The leash strained as T’Challa, a 1-year-old pit bull puppy, ran down a wooden wheelchair ramp pulling his owner, Edwick Green, close behind.

Green, who is paraplegic, winced with every tug of the leash. He took several deep breaths once the dog had calmed down.

“When he pulls, almost every time it creates a muscle spasm,” he said, leaning forward in his motorized wheelchair to rub his calf muscles which had started to spasm from the exertion.

This time the pain subsided quickly, in what Green described as a “quick hurt.”

Some days, the pain is intense enough that it can lock up the lower half of his body for a full day.

He calls this a “whole hurt.”

Green was prescribed Oxycodone and a drug called Meritol to control the pain and muscle spasms starting in 2011. But when Louisiana started putting together the framework for a medical marijuana program in 2015, Green, like many others, saw a more natural alternative that could help him manage the debilitating pain in his legs.

Like so many other potential medical marijuana patients in Louisiana, Green is still waiting for the program to become reality. [Read more at NOLA.com]