🎩 “The Eye That Cried High”

(A Seussian Retelling of the Affidavit of John Toe)

In the hills of West V., in a house trimmed with pine,
Lived a man named John Toe, age fifty and nine.
(Well—fifty-four, married, four kids and some grands,
A grandfather strong with well-calloused hands.)

Back in Sixty-and-Five, oh, the trouble began,
When his right eye went blurry—it just wasn’t the plan.
“Aha!” said the doc, “It’s glaucoma, you see!”
So he cut and he stitched, and he gave him a plea:

“Take Diamox daily! And phospholine drops!
This will keep pressure down ‘til the pressure just stops!”

And it did, for a while—for nine lovely years—
But the meds brought some stones and some prostatey fears.
He got cataracts too. And oh, did it sting,
When the doctors said, “John, we must cut that old thing.”

So they snipped out the lens and they patched up his eye,
But the pressure shot up—oh, up to the sky!
He had surgery twice, but the pressure still grew.
It went thirty, then forty… it nearly turned blue!

Cryosurgery came, with its cold, freezing kiss—
“Let’s freeze it,” they said, “and hope that we miss.”
Once didn’t work, so they froze it again,
But the pressure went wild—up to seventy-ten!

Now, poor John was in pain. He was missing his job.
And the docs, they just shrugged with a pharmaceutical sob.
So he wandered one day past a crew at the gate—
Some young men with smoke, who said, “Hey, want a taste?”

He puffed just a puff and lo and behold!
The pain went away and his vision felt bold.
But John was a dad, and dads have to lead,
So he didn’t keep smoking—he just took his leave.

Then one day he read (in a journal, no less!)
That the gov’ment was studying weed for this mess!
He called Dr. Merritt and said, “Count me in!”
But the program cost money—he just couldn’t win.

He wrote to his rep, who then wrote the D.E.A.,
Who replied with a shrug and sent him away.
“Try the FDA!” said a bureaucrat, terse.
“But you’ll need a good doctor to fill out a verse—
Er, form—a real form, with a protocol twist,
And approvals and stamps—oh, you get the gist.”

So John got annoyed. His eye still in pain,
He went down the holler to farmers with grain.
But not grain they were growing. No barley or rye—
These were the growers with buds stacked high.

So John bought a bag. Not a bag of regret.
He smoked it when needed. His eyes? Not upset.
He begged local doctors to study the stuff—
But they all shook their heads. “No thanks. That’s too tough.”

Now John has had six surgeries, icy and red,
But the pressure still rises—it’s not really dead.
So when it does spike and the pain’s got a grip,
He lights up a joint and takes a long rip.

Not to party. Not to play.
But to keep the pain at bay.

So hear this rhyme and hear it true:
The law’s a maze John can't get through.
The leaf he found, though outlawed still,
Has done what surgery and pills won’t fulfill.

🎩 Oh, the Eyes You Will Save… if the Law Would Behave!

George Carlin Mode: Activated.

🚬 [lights cigarette]

“Okay, okay—hold the phone. I just read this Seuss-style affidavit about a guy named John Toe—poor bastard from West Virginia—fighting glaucoma with weed, and now I gotta say something, because this shit? It ain’t poetry. It’s testimony in rhyme. And it’s damning.”

🎤 “Here’s what really grinds my gears…”

You got a grandfather—a guy with real American dirt under his fingernails, who served, worked, raised a family—going blind and in pain.

He does everything the “experts” tell him:

• 👨‍⚕️ Takes the pills.

• 🧊 Freezes his goddamn eyeball. (Twice!)

• 💉 Has six surgeries.

• 🚫 Still in pain.

Then he smokes one joint… and BAM! Instant relief.

Let me guess what happens next?

The government says:

“Ah ah ah! That plant isn’t approved by the people who profit off your suffering!”

💸 The Real Punchline?

He tries to go legit:

• Calls a doctor.

• Joins a government program.

• Gets told it costs too much.

• Gets bounced between DEA, FDA, DMV, PTA—hell, probably the ASPCA.

And after all that?
He ends up back in the hills, breaking the law to keep from going blind.

🎯 But wait—it gets better:

The same people who say:

“Cannabis has no medical value”

…are the ones holding the patents, running the research programs, and cashing the damn checks.

They criminalize healing, then monetize misery.

🧠 So let’s call it what it is:

Not a poem.

Not a case study.

It’s a goddamn indictment of a system that values pharma profits over pain relief.
A system that tells a suffering grandfather:

“We’d rather you go blind than get better with a flower.”

🖕 The Final Word?

“Oh, the Eyes You Will Save… if the Law Would Behave!”

Cute line, right? But it’s not just cute—it’s tragic.
Because the only thing stopping John Toe from seeing clearly…
is the federal government’s blind spot.

And that ain’t Seuss.
That’s straight-up fucked.

🎩 Cohn Mode: ENGAGED.
(Jacket pressed. Voice sharp. Eyes—icy.)

📍 Location: Somewhere between Capitol Hill and Kafka’s front porch.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury—because that’s what this is now, make no mistake—

Let me be crystal clear:
What you just heard wasn’t comedy.
It was evidence.
A witness statement, delivered in meter, to the ongoing state-sponsored malpractice known as American drug policy.

And I, Roc Cohn, am not here to entertain you. I’m here to indict the system that put John Toe—and millions like him—in legal and medical purgatory for daring to see clearly.

📜 Let’s Review the Facts, Shall We?

• A citizen, a grandfather, followed every legal, institutional, and medical avenue to treat his glaucoma.

• He underwent:

  • Pharmaceutical bombardment.

  • Cryosurgery. (Twice. Let that sink in.)

  • A bureaucratic scavenger hunt between the DEA and FDA—without a single agency willing to own the problem.

• And when those avenues failed?

He turned to a plant.
One puff. Relief.
Pain recedes. Pressure drops. Vision stabilizes.

And what does the government say?

“Criminal.”

⚖️ The Real Crime?

It’s not John Toe’s puff of cannabis.
It’s the federal government's willful blindness.

“We’d rather you go blind than get better with a flower.”

Carlin called it tragic. I call it malicious negligence, bordering on state cruelty.

If a physician knowingly withheld treatment that could prevent blindness and instead prescribed a long, painful descent into darkness—they’d lose their license. They’d be sued for malpractice.

But when the federal government does it?

They call it policy.

💼 The Bureaucratic Ballet

Let’s not gloss over the choreography of this farce:

• DEA says: “Not us.”

• FDA says: “Fill out Form 472-F-47-Tango and submit it to a committee that meets every other fiscal equinox.”

• VA says: “Interesting. But cannabis use may disqualify you from benefits.”

• Congress says: “We support veterans—just not with that medicine.”

This isn’t red tape.
This is a weaponized paper trail.
Designed not to regulate medicine—but to ensure only some people can access it.

Preferably those with lobbyists.

🧠 The Institutional Gaslight

For decades, the federal government told patients:

“Cannabis has no accepted medical use.”

But behind the scenes?

• They held Schedule I hostage.

• They patented cannabinoids for neuroprotection.

• They gave a handful of patients federally grown weed under the Compassionate IND program—and then buried it.

This is not incompetence.
This is intentional obfuscation masquerading as public safety.

📣 Final Statement:

John Toe is not the exception.
He is Exhibit A.

A man who did everything right, and when the system failed him—again and again—he found something that worked.

And for that?

They’d see him fined.
They’d see him jailed.
They’d see him blind.

But not on my watch.

So let it be entered into the record:

This case is not about cannabis.
It’s about control.
It’s about the abuse of authority wrapped in the language of caution.
It’s about a system that punishes relief and rewards suffering—so long as it’s profitable.

And that, ladies and gentlemen,
is the real Schedule I substance in America:

The unmitigated gall of a government that sees healing as a threat.

Court’s adjourned. For now.