Growing up, Thomas Jean always heard the same message: Marijuana was a gateway drug. He needed to stay away from it and anyone who associated with it.

He’d always heeded those warnings, so it was with some hesitation that the 19-year-old from Tilton walked into Sanctuary Alternative Treatment Center, a medical cannabis dispensary in Plymouth, for the first time.

Suddenly, the thing he’d been told to avoid his entire life was recommended to him by a doctor. He was wary but willing to try it after having bad reactions to other medications he tried to treat a genetic disorder called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

“That shift was kind of weird,” Jean said. “I remember getting driven home from the local medicinal dispensary and being like, this feels like I’m doing something wrong, even though it’s all legal in that sense.”

Recreational marijuana use remains illegal in New Hampshire, where cannabis is only allowed for medical use by patients who’ve been certified by a doctor and issued a special identification card by the state government.

The Granite State is on an island in New England due to its continual prohibition on selling and cultivating marijuana. Despite bipartisan legislative successes in the House to legalize the drug, those efforts have repeatedly been killed in the state Senate. Moreover, Gov. Kelly Ayotte has promised to veto any bill that would make marijuana widely available.

State lawmakers have expanded the therapy program in several spurts over the past 12 years, adding to the list of symptoms and conditions that make someone eligible to try cannabis as medicine.

Jean, now 21, started using cannabis early in 2024 at the suggestion of his doctor. His medical condition affects connective tissues in the body and causes fragile and hypermobile joints, meaning even small movements — a bump in the road, a sneeze, drinking coffee — can cause Jean to pull a muscle or dislocate a joint.

Like others in the program, cannabis wasn’t Jean’s first attempt at pain relief. He’d had serious negative reactions to other medications.

When he tried cannabis, Jean quickly saw improvements. It keeps his pain to a minimum, helps him sleep through the night and allows him to eat a full meal.

It took a few months for Jean to come to terms with how cannabis changed his life.

“For the longest time, it was that kind of mental block where it’s like, maybe I didn’t want to realize it was helping me because this whole time of being told, ‘This is a bad thing. We’ve got to get rid of it. We’ve got to make sure no one takes it,’” Jean said. “And then it’s like, ‘Oh, but I can sit without back pain now.’”

Back on the table

As a child, doctors told Jean his ailments were just growing pains, but his symptoms came to a head in his senior year of high school, when Jean couldn’t keep up with all the things his peers were doing.

“I’m coming home and I’m immediately going to bed,” Jean remembered. “A normal 17-year-old should be able to handle a school day and not immediately crash out.”

Life with Ehlers-Danlos can be uncertain and limiting, as the course of Jean’s day can change at any moment. He decided not to go to college because of it, and he doesn’t drive out of fear that his knees will lock up and potentially endanger others.

As a kid, he used to play soccer and the drums, but the physical movement those hobbies required eventually took them off the table.

“With the cannabis program, now I’m able to kind of slowly dip my feet back in the water, whether it be playing drums or trying to be a little more active, getting more exercise,” Jean said. “It has made the transition into being able to do things a lot smoother.”

Jean said he knows he’s not the ideal candidate for a traditional job, what with the unpredictability of his condition. So, he’s taken over the spare bedroom of his family’s house to set up shop for his clothing company, Visionless Society. He makes the T-shirts and hoodies, designed by his girlfriend, by hand. He’s also taking business classes online.

Those efforts are possible, in part, because medical marijuana has given Jean time and energy back in his day, he said. Previously, injuries would completely debilitate him from even sitting up in bed. Now, even if he’s bedridden for a bit, he still feels well enough to get things done.

“If I pull a muscle or if a joint pops out of place, it’ll definitely lower the injury timeframe,” Jean said. “It also kind of puts your body in more of a relaxed state so you’re able to kind of get that healing process going quicker.”

Green growth

Jean is among a minority of medical marijuana users in New Hampshire — one of roughly 3.2% of patients under the age of 26, according to data from the program’s annual report. More than half of registered users are over age 56.

The state has 112 other patients who use marijuana for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

The therapeutic cannabis program, established in 2013, serves nearly 15,000 patients. The production, sale and consumption of medical marijuana are heavily regulated by state law and an oversight board.

Though more patients continue to qualify and enter the state’s program, some say that high costs and distant locations of dispensaries across New Hampshire make medical marijuana products difficult to get.

Some lawmakers have tried to increase the possession limit, allow patients to cultivate cannabis at home and install other methods to increase access to the program. Those are typically stymied by an influential group of Republican state senators, who argue that expansions like higher possession limits would make it harder to regulate and enforce the program’s rules. Other lawmakers say they worry about misuse or illegal sale of medical cannabis, putting the drug in the hands of those who aren’t authorized to use it.

Jean said he’s a “big proponent” of the program — he hasn’t gotten addicted to marijuana or anything else, like he’d always been told he would, he said.

Still, he’s careful with it. When he started taking cannabis, he sat down with his 15-year-old sister to explain that, like any of his other medications, it would be off limits.

Aside from his own worries, which have largely subsided, Jean said New Hampshire’s strict lines of what’s allowed and what’s not can be a source of stress. For example, even certified patients like Jean must be careful about where they consume cannabis.

He said he always makes sure to carry his state-issued identification card. He sometimes keeps a vape in his pocket and hesitates to use it outside of the house, but he still worries someone could give him a hard time.

“That crosses my mind pretty consistently. I try to be very respectful about it … but it’s still like, ‘Oh, what if someone has an issue with it?’” Jean said. “You definitely still feel the, almost, anxiety aspect of it because it is still a thing that is in a kind of gray area, limbo state.”