There are 3 types of people in this world:

1) Those who are for medicinal Cannabis

2) Those who don’t know enough about it…. yet.

3) Those who know about its therapeutic value but are publicly against it for their own self interests despite the cost to human life and human quality of life.

Isn’t it time we started arresting those that fall under category 3 instead of the people who use the most medicinal plant known to man?

This is NOT an attack on life saving medications, it’s about ”quality of life” drugs which are often dangerous,over prescribed and could be replaced or reduced by utilizing medicinal Cannabis.

Is it really in our best interests to target grandma over her stash of medicinal Cannabis while Big Pharma are allowed to run amok behaving like sophisticated drug cartels? Hiking drug prices, fabricating trials, influencing government policy and unleashing mass psychosis and the collapse of health for many.

One just has to look at the FDA’s list of drugs that have been recalled after doing unspeakable damage to the victims and their families. Some of these drugs on the market are next in line for a recall but how much damage will they inflict on society before that happens?

Perhaps the gravest danger to us all is that they are systematically ensuring that much needed medicines can never be free of charge and to add insult to injury they are making it difficult for pain patients to receive any other medication if they choose Cannabis over Big Pharma through discriminating drugs tests and draconian policies.

How were these drugs approved in the first place and how does a drug make it to market on the back of a few (often shady) trials while a plant with over 22,000 studies and zero recorded deaths EVER is a social stigma?

It’s OK to take your doctor-approved Ambien, Xanax or Oxy which will mask your symptoms for a while until it likely creates its own but a plant with broad spectrum medical benefits is left out in the cold and deemed to be as dangerous as heroin and meth according to its scheduling. Pop a pill in public nobody bats an eyelid, spark up in public and expect judging eyes on you at best.

How did we get to the stage where a plant, that has been used medicinally for millennia has been demonized and cast out as an abomination rather than miraculous tool that could literally save the world and end much of the needless suffering. One just has to look at what Cannabis and hemp is capable of supplying us with, clean bio-fuel, nutrition, medicine, textiles, paper, fabrics, building materials and much much more.

”I don’t know if hemp is gonna save the world but I’ll tell you this, it is the only thing that can..”

Jack Herer

How did we allow our lawmakers to put a ban on nature while allowing toxic chemicals and highly addictive drugs to infiltrate our culture, our healthcare our food supply and our lives whether we choose to use these ”products” or not?

How is it acceptable practice to isolate and synthesize components of nature, add chemicals to the process, slap a patent on it and call it medicine? All while demonizing the very plant that contains a natural and safer version of the same compound.

As is usually the case, one just has to follow the money to find the answers but that is not what this diatribe is about. Most of us can see the conflicts of interests and no you don’t have to be a tin hat wearing conspiracy nut to see beyond the veil that all is not well with our degrading healthcare system.

Over to you Joe…

We are indebted to life saving treatments and life saving drugs but what happens when the drugs you are taking are not for the purpose of saving your life or improving your health but rather trying to reclaim some lost quality of life? Chronic pain is the perfect example, the drugs are not keeping your blood pressure or insulin levels regulated, granted they may be keeping you from self harm and offering some tolerable days but at what cost?

Cannnabis is not without it’s drawbacks, in fact Cannabis used to be one of our go to medicines but so many factors such as the quality of the strain, the way it was grown, the nutrients used, the cannabinoid and terpene profiles and of course the production of the medicine itself (decarboxylation) can and does lead to wild swings in consistency and this can make dosing difficult to get right.

The Opiate Crisis is Simply a Symptom of a Broader Disease.

Another problem is Cannabis is, in many cases not enough to treat severe pain, it can take the edge off, even tone it down considerably but sometimes opiates are still necessary and the fact that pain patients are being treated like addicts is disgusting. There is a difference between an addiction and a dependence. The only thing most pain patients are addicted to is not being in pain. Many people are dependent on pain killers not because they are junkies but because they have constant severe pain and they have needed to take pain killers for extended periods of time to stop them from harming themselves or going out of their minds.

If Cannabis is ingested in the form of edibles, tinctures and other means like coconut oil capsules it lasts longer and decreases the overall pain levels. Smoking or vaping is often used as a ”breakthrough” supplement to ingested Cannabis and this can have the same effect as taking slow release painkillers with breakthrough tablets for severe bouts.

Sometimes opiates are needed but Cannabis can actually potentiate the effects of opiates leading to fewer opiate pills needed for the same amount of relief.

What happens to those poor souls who have been cut off from their opiate supply? What are we doing to help these people who are likely to suffer withdrawals, rebound pain, lingering depression and still have to deal with their original pain on top of the additional burdens?

Many doctors are now prescribing anti seizure medications like Pregabalin and Gabapenton off label for the treatment of pain. Some simple google searches will reveal the horror people have experienced both from the side effects and the withdrawals from these drugs. They are supposed to be non-addictive but the reality tells a different story and yes some lucky people will escape without withdrawals but for many the withdrawals are horrific and can last for months, even years. It also begs the question, if I don’t have a seizure condition, what are anti-seizure meds doing to my brain chemistry?

The point is Cannabis is the most non-toxic pain medicine known to man and should be the first port of call for pain relief. If it isn’t strong enough to treat the pain, we can then consider upgrading to powerful narcotic painkillers but surely taking a codeine tablet and supplementing with Cannabis for potentiation would be a more logical choice than going straight to Oxy or Morphine? Once those drugs don’t work anymore, where do you go from there?

Shouldn’t we consider using the combination of milder opiates and Cannabis where necessary to reduce the risk of opiate dependence? In many cases Cannabis can relieve even severe pain but it takes some trial and error to find the right strains and the right methods of ingestion.

Cannabis, in stark contrast to opiates seems more effective for pain once a person has built up a tolerance and can physically and mentally handle ingesting more than they could before.

Seems our government is in all out attack mode on another plant called Kratom which not only has pain relieving effects but also has been used by tens of thousands of people to successfully come off heavy opiates including heroin with minimal fuss as it all but completely masks withdrawal symptoms.

Doesn’t this sound like a viable and useful tool considering we have an opiate crisis that took the lives of over 50,000 Americans last year. A plant that acts in many ways like an opiate but does not cause respiratory depression, the leading cause of fatal opiate overdoses.

Should we not be considering this plant as a safer alternative to other drugs such as methadone for tapering and jumping off opiates? Where is the research into this plant, oh that’s right, no profit to be made from it so let’s ban it instead. Familiar pattern right? At least the people, including academics and scientists stood up to the government and preserved it’s legality a while longer. The fight still rages on and as usual common sense is the casualty in a senseless war on drugs.

Is there a place where Cannabis and science can meet? Sure there is and we would encourage it but unfortunately it seems as if Big Corporate is poised to take their share of the market once it becomes ‘normalized’. Something, of the earth that should be ”for the people” once again is likely to be commandeered for profit from right under our noses.

This is evidenced by the Merger between Beyer and Monsanto and it’s looking likely that genetically modified Cannabis and additional chemicals in the end product is not too far off. Already Monsanto is looking to buy themselves a big chunk of the market share and they have already purchased well known nutrient ranges like General Hydroponics and Botanicare while having intimate business relationships with Miracle Grow.

We already have a shortfall in the study of medicinal Cannabis at a federal level and true research has been intentionally stifled. The product grown for federal testing is sub-standard at best and as any anecdotal and scientific evidence will tell you along with reason, without quality starting material you will never have a quality medicine worthy of testing to it’s capabilities, producing or ingesting.

Are Recreational Users Harming the Cause of Medical Cannabis?

The answer to that is not clear cut, foolish and irresponsible users smoking bongs while breastfeeding or blowing themselves up making butane honey oil extractions certainly aren’t helping the cause. They are significantly contributing to the demonization of the plant and fuelling government overreach on regulation, however it is a relatively small minority and it could be argued that if it wasn’t Cannabis they were abusing it could be something far worse.

The elderly are giving up prescription medications and are among the fastest growing demographics of medical Cannabis users but the younger generation are largely giving up alcohol in favor of Cannabis as their recreational substance of choice. While we don’t condone minors using Cannabis recreationally, if we have learned anything from the failed war on drugs is that people (kids included) will use drugs regardless of the law and if Cannabis can even be considered a drug per se, it’s certainly the one with the least harmful risk profile, much less so than alcohol.

In States where recreational Cannabis is legal, we have something that has been altogether missing for some time and that is the re-emergence of the middle class. Due to the federal classification of Cannabis as a schedule 1 drug, many corporations like banks have not been able to get involved even in states where it is legal. This has leveled the playing field and led to mom and pop businesses emerging as viable companies, some will even go on to become tycoons of this exploding industry.

This is creating jobs, advancing the databases of information on testing and studies and creating an environment for medicinal cannabis to thrive. Testing labs in partnership with patients and breeders are creating condition specific strains opening up new avenues for exploration of Cannabis as broad spectrum medicine. An example of this is THCv which is emerging as a viable treatment for ADHD and ADD can be found mainly in African sativas such as Durban Poison. This is not a traditionally medical strain but it is showing great promise as a medical application for certain conditions.

The middle class has an opportunity to thrive once again around Cannabis, tourism such as ”bud and breakfasts”, smoking lounges, testing labs etc are all examples of peripheral emerging industries around Cannabis in which Cannabis itself is not the actual product on sale. Lets also not forget the jobs that are created from this booming industry such as bud-tenders, trimmers, security, accounting, legal, logistics and countless other professions who are afforded opportunities to work in this sector.

There are only so many beer glasses,bar stools and kegs that can be sold around the alcohol industry but with Cannabis you have a both a massive recreational and medical market that has millions of products already and is in it’s infancy. Already we have companies indebted to the peripherals of the Cannabis industry such as seed companies, vaporizers, bongs, testing kits, growing equipment, nutrient lines etc and these are only going to rise.

We believe that if alcohol was replaced by Cannabis as the accepted ”legal drug” we would have far less social injustice and far fewer social and health problems. Studies are already on their way to proving this theory.

Imagine a world where Cannabis was recreationally legal and ONLY the taxes levied on Cannabis sales were assigned to each state and the people had the power to do what they wanted with that money. Imagine how many good things would be done for the community , the social programs set up and massive job and wealth creation as we are seeing most clearly in Colorado. How fast would we see real tangible change? Instead we spend billions fighting a feeble, unwinnable war on a plant.

We are spending money to lose money on a war that we categorically know cannot be won and should never be won while at the same time propping up the black market. All while people go hungry and don’t have access to basic human needs like safe medicine.

We find it ironic that so many people who are anti recreational Cannabis on the basis that it is ”hedonistic” and is a mind altering substance are often those who have no problem popping their Xanax or having a social glass of wine at the country club. The social perceptions around recreational Cannabis use is changing rapidly and many successful people such as doctors and lawyers are coming out of the closet and proving to the world that Cannabis use and a successful happy life are not mutually exclusive.

“If the words ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.”

Terrence Mckenna

Let us not fall into the trap of thinking that choosing to get high for recreation and getting high as a side effect (one of the better ones) for medicinal benefit are not two different things.

When a person is in a severe pain or anxiety state for example, using Cannabis often does not get a person high, near as much as it helps them find their baseline. Patients often report that they feel more sober and ”with it” compared to the mental or physical state they were in before they dosed. Let’s also not forget that many doctor approved medications also get a person extremely high. How is being strung out on opiates more acceptable than a Cannabis buzz if they are offering the same benefit?

Why You Should Grow Your Own

If you have read our Guide to Managing Chronic Pain with Cannabis, you will understand our views on the importance of growing your own pain relief meds. It allows you control over the strains and costs, quality and strength while indoor growing means you are able to grow your plants all year round regardless of the weather. Plus you get to clone your best strain so that you have that exact strain to use for as long as you wish.

There is a larger issue that needs to be addressed though and it doesn’t just pertain to chronic pain patients. We need to take the money out of Cannabis itself… We are all for the booming emerging markets around Cannabis peripherals but could we keep Cannabis itself mostly free to those who need it? Whether that is achievable is unclear at this stage but we can go a long way to accomplishing it with one simple mantra… Those who can grow their own legally, should grow their own.

Overgrow Big Pharma

Think about this for a minute…In several states it’s legal to grow six plants at any given time, sometimes more if a person is acting as a carer. Usually there are some stipulations that only 3 plants can be flowering at a given time or other such variations to the laws but 6 is still a significant number especially if it is being grown outdoors.

Let’s say that a person only needs one plant a year to satisfy their medical needs, what of the other 5 plants? Some states have laws that restrict a person to only being allowed to legally have a few ounces in their possession which is quite ridiculous considering 3 flowering plants should yield far more than that. The laws often also state that you are allowed to ”gift” another person one ounce at a time and no money can exchange hands…Good… a Cannabis law with some actual purpose if we allow it to have one.

Wouldn’t it make sense to then gift an ounce to all of your neighbors or friends who don’t have the ability to grow their own? Wouldn’t you be able to try different strains and see which is best for your needs by being gifted strains from your neighbor.

Couldn’t we provide free access to much needed medicine for people on low incomes who are often too poor to afford growing equipment because of their condition which has made it impossible for them to work? Wouldn’t we remove much of the profitability of the plant itself and be able to give back to our community? We could also then utilize methods of ingestion that are otherwise often too extravagant such as juicing raw Cannabis which has multiple health benefits, including pain relief with no high at all.

Wouldn’t we be giving back to the people, something we deserve, access to the most medicinal and nutritional plant known to man that anybody can grow in their back garden or spare bedroom?

Perhaps there is some nativity to this post, maybe we are a bunch of dreamers lost in a material world but maybe this is our chance to get things right for the good of all for a change. Maybe this will empower people to once again take control of their own health where possible and not have to rely so heavily on drug companies and their largely toxic products at least when we are talking about quality of life rather than life itself.