Medical marijuana should be available as a choice for those suffering with seizure disorders, chronic pain, cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis. People don’t realize how important that is until confronted with such a situation.

My husband was injured at work. He sustained a traumatic brain injury with seizure disorder, broken neck, bi-shoulder surgeries and permanent nerve damage. Synthetic marijuana has been the only drug that has kept him seizure free, but it cost more than $5,500 per month.

Marijuana is not an option, it is a necessity. Living with chronic seizures was debilitating. Medical marijuana would help tremendously and cost less and doesn’t have all the nasty compounds and agents that the synthetic version has.

Under current law, there is no safe and reliable way for my husband to get marijuana. We must either grow our own, or buy it on the black market at tremendous risk.

I encourage people to vote “yes” on Question 5 on Nov. 3. Passage would correct the current problem by setting up a system of tightly-regulated, non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries that would give qualified patients safe and reliable access to the medicine their doctors recommend.

Patricia Salvatore, Oxford