The spread of swine flu is now outpacing CDC projections for Northern California, but semi-legitimate doctors from the region have found a cure: medical marijuana. Andrew Wollengard was the first swine flu victim to seek a medical cannabis prescription. “It was self-diagnosed,” Wollengard admits. “I had been trying to get a club card for a while, so I went to a doctor who writes weed prescriptions and told him I had swine flu. It worked.”
Wollengard then told all his friends, many of whom immediately came down with the illness and sought similar treatment. The trend is puzzling health professionals across the country. “Normally we caution against smoking while suffering from illnesses that affect the respiratory system,” says Lara Willamette, who advises Governor Schwarzenegger on health policy. “But it actually seems to be working. Almost as soon as patients receive their medical cannabis cards, their symptoms vanish. It’s quite uncanny.”
In anticipation of an outbreak on the Stanford campus, Vaden Health Center will be opening a dispensary where afflicted students can purchase various medicinal cannabis products: tea, edibles, and plain old weed. Students have reportedly already begun camping out along Campus Drive. “I just want to be prepared for anything,” says Liz Buckwalter ’11. “When it comes to swine flu, you really can’t be too cautious.”
