Dawn Arbo suffers from chronic pain. It began after a skiing accident when she was a teenager.
Arbo said, "I was 16 at the time when I cracked a vertebra in my neck."
Four years ago, she started having pain in her hands.
"I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel in both wrists," Arbo said, "It got to the point where I couldn't even squeeze my shampoo bottle in the morning."
For years she used medications to ease her pain.
"They put me on all kinds of medication," Arbo told 2 Works for You. "Some of it worked. Some of it didn't."
At times those medications included opiates.
She said, "I don't want to live on that stuff every day."
Oklahoma's medical marijuana law offered Arbo an alternative way to treat chronic pain.
She said she now uses a CBD tincture. She explains, "There is no THC in it." She also used a topical ointment.
Like many turning to medical marijuana, she feared what would happen if her work knew how she treated her pain.
So, she left her old job to open a medical marijuana dispensary in Claremore.
Arbo said others suffering chronic pain, and especially older people, want alternative chronic pain relief, but they are deeply concerned about potential problems at work like failing a drug test.
"That is one of the majority of problems that I'm hearing, because they have to keep their jobs," Arbo said. "You have to support your family."
Oklahoma's medical marijuana law allows employers to take action against a medical marijuana license holder if that person uses or possesses marijuana at their place of employment.
Employers cannot take action against an employee solely for having a medical marijuana license, or results of their drug test shows positive for marijuana or its components.
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