The wife and I are also Church going Conservatives, your friend isn't wrong. I've worked in the medical industry for a decade with the VA. We are different because we are bounded by federal law but he isn't wrong, the pharmaceutical industry has definitely done all they can to fight legalized cannabis. My wife's pain management doctors haven't been able to help her over the last few years, she lived in constant pain, prescribed a crap ton of opioids that not only don't help, but tear up her stomach, but she went outside the system to get the MM prescription and the difference was immediate. Next appointment with her regular doctor she was told she could no longer receive care there because they don't recognize MM prescriptions and immediately cut off her other prescriptions, many of which she needed the MM to live with. It isn't a secret, the doctors will freely admit it, the system locally has an agreement with their various pharma contracts to keep MM out of the treatment plans. Thankfully, a fellow Aggie who is a doctor out here helped us navigate the bs and get her in touch with a doctor covered by my insurance that is not beholden to that agreement. Insurance doesn't cover the MM but at least they still work with her. I personally would never use it, I'm that rare person that weed exacerbated my PTSD related anxiety, but many of the Vets I hang out with were able to give up all their prescriptions due to MM. this should t be a liberal or conservative issue, it should be a patient driven issue. Recreational is entirely different, couldn't care less about that, but medicinal should be legal nation wide.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Ben Franklin