the city’s leading cause of arrest, and taxpayers bear about $100 million a year in costs of running the anti-grass campaign. Many residents of the city don’t even know it’s happening because the crackdown focuses on minority neighborhoods, and 90 percent of those arrested are black or Hispanic.

For a look at the country’s strange approach to dealing with an increasingly popular treatment for almost any ailment a patient can identify, watch "The War on Weed." 

Oh, and by the way, I did manage to walk down the aisle.

Watch a trailer for "The War on Weed" below, and check the schedule to catch its next airing.