For many years I thought my friends with medical marijuana cards were just looking for a legal loophole to get high and goof around—and for the most part I was right. But I had never considered it before. Besides, I was perfectly happy with my stash of relatively low-dose recreational cannabis, which I started taking sometime in 2017 when my lower back pain became untenable. Then I injured my back (again) during a particularly intense month of contact combat training with fighters twice my size. It had been years since it last happened and I was in a panic.