Above: Photographer Robbie Zeigler shoots Melissa Etheridge in her Los Angeles backyard garden, for a Dope Magazine cover feature.

Gisele Fetterman, Second Lady of Pennsylvania

Women of Weed World

Speaking out for the Greater Good

Gisele Fetterman is the Second Lady of Pennsylvania, as wife of John Fetterman, Lt. Governor, second to the Governor. But the title and position doesn’t automatically garner respect or privilege.

“I already have three strikes against me,” she shared. “I’m an immigrant, a woman, and a cannabis patient. There have been two points of contention since I began working by John’s side, my immigrant background and my thick eyebrows!”

In the town of Braddock, where her husband, Lt. Governor John Fetterman, was once Mayor, it was said that a vote for John was a vote for Gisele – that’s how loved she was and continues to be as Second Lady.

“Pennsylvania is somewhat a conservative state – it’s actually pretty purple, but our community is a little patch of progressive blue,” she laughed. “My focus is on community services, and making sure no one goes without. That includes dealing with food, clothing, and household need insecurities.”

Gisele has a unique perspective on living the American Dream. Her family arrived to the U.S. from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil via New York in 1990 when she was just eight years old; fleeing the violence in her country.

The family decided to leave their beloved homeland and headed for New York City, after her aunt told her mother how happy she was that she had only been robbed seven times that year. But, once in the U.S., the fears changed drastically.

“We felt safe, but not completely free, as we were undocumented,” she explained. “My mother would send us off in the morning saying, ‘I love you, have a great day, and be invisible,’ so I kept my head down all through school,” she explained. “For 15 years, I grew up in fear of a knock at the door by immigration. Once I knew I could speak up and speak out, I did and have.”

Her newfound voice led her to what she calls, her adult work, creating non-profits to fill the holes of insecurities she witnessed as a third-world citizen coming to the land of plenty. She’s spoken out for women’s rights, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and anyone marginalized or as invisible as she once felt.

Recently, she added cannabis advocacy to her list of causes, coming out of the smoky closet, after a state legislator made a derogatory comment about cannabis users.

Though cannabis has been legal for medicinal use in the state since Gov. Wolf signed Senate Bill 3 in 2016, legalization for recreational use is being hotly debated on a pending Bill.

“I’ve witnessed, first hand, the positive, medicinal benefits of cannabis,” she said. “My own story of being helped by the plant is my truth, and I’d like to see more people understand it, rather than fear it – and that includes the very misunderstood THC, the compound that causes euphoria.”

There is actually no psychoactive THC in the cannabis plant. The compound is called THCa and is non psychoactive until it’s heated. The levels of THC are the culprit when it comes to a new patient not used to the effects. But, it’s important to note, that we as a species upped the level of potential THC to what they are today via hybridization for recreation.

That said, aside from non-psychoactive deliveries, THC is beneficial in its own right, with cancer-fighting properties discovered in Israel in the 1960s.

A person just needs to start with a low amount and titrate up until they find their comfortable dose. No patient wants to feel wasted, with healing and well-being the ultimate achievement. A person recreating at the end of the day may choose alcohol, valium, or cannabis – it’s all self-medicating to feel better.

A lineage of healing

An openness to plants didn’t hinder Fetterman in using cannabis for a lifetime of chronic pain. Her mother had been a nutritionist and hospital administrator in Brazil, and she was raised knowing that food is indeed medicine and what the body needs to be healthy.

“I wanted to follow in my mother’s nutritional food footsteps,” she said. “I grew up knowing nature is better, so, in that respect, I was open to cannabis.”

Fetterman initially majored in math at Kean University in New Jersey, but switched to nutrition, earning a license in Integrative Nutrition.

Although she said she had experimented with smoking cannabis as a teenager, it became her serious pain medication much later in life.

“I had a horse riding accident as a child, then a series of car accidents,” she explained. “Every memory in my life I’m in pain. Every photo taken of me back then, I’m in pain.”

She said she did all the right things before discovering the analgesic properties of cannabis, but she never took the pharmaceuticals offered to her.

“I’ve worked with the distribution of Narcan and have seen firsthand the suffering that opioids and other addictive drugs have caused our community,” she said. “I never wanted to go there.”

Her litany of tools to manage her pain includes an inversion table and a Dharma Yoga Wheel. She’s worked with chiropractors, acupuncturists, and more.

“All these things help, but they are not sustainable for a lifetime of chronic pain,” she explained.

Surprisingly, Fetterman does not yet ingest cannabis for her pain, but keeps it at bay by smoking concentrates from a vaporizer pen or flower from a pod.

“I would like to learn more about ingesting for my pain, and to strengthen my immune system – for prevention of illness,” she said. “But, for now, the vaping of concentrates and flower has been working well.”

Legalize to Educate

The myth of legalization is that more people will partake to get high… and, “What about the children?” The reality is, when a state legalizes, more people feel comfortable to experiment, with desperate parents turning to the plant for help for their sick and suffering children, and opioid numbers dropping substantially, as cannabis concentrates are proving to replace addictive pain killers across the board.

That edible turns into a medible very quickly when the partaker is a patient with real ailments. When that happens, the recreational laws written to protect from the evil weed no longer make sense. The theory is that we actually “medicate to recreate,” as the beneficial compounds of the plant are being delivered into the biological system whether you just want to get high or not.

Combatting negative rhetoric on the campaign trail has been a given where cannabis is concerned. Education is everything, and Gisele knows she has her work cut out for her.

As of this writing, both her husband and Gov. Tom Wolf formerly requested the state General Assembly to legalize cannabis, informing that the taxes derived from cannabis sales would specifically help bring the state back from the financial ruin from the COVID-19 pandemic, facing a $3.5 billion deficit.

Pennsylvania’s medical market reached $275 million in 2019, with a projected $500 million in sales expected this year and $1 billion within the next few years.

With 62 percent of Pennsylvania voters in favor of a recreational market, its conservative House and Senate doesn’t seem to be supporting the will of the people. But money talks and the revenue generated from other legal states is telling, with cities across the country using cannabis as a way to get out of the red.

Interesting to note, the City of Desert Hot Springs in California had filed for bankruptcy prior to allotting nine acres to the farming and manufacturing of cannabis products in its city in 2016, with the Mayor at the time declaring, “We just want to fix our pot holes.” No pun intended, as its infrastructure was literally crumbling. Today the city of just under 30,000 residents is thriving, and expects to see $3 million in cannabis tax revenue by 2021, next year.

After Colorado became the first state to legalize seven years ago, the state saw $683.5 million in sales in its first year, to $1.75 billion in revenue in 2020, with numbers showing no signs of retreating. Recreational retail shops in the state have sold more than $8.2 billion in products since inception, from January of 2014 to March of 2020. An estimated $40 million from the excise tax goes to school construction, with the remaining going to school funds. The rest goes into the Colorado’s general fund.

Fetterman said plans for part of Pennsylvania’s assumed revenue from the legalization of cannabis will go towards infrastructure and bringing back the state’s historically disadvantaged businesses. A portion will also go towards restorative justice programs, righting the wrong of the approximately 20,000 per year incarcerated for cannabis in the state for decades.

Both Lt. Gov Fetterman and Gov. Wolf understand there’s already a thriving cannabis market in the state, it’s just not being taxed, it’s not regulated, and there’s too much room for error in safety of the processing and manufacturing of products.

“The people are already healing themselves and enjoying cannabis recreationally ahead of legislation all around the world, not just in Pennsylvania,” she surmised. “I’d like to see the progressive part of our state rise up to the occasion. And I’ll be there right next to them, watching our state thrive, and continuing to learn about the plant’s many benefits – whether you are medicating or recreating.”

Jim Belushi

Working Man’s Brand

On a Mission from God to Legalize America

Jim Belushi has an entertainment career that spans more than four decades, including a start with famed Chicago improv theater, The Second City; Saturday Night Live, numerous notable roles in TV and film productions such as Twin Peaks, Wonder Wheel, Gang Related, and nine seasons of the hit television series, According to Jim. He stills gigs regularly with Dan Aykroyd and The Blues Brothers, which has become a big part of his “Mission from God” to save the world with cannabis.

He’s trading in his sprawling Los Angeles mansion for a simpler life on his farm, Belushi’s Farm, in Southern Oregon. After visiting friends in the region for more than a decade, he acquired 13 acres in 2015. When a close friend passed away, she asked him to purchase her land, adding 80 more acres to the parcel.

Being drawn to farm life is only part of his metamorphosis into the world of cannabis as remedy, as he and his good friend Dan Aykroyd feel the plant could have saved his brother, and can save many more – with a little education (see sidebar).

“Danny and I are starting a charity, and are actively working with the OLCC [Oregon Liquor Control Commission] on a program to replace opiates with cannabis in Oregon,” he shared. “We’ve had meetings with 15 different people – government policy makers, trying to figure out a model. We’re negotiating with a landlord now on a location.”

Football’s Folley

Born in Chicago to immigrant parents from Albania, Jim and siblings were raised in Wheaton, Illinois. Coming of age in the 1970s there were no diagnosis for mental disorders, the leading cause to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol; but, Jim doesn’t remember his brother ever being manic or depressed. He feels his brother was damaged long before the partying, more than likely from repeated concussions while playing football.

“He was focused in high school,” Jim recalled. “You have to be focused on stage. Work was the drive – his creativity was the drive.”

John was outgoing and involved in a wide array of activities during high school. Voted Homecoming King and Most Humorous, he participated in theater, was on the Forensics Team, and was Co-Captain and all-conference middle Linebacker for the Wheaton Central High School Tigers.

Known as “Killer Belushi,” John tackled Running Backs at full speed, taking repeated blows, holding records for the most tackles (the school has since been torn down).

By the time John was a senior in high school, Jim remembers him suffering a seizure at home.

“We were vying for a seat on the couch in the living room – you know, it was a power-play. At that time if you got up to change the channel, you’d lose your seat,” he laughed. “John went into the laundry room, next to the kitchen to watch a little Motorola TV, old school - the set had an antenna with tin foil on the ends. It was turned-up loud and I was yelling at him to turn it down.”

Ever the perennial jokester, Jim thought John was just trying to aggravate his little brother. When the sound wasn’t lowered he got up to deal with it, and found John having a seizure, hanging onto the edge of the sink.

John was taken to the hospital and tests were run, to no avail, with no treatment to speak of.

“At that time if you were knocked out on the field, the coach would say, ‘What’s the matter, Belushi, got your bell rung? Get back in there,’” he mocked, remembering. “They didn’t do anything.”

Punch Drunk

In the 1920s they called it “Punch-Drunk;” when professional boxers displayed tremors, slowed movement, confusion, and speech problems.

The syndrome that would eventually become chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was first recognized in 1949, in a paper penned by British Neurologist Macdonald Critchley. But, the syndrome wasn’t officially named until the early 2000s, when Neuropathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, performed an autopsy on the brain of beloved Pittsburgh Steelers Center and NFL Hall of Famer, Mike Webster, after he exhibited erratic, unexplained behavior before his death.

CTE is a neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated head injuries sustained from sports such as boxing, American football, professional wrestling, ice hockey, rugby, and soccer. With visual proof of the damage done only found in an autopsy, after death.

We’ll never know what condition John’s brain was in when his behavior turned erratic, leading him down the path of abusing recreational drugs— cocaine, heroin, and cannabis were plentiful in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when the brothers began in show business.

“John found his medicine in college, when he smoked his first joint,” Jim explained. “If we knew then that cannabis could help mitigate the damage done to his brain by football, or a better recreational drug than powders, pills and alcohol, I think he’d still be alive. Danny has always said, ‘If Johnny was a pot-head, he’d be alive today.’”

The Smell of SNL in Oregon

One saving grace during those early days was a cultivar called Gulzar Afghanica, referred to as “The smell of Saturday Night Live,” provided by a man welcomed backstage they called Captain Jack.

Jack grew his first plant in 1966 while in college, on the lawn of his prestigious New England school’s national security house. The on-campus grow turned into a clandestine operation in the woods, paralleling his studies of Forestry and Landscape Architecture.

After college, Jack spent the summers of 1971 and ’72 in Afghanistan, near the Hindu Kush mountain range, (where the Kush (cultivar) landrace began thousands of years ago). Endearing himself to the elders by working the fields, he was able to bring a handkerchief full of seeds to Mendocino, in Northern California (home to the Emerald Triangle of Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino counties), where he found the perfect microclimate and soil to nurture the now iconic plants.

Belushi beams with pride when talking about Captain Jack’s Gulzar Afghanica, now one of twelve cultivars grown on the farm. It’s a tribute - a way to keep John’s memory alive, in a positive way.

Working Man’s Weed

There are a plethora of cultivars within Belushi’s Private Vault, with some sourced from small farms in Southern Oregon — Belushi’s way of giving to the community by supporting them. But the Afghani cultivar, along with Cherry Pie, and the Crippler – a sativa dominant hybrid, are a few of the mainstays.

Belushi jokingly refers to the hybrid Cherry Pie as the “marriage counselor,” for its ability to make him charming. In addition, Jim takes .25 milligrams of tincture to help him sleep. The family dog, Dash, gets a dose of CBD daily for arthritis.

Soon to be launched under the Belushi’s Farm brand and subsequent Blue Brothers brand, is “Good, Ugly Weed,” with a nod to the four-finger dime bags culled in the 1960s and ‘70s.

“We’ll sell it in a little bag with a couple of papers,” he laughed. “But, it’s really, really good weed – just not pretty – you know, it may have a few stems – not trimmed perfectly. The whole Blues Brothers brand is about regular, working folks. Like the folks who’ve grown weed for decades in this region. Nothing fancy, down-to-earth people working the land, loving the plant.”

Also in the works is a rebirth of the old Blues Brothers patrol car, with a new spin.

“Illinois is legal now,” he said happily of his home state. “I want to drive the car in Chicago with a big joint on top to celebrate! We are now on a Mission from God, literally, to spread the good news of healing with this plant - and to legalize America.”

It Takes a Village

Belushi has immersed himself in the community of Eagle Point, helping to rebuild the Holly Theater in downtown Medford; with a second project in the works to rebuild the old Butte Creek Mill, lost to fire in 2016.

He also likes to get his hands dirty — planting, curing, trimming, repairing fences, whatever the farm needs— while hanging out with the locals.

“I’ve gotten to know the people in the community and feel a part of it now,” he shared.

A totem pole and sweat lodge were built on the farm by the indigenous people there, with Belushi adding they couldn’t take any money for their spiritual work, but he’s buying all of his firewood from them.

A statement from the farm’s website reads, “We honor the spirit of the Tekelama, the people who were there before us; it means ‘Those along the river.’ We honor Mother Earth, Father Sun, Water Spirit, and Fire Spirit, and get rid of the impurities we carry in our hearts.”

Belushi waxes poetic when talking of farm life. The plant does that to people.

“I appreciate the ladies,” he surmised, speaking of the plants, who are female. “I’m following them – I’m being led by them and in that journey learning about myself, my community, and healing the trauma from my brother John’s death.” Jim shares a video clip on his phone of the women of Southern Oregon who work with him on the farm, potting up the plants on Belushi’s Farm, whispering words of encouragement, “You are beautiful, you are loved, you will heal….“

Cannabis as Neuroprotectant

In 2014, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University, Lester Grinspoon, penned an open letter to the NFL, requesting the league to support research into the neuro-protective potential of cannabis, siting a 1998 National Institute of Health (NIH) study. Another study in Spain (2008) showed receptors in the brain responding to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as part of the healing process after Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). In Brazil, researchers published that Cannabidiol (CBD) has the ability to regenerate brain cells in mice, treating depression, anxiety, and chronic stress (symptoms of CTE). Lastly, a review of TBI patients at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, showed patients who tested positive for high levels of THC had higher mortality rates than those who didn’t use cannabis.

From these studies/observations, it’s apparent the regenerative properties of cannabis act as a neuroprotectant, helping to heal the brain; while its analgesic properties quell pain; and its anti-inflammatory compounds help to relieve pressure post-concussion.

Regarding the opioid epidemic, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2016 there were more than 64,000 fatal overdoses from opioids, with more than 72,000 documented deaths in 2017, with numbers steadily increasing.

In 2009 a survey (NIH) of 644 retired NFL players, 52 percent said they used opioids during their NFL career, with 71 percent admitting to misuse. A report in the American Journal of Public Health states that 50 percent of high school athletes are at risk for abusing pain killers as adults; with heroin use doubling in the 18 to 25 year-old demographic. Lastly, Poison Control Centers report receiving a call every 45 minutes related to minor opioid use.

Regarding opioid and other addictive drug replacement, Plant Assisted Therapy (PAT) for addiction recovery is a viable plant-based treatment using cannabis and other superfoods, boasting a 96 percent success rate with minimal relapse. Ron Figarrato of Greener Pastures Recovery (formerly of Maine) developed the treatment after replacing a crack cocaine addiction via smoking and ingesting cannabis and other healing plants (Weed World, issue #139/online).

According to Figarrato, cannabis and other plant-based remedies, including kratom, cannabis, passionflower, chamomile, milk thistle, kava, moringa, valerian, St. John’s Wort, ginseng, and turmeric are incorporated into the PAT program – along with a healthy diet, yoga, mindfulness, therapy, self-care, and apothecary – the practice of making plant-based remedies, allowing participants to continue their treatments at home.

Olivia Newton-John & John Easterling

Using cannabis oil for cancer, replacing opioids

With a 50 year musical career and more than 100 million albums sold; including four Grammys, ten number one hits, and awards too numerous to name, Olivia Newton-John needs no introduction. Her starring roles in Grease and the cult classic Xanadu came with praise from Billboard Magazine, naming Olivia one of the Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Women Artists in 2015.

Recently, she took to the stage with some music greats, including Sir Elton John, Queen, Adam Lambert, and Michael Buble, for the charity concert, Fire Fight Australia, benefiting the victims of the fires in Australia, the country where she was raised.

But, cancer doesn’t recognize talent or success, and celebrities are not spared from heartache, disappointment, and life-threatening illness.

Newton-John’s first diagnosis of breast cancer came in 1992, with Olivia undergoing surgery and nine months of chemotherapy. This experience caused her to become devoted to breast health advocacy, forming a partnership with Austin Campus in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. She founded the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre with a focus on the alternative therapies that were offered to her during her cancer treatments – including, acupuncture, meditation, and yoga.

With mindfulness a focus, she then opened Gaia Retreat & Spa in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia. The retreat has garnered many accolades, including third on TripAdvisor’s Top 10 Celebrity-Owned Hotels in the World; as well as the World Luxury Hotel Awards 2018 #1 Global Hotel of the Year.

In 2008 Olivia married “Amazon” John Easterling, known for his advocacy to protect the Amazon Rain Forest. He’s also a Master Herbalist, and has been working with plant-based remedies for more than 30 years.

When Newton-John’s cancer reared its ugly head again in 2013, this time in her shoulder with mets to her lungs, Easterling was ready.

Guanabana, camu camu, cat’s claw, Sangre de drago, and various medicinal mushrooms were some of the super foods from the Amazon that Easterling formulated for his wife; including a strong tincture made with his own process using cannabis and other beneficial plants.

Just six weeks after starting the cannabis and plant-based protocols, Olivia’s daughter, Chloe, flew into Los Angeles for a group viewing of the scans. Where nine spots had presented prior in her lungs, now there four – with her cancer markers substantially down.

“We expected the radiologist to roll his eyes,” Easterling said. “But, he asked us to send him all the data! He wanted to know everything we were doing, right down to the plants, formula and dosage.”

Reoccurrence, More Plants

In 2017 Olivia began a residency in Las Vegas and admitted to slacking on her maintenance protocols to keep the cancer at bay. The first red flag was an assumed sciatica flare-up. By September of 2018, she said the pain was excruciating, while doing a wellness walk in her home country of Australia.

“That’s when we found the tumor had metastasized to my sacrum, as Stage Four,” she explained. “I was lucky enough to be able to check myself in at my own wellness center in Melbourne. It was wonderful to be able to experience all the therapies myself. I painted and practiced mindful meditation. And, though Australia is not yet legal for cannabis, we are working on change with our own research.”

Targeted photon radiation and morphine were prescribed for the pain, along with the plant remedies (less cannabis), including algae and fucus, as Easterling advised, they help chelate the excess radiation.

A Life of Herbs

“Our garage is full of herbs,” Olivia mused, while John listed the poundage of medicinal plants from around the world in the couple’s garage in California, turned apothecary stash.

Easterling grows a number of cultivars with a focus on the plant as chemovar, a more scientific way to view the many compounds, via terpene and cannabinoid extraction from the whole plant, treating the cancer while strengthening the immune system, quelling illness.

Running 26 chemovars of flower material in dry ice, he separates and concentrates the trichomes, extracting in cold alcohol using Extrcatohol, a 190 proof organic sugar cane alcohol, then filtered. He calls this formulation Extract One Tincture.

The Extract One Tincture is a full profile extract of cannabinoids in their acidic or A-form, with naturally occurring terpenes. Some of the Extract One Tincture is run in a distiller with heat, decarboxylated, and concentrated into an oil, or Extract Two Oil.

Important to note: There are more than 140 known and researched cannabinoids found in cannabis, out of nearly 500 beneficial compounds.

Extract Two Oil is a fully decarboxylated oil, with high concentrations of cannabinoids, including tetrahydrocannabinol or THC.

He then blends the highly soluble Extract Two Oil, into the Extract One Tincture. Olivia takes the tincture using a dropper, consuming 1500 milligrams throughout the course of the day, working out to about 600 milligrams of THC and 200 milligrams of CBD in both Acidic and decarboxylated forms.

His formulations were just acquired by Cann Global, Ltd., an Australian company whose mission is to “establish partnerships with world leaders in medical cannabis research.” Easterling signed the deal late 2019, naming the formulations in his wife’s honor, Olivia’s Choice.

As quoted in Business News Australia, Newton-John said, “John’s unique cannabis formulations have been a huge help to me with sleep, stress, mood, and of course, pain.”

The formulations will be distributed through the Special Access Scheme in Australia, part of its Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), but Cann Global, Ltd. also has plans for international distribution after establishing clinical trials with cancer patients.

Patients must work their way up to a therapeutic dose of the highly psychoactive formulation, to successfully deal with cancer cell death, while building the immune system and healing any damage done from the traditional treatments of chemotherapy and radiation.

Olivia took small drops of tincture throughout the day, working up to a larger dose in about six weeks’ time.

Naming the formulation Olivia’s Choice is apropos, as it wasn’t easy for Newton-John to open up about her choice to use cannabis as a serious medicine. Her squeaky clean image has upheld for as long as we’ve known her in the public light. Admittedly, she had tried cannabis years ago and had a bad experience, so wrapping her head around the fact that the plant could help with her cancer treatments was initially a challenge, making the choice all that more poignant.

“Cannabis initiates a number of healing responses that can result in apoptosis, cancer cell death – while healing and strengthening the body,” Easterling explained. “Another important part of the larger picture is the starting material and how the plants are cultivated.”

Easterling grows the cannabis in their garden bio-harmonically, using a microbial blend of bacteria with a gemstone elixir and Amazon herbs that go directly into the soil with product, Bio harmonic Tonic, under his company, Happy Tree Microbes.

From Pharma to Farmacopia

Currently Olivia uses just one prescription medication to block estrogen. Last year she was down to just 12 milligrams of morphine a day, from 60 milligrams months prior. Using a formulation from her husband John’s garden of a multi-cultivar blend, she’s successfully weaned herself off of all prescription pain killers, including OxyContin.

“I was able to wean myself completely off morphine and all pain meds using cannabis, which is something I think everyone should know is possible,” Newton-John shared.

A cancer diagnosis often comes with a dependency on pain killers, such as OxyContin or oxycodone, another term used for the drugs classified as opioids.

Cannabis as an analgesic for pain is a given, but finding your dose with the highly psychoactive oil is another thing altogether, and why Newton-John took time to titrate off the opioids, while upping her cannabis oil intake, as she became more used to the activated THC, which can test upwards of 80 to 90 percent.

Using suppositories is another delivery option, as they bypass the digestive system and liver, causing no head-high, allowing the patient to take a higher amount of oil at one time. This can also aid in replacing opioids, if the patient is sensitive to taking THC orally.

Plant Assisted Therapy

In the U.S., Greener Pastures Recovery has developed PAT, or Plant Assisted Therapy for addiction recovery. The program allows clients to successfully replace drug and alcohol addiction with plant-based remedies, using cannabis and other beneficial plants at the core of its therapies (Weed World issue #139).

Developed by founder, Ron Figarrato, the PAT program boasts an unheard of 96 percent success rate of recovery from a range of addictions, including opioids.

“In the PAT program clients learn about plant-based formulas, including Kratom, passionflower, chamomile, milk thistle, kava, moringa, valerian, St. John’s Wort, ginseng, turmeric, and cannabis,” Figarrato shared. “Cannabis options include THC or CBD only, vaporizing with pens, tinctures, flowers to smoke, infused oils, edibles and body creams.”

While all of the synergistic therapies at Greener Pastures cover cognitive, experiential, mind-body-energy, diet, and mindfulness, the careful use of cannabis, Figaratto said, enhances all of the other therapies.

With the U.S. national average of relapse, post-recovery programs, hovering at 60 percent, Greener Pastures’ numbers are promising. Yet, in 2019, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning that cannabis would not be an acceptable alternative treatment for opioid replacement in recovery programs; halting Figaratto’s plans of going forward with approved FDA trials for the PAT program.

According to the U.S.’s Center for Disease Control, in 2019, an average of 130 people died per day from opioid overdoses, with an estimated 49,000 deaths in 2018. Providing education on using cannabis oil in place of opioids would be a first step in dealing with the opioid epidemic, globally.

And while the U.S.’s drug problem takes center stage, globally, According to the Daily Mail, in 2016 nearly 4,000 deaths were reported in the U.K. from drug overdoses via misuse and accidental deaths. In 2019, officials reported a fifty percent increase in the past five years of opioid deaths alone, with numbers rising steadily, and doctors said to be fueling the problem with liberal prescriptions of the pain killers.

A life advocating for plants

Today, the couple have embraced the cannabis community and advocacy of the plant, traveling the world and speaking out at medical conferences together.

“If you had told me a few years ago I would be talking openly about my experiences with cannabis I never would've believed you,” Newton-John said. “But, I feel so strongly about it that I wanted to let it be known and made available for anyone who may require it for medical purposes.”

Easterling still oversees his company, Happy Tree Microbes, promoting its Bio-Harmonic Tonic – the soil builder he created. With his new partnership with Cann Global, the cannabis community anxiously awaits for his Olivia’s Choice formulation to help others on a grand scale.

“Olivia’s markers are going down, the tumors are shrinking and disappearing, and her energy and mobility keeps improving” he surmised. “We are just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing, while spreading the word to help others.”

For more information on Olivia Newton-John visit, http://www.olivianewton-john.com/

For more information on Happy Tree Microbes visit, www.happytreemicrobes.com

For more information on Gaia Retreat & Spa visit, https://gaiaretreat.com.au/

For more information on Greener Pastures and Plant Assisted Therapy (PAT) for addiction recovery visit, https://www.greenerpasturesrecovery.com/pat

For more information on Greener Pastures and Plant Assisted Therapy visit, https://www.greenerpasturesrecovery.com/pat

Olivia Newton-John

Growing & Healing Together

By Sharon Letts with John Easterling for Culture Magazine

Olivia Newton-John’s musical career has spanned five decades with more than 100 million albums sold, garnering four Grammys, numerous music awards; and ten number one hits, including “Physical,” the number one single in the 1980s; a starring role in the 1978 musical hit Grease, another in the cult classic, Xanadu; with enough musical accolades to prompt Billboard Magazine to name Olivia one of the Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Women Artists in 2015.

In 1991 she was named the first Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Environment Programme, serving as National Spokesperson for the Children’s Health Environmental Coalition (CHEC), now Healthy Child, Healthy World (HealthyChild.org).

This honor came after her daughter Chole’s best friend passed away from a rare form of childhood cancer, inspiring a lifelong concern for cancer patients in Olivia.

Her own first bout with breast cancer came shortly thereafter in1992, with Olivia doing what any modern woman at that time would do when faced with cancer, she went through surgery and nine months of chemotherapy.

Once her cancer was in remission, Olivia dove head first into breast health advocacy and helping others. She established a partnership with Austin Campus in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia; opening the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre. The center has a focus on providing the same therapies that had helped Olivia through her own cancer journey, such as acupuncture, meditation and yoga.

To further the philosophy that good health must include mindful therapies, she opened Gaia Retreat & Spa in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia – a place to renew, refresh and restore; with the resort garnering many awards, including TripAdvisor’s number three spot on its Top 10 Celebrity-Owned Hotels in the World; and the World Luxury Hotel Awards 2018 #1 Global Hotel of the Year.

Love, Herbs & Happiness

In 2008 Olivia married her longtime friend, John Easterling, otherwise known as “Amazon John,” for his work with the Amazon Rain Forest’s rich botanical heritage of beneficial plants and his advocacy to protect it.

The union wasn’t just a love match, as Easterling’s knowledge of plant-based remedies took center-stage when Olivia’s cancer returned in 2013 – this time in her shoulder with mets to her lungs.

The cancer was found by chance, after she was rear-ended in a car accident.

“It was two traumas, really,” she explained. “My sister had just passed away months prior from brain cancer, so I was suffering from emotional trauma. After they did an MRI on my shoulder, then a biopsy, the tumor began to grow. I feel this made things worse, and I committed to a new level of focus on natural treatments after that experience.”

After spending the last 30 years importing and formulating remedies from plants from the Amazon, Easterling’s instincts led him back to the garden for Olivia. Guanabana, camu camu, cat’s claw, Sangre de drago, and some mushrooms are just some of the super foods from the Amazon that he formulated as a master herbalist for his wife, along with a strong cannabis tincture.

Six weeks into the plant-based treatment, Olivia’s daughter, Chloe, flew into Los Angeles for a group viewing of the scans. Where there had been nine spots in her lungs, there were now just four, with her cancer markers dropping substantially.

Cannabis or plant-based remedy patients typically wait for the skepticism from whatever technician or doctor standing-by, as they share an alternative treatment, but this time was different.

“We expected the radiologist to roll his eyes,” Easterling explained. “But, he asked us to send him all the data! He wanted to know everything we were doing, right down to the plants, formula and dosage.”

Another Bout, More Plants

The couple said things went well after the last bout, and then in 2017 Olivia began having lower back pain, written off initially as sciatica pain.

“We got lazy with my maintenance treatments,” Olivia shared. “I was doing my Vegas residency and was playing tennis when the back pain started.”

Maintenance regiments for plant-based cancer patients require due diligence. By September of 2018, Olivia said she was doing a wellness walk in Australia and the pain in her back worsened.

“The pain was excruciating,” Olivia shared. “That’s when we found the tumor had metastasized to my sacrum, as Stage Four. We did some targeted photon radiation at that point, morphine for the pain, and I kept doing herbs. I was flat on my back in bed for one month, then in a wheelchair then used a walker for a month, then a cane – and now I’m walking without assistance.”

Easterling said they used algae and fucus help chelate the excess radiation out of her system after the treatments. And although the Centre doesn’t recommend using cannabis at this time, they do respect patient’s choices concerning the beneficial herb used commonly in the U.S. with cancer treatments.

Olivia was able to spend time recovering in the wellness center that bears her name in Australia, albeit, incognito.

“I wanted to be able to experience the healing like everyone else – and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself – so, I wore a knit cap and a medical face mask when I walked the hall in my walker,” she mused. “It was such a gift to be there and go through the treatments – not just medical, but through art, meditation, mindfulness, and prayer. We flew home directly from the hospital with me in a wheelchair, using a walker – with seven prescription medications in my possession.”

Cannabis isn’t yet legal in Australia. Two years ago they began a Medical Cannabis program, but it’s limited in scope, so far. The good news is, Olivia shared that the center named after her is now planning a clinical study with cannabis and cancer.

Rich in Remedy

When the couple returned to their home in California, Easterling was able to roll up his sleeves and get to work on Olivia’s remedies from the garden – and the garage, so to speak.

“Our garage is full of herbs,” Olivia laughed, while John rattled off the many super foods from around the world occupying the couple’s space.

“I’ve got hundreds of pounds of medicinal plants from the Rainforest and around the world,” he shared, speaking of beneficial plants and super foods commonly used in Latin America. Aside from the many plants he has been importing form the Amazon, his newfound focus is now on cannabis.

Easterling began formulating a cannabis remedy for Olivia, growing a number of cultivars (strains) himself in his research garden. His focus is on the plant as chemovar, a more scientific approach to looking at the many compounds, via terpene and cannabinoid extraction from the whole plant to treat the cancer and the entire body, building the immune system so it can aid in fighting the disease.

His process includes running multiple (26) chemovars of flower material in dry ice, separating and concentrating the trichomes, then immediately extracting those in cold alcohol using Extrcatohol, a 190 proof organic sugar cane alcohol. The extract is then filtered. He calls this formulation Extract One Tincture.

This Extract One Tincture is a full profile extract of cannabinoids in their acidic or A-form with their naturally occurring terpenes (there are more than 140 known and researched cannabinoids found in cannabis, out of nearly 500 beneficial compounds). Some of the Extract One Tincture is run in a distiller with heat, decarboxylated and concentrated into an oil, or Extract Two Oil.

Extract Two Oil is a fully decarboxylated oil with high concentrations of cannabinoids including tetrahydrocannabinol otherwise known as THC, the compound causing psychoactivity.

He then blends the Extract Two Oil, which is highly soluble, into the Extract One Tincture. This formula is the remedy Olivia takes using a dropper, consuming 1500 milligrams throughout the course of the day. This works out to about 600 milligrams of THC and 200 milligrams of CBD in both Acidic and decarboxylated forms.

The mixture is highly psychoactive and the patient must start with a very low dose and titrate their way up to a therapeutic dose to more effectively deal with cancer cell death and numerous other symptoms, while building the immune system.

“Olivia is sensitive to the THC, so by taking small drops throughout the day she was able to acclimate to the higher doses in about six weeks,” Easterling explained.

It was difficult for the world’s sweetheart to share her cannabis use, even though it was part of a serious cancer protocol, as the stigma is so great. She just doesn’t fit the stoner image.

“I had tried cannabis years ago and had a bad experience, so it was a whole new mindset I had to get into in order to realize the plant as an important part of my treatment,” she said. “With cannabis I was able to substantially reduce my morphine use over time by using John’s cannabis formulation.”

Mainstream media has reported that the cannabis tincture she takes helps with pain, but Easterling eagerly expounds on its many healing properties, including the potential to cause cancer cell death.

“Cannabis initiates a number of healing responses that can result in apoptosis, cancer cell death – while healing and strengthening the body,” he detailed. “Another important part of the larger picture is the starting material and how the plants are cultivated. I first grew cannabis in 1970, and every part of Olivia’s medicine is from plants I grew in my research garden.”

Easterling has cultivated 26 different types of cannabis plants to date – all grown, as he says, “Bio-harmonically, using a microbial blend of bacteria with a gemstone elixir, and Amazon herbs that go directly into the soil.”

Tending their Garden of Wellness

While many may not realize the power of plants involved in Olivia’s treatment, both are grateful for the research being done around the world with cannabis and other healing plants for serious ailments.

As of this writing, Easterling is traveling the medical cannabis circuit around the world, speaking out on plant-based therapies and the role cannabis plays in the healing process – especially where his wife and cancer are concerned.

“Her markers are going down, the tumors are shrinking and disappearing,” he surmised. “We are just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing, while spreading the word to help others.”

Currently Olivia uses only two prescription medications that block estrogen and 12 milligrams of morphine. This is down from 60 milligrams just three months ago. The rest of her regimen comes from nature’s botanical pharmacy.

Her pain is under control and her mobility has increased substantially. She is back to feeding the horses, driving on her own, meeting with friends, and carrying on a full and active life. Even John agrees it’s quite an extraordinary story, from an extraordinary woman.

As for Olivia, she’s grateful the love of her life is also her own personal apothecary, tending to their garden, her health, and the health of the planet.

“My husband, John, has been working with herbs for decades, I really don’t do anything but glean from his wealth of knowledge. He makes the pudding, I just eat it,” she laughed.

Women Grow

National Organization Sows Seeds for Success

The history of the fight for human rights in America has never been lost on its women. From the moment a mother swears protection to her infant she is a warrior for justice for that child, her loved ones, her home and her community.

Education is key to empowerment in any culture, and according to Unicef (www.unicef.org), an international organization supporting the world’s children in advocacy, giving a girl an education empowers an entire community, as their options grow and their children are given more opportunities. It’s a positive trickle-down process enabling choice – a basic human right.

Traditionally, women’s protests come from personal struggles at home. Women both began and ended the prohibition of alcohol, seeing both the hazards of the drink and the horrors of the black market that followed. The Suffragettes in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries starved themselves for the vote that would make them equal to men – at least in the voting box.

In the mid-1800s Sarah Bagley lead a movement within the garment industry of Lowell, Massachusetts, to improve pay and working conditions for women. She and her co-workers led the fight for the first union for women, by women, with the “Lowell Female Labor Reform Association” (LFLRA), changing the way women were treated within the industry for the better. She was also the first woman to access radio to get her message out, something only the boys were privy too prior, opening the door for women in media.

We are Women, Hear us Roar

The for-profit female empowering group, Women Grow, began by savvy business women Jane West and Jazmin Hupp in the midst of Denver’s own growth spurt, with the two welcoming 16 industry leaders to their table in Colorado, each contributing $3,000 toward the start-up.

Past professional work for Hupp included organizing large-scale events for non-profits such as UNICEF and GE Medical, who announced the endeavor with Hupp in attendance during the National Industry Association’s conference in Denver June, 2014.

Hupp, who had launched six businesses prior with a decade of knowledge in branding and communications, had already been working with a similar women’s group in California (Women 2.0), helping the organization grow from its home in the Bay Area to events in six countries for 100,000 entrepreneurs.

“The second I met Jazmin I knew it was meant to be,” West explained. “She is exactly the sharp, driven talent that we needed to develop the backbone of the organization.”

Part of the mission of Women Grow is to “… connect, educate and empower Cannabis industry leaders by creating community and events for aspiring and current business executives.” A simple enough statement that could be shared by many – but the heart of the organization lies in good, old-fashioned female nurturing, with its mission clearly defined, “We want to create a supportive environment for women to lead America’s fastest growing industry.”

The support is evident, with the organization quickly adding chapters with leaders holding networking events monthly in more than 20 cities and 15 states across the country. Chapters in newly deregulated Jamaica, Canada, and France are expected, with organizers expecting 50 states on board by the years end.

Perks for members include monthly networking meetings, workshops, retreats, a newsletter, and an impressive speaker’s panel ready to educate the masses.

“We’ve grown so fast, it’s inspiring,” West added. “Women will become the dominant Cannabis consumers and we want to ensure that their interests are being met on both the business and the consumer side.”

The Female Factor

The Cannabis industry has been seemingly male dominated for decades, though behind every great farmer there’s no doubt been a woman in the kitchen whipping up good medicine, healing everyone around her in the process.

With 61 percent of moms in the U.S. working (U.S. Bureau of Labor2012), it’s safe to say, women are busier than ever and the Cannabis industry reflects their due diligence.

Women are natural organizers. From the moment their kids hit elementary school they multi-task myriad appointments, commitments and make things happen, while keeping everyone fed and happy.

Julie Dooley is a founding member of Women Grow and President and creator of Denver based “Julie’s Natural Edibles,” a large-scale, infused, gluten-free baked-goods company that distributes to dozens of retail outlets throughout the State of Colorado. She said she’s worked with many women since founding the company in 2009.

“Working together comes easily to women,” she said. “We do not worry about stealing proprietary information – rather, we share and collaborate to protect each other. Working together has proven to be invaluable for me and for my company.”

Dooley feels the future of the industry is directly linked to the future of women in the industry, as they create sound legislation, best practices standards, and nurturing work environments that she said will ultimately create a solid foundation to endure the inevitable evolution of the industry for years to come.

Washington State’s Women of Weed

The empowerment of women in the industry is evident in Washington State in spite of itself. With good medicine struggling to hold its own under the supervision of the Federal oversight of the Washington State Liquor Control Board, its medicine makers tenaciously carry on, as witnessed within its now infamous Cannabis Farmers Markets that have become a place of education and healing.

Women in their 50s and 60s sit before tables of salve, tincture, and oils while offering up decade’s worth of healing advice, declaring, “Honey, we’ve been doing this for decades,” with even the most arduous recreational users enlightened to the plant’s healing properties. This is what happens when legalization hits a State and its medicine makers feel comfortable to share.

Alison Draison is founder of Ettalew’s, an edible maker in Seattle proper that distributes to dozens of safe access points throughout the State. Draison is active in the women’s movement within the state, attending Women of Weed, Washington Women’s NORML Alliance, MJBA Women’s Alliance (Marijuana Jobs Business Alliance), and now, Women Grow.

Business practices, as well as farming have been the focus within the initial Women Grow meetings in the State, and Draison said she feels there just isn’t enough time at each meeting to cover all the information needed to be shared.

“We’ve had a great turnout of both men and women at our meetings,” Draison declared. “But I believe it’s the power of women moving Cannabis forward socially, environmentally, legislatively and financially. I’ve been around for ten-plus years and have seen changes occur as more women are willing to take risk in the changing climate of Cannabis.”

Alaska’s Women Grow

Inspired by Colorado and Washington’s win, the State of Alaska went ahead and legalized before medical Cannabis was in place, leaving ordinances up in the air for debate.

Kim Kole became Women Grow Alaska’s first Chapter Chair, with its inaugural meeting held on November 6, just two days after the win.

“Most people aren’t quite ready to commit to what they’re going to do – it really depends on what regulations are adopted,” she said. “We’ve had between 20 to 25 members at each meeting, but we are expecting to grow in numbers as the regulations are written and business plans progress.”

While Alaska’s ducks are still being put in a row, Kole said her personal goal has been to prepare and educate potential CEOs of future Cannabis businesses.

Thus far meetings have hosted speakers representing the Coalition of Responsible Cannabis Legislation; a start-up compliance attorney; a cultivation specialist, consultant; and a member of the Anchorage Assembly, Marijuana Committee. Future speakers include a tax attorney, a nurse practitioner to discuss the Endocannabinoid System; a security company, and an insurance representative.

“It’s important for people to go into this business with their eyes wide open, because this industry carries a greater risk than any other small business venture,” she added.”

Stepping out of the Emerald Closet

Humboldt County is part of the vast growing region in Northern California that includes Trinity and Mendocino counties in what is known as “The Emerald Triangle.” The region has been historically covert with its cash crop for decades. The women who filed into Northcoast Hydroponics in McKinleyville in Northern Humboldt for the first Women Grow Humboldt meeting did so with bravery few exhibit in these parts.

The Women leading the group have roots deep in the culture of the region, and are well versed in the plant. There will be no growing workshops for this chapter. Their main concern is for the safety of their families, the environment, and finding a legitimate place in the business world, if and when legalization finally happens in California.

Women Grow member and co-founder of California Cannabis Voice Humboldt (CCVH), Women’s Alliance, Chrystal Ortiz, has seen decades of strife within the covert industry in Northern California, comparing its conflict with the Federal Government as an all-out war.

CCVH is an organization created in an effort to bring the region’s Cannabis community together in the continued battle. The group has an emphasis on environmental issues plaguing the region by large scale corporate interests, while teaching others to be good stewards of the land.

“NORML says women are six to 10 percent less likely to support legalization than men, but those numbers don’t reflect Humboldt County,” she informed. “We have lost our children, our spouses, family members and friends to this civil war. In a country founded on Constitutional rights and freedoms, when it comes to Cannabis, we have had none. The punishment has not fit the crime.”

Ortiz feels women bring creativity and collaboration to the landscape, stating, “When women wake, mountains move – and it’s time to move the mountains. Women are poised to be the deciding vote in legalization. We control the majority of household spending, including non-pharmaceutical healthcare and wellness alternatives, like yoga and other forms of prevention. Women are the biggest purchasers of organic food, supporting small farmers. We are also more likely to be diagnosed with a chronic illness.”

Lelehnia Du Bois is President and co-founder CCHV Women’s Alliance. Du Bois was born and raised in Southern Humboldt, the place where some say it all began in 1969 when “Back to the Landers” headed north from San Francisco after the “Summer of Love,” historically hybridizing America’s finest.

“For a long time I was embarrassed from where I came from,” she admitted to the group of women from the podium. “As a young adult, I chose to live in Southern California and distanced myself from Humboldt. When my mom became ill and passed away I returned home to care for my siblings, promising myself to leave when they were grown. Then my life was derailed when I shattered two vertebrae that caused my spine to collapse on itself and fry my spinal cord.”

Cannabis became DuBois’ medicine and the very thing she was ashamed of became her saving grace, keeping her from being seriously disabled. Needless to say, she stayed put.

“When Prop. 19 was on the ballot for legalization in California we had a few meetings up here to discuss,” Lelehnia shared. “We were told that Humboldt was the “Napa” of Cannabis. It was a conversation I had been having for years and now it was here.”

Though Proposition 19 failed, the fire was lit with networking and organizing at the forefront.

Women Grow member and CCVH Chapter co-organizer Terra Carver said, “It was at that moment I drank the green kool-aide.” As leaders from other mainstream organizations came together to unify they mapped out what legalization and the business of Cannabis could look like for Humboldt County.

“We women of Cannabis are on the front line of this drug war,” Lelehnia said. “It’s time for us to unite our families, our loggers, our politicians. We are the women of Cannabis, we are strong and we are survivors. It’s time for us to lead the way in the industry our families before us created.”

Jim McAlpine

Cannabis & Sports, Entrepreneur for the Greater Good

Jim McAlpine founded the 420 Games in California in 2016 on a mission to get rid of the lazy stoner image. But, he had no idea how huge the event would become in such a short time, with medicated athletes and celebrities alike coming out for the health-minded event.

McAlpine, who uses cannabis as medicine for ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), said the plant has always allowed him to put his mind in a place where he can focus at the activity at hand.

“Whether I’m at the gym, in the pool, or riding a bike, cannabis helps keep me doing whatever I may be engaged in for a longer period of time,” he shared. “And, more importantly, it makes everything more fun. I actually forget about the pain and stress of working out after medicating with cannabis.”

McAlpine, who founded the highly successful San Francisco Ski & Snowboard Festival and the New West Summit, a cannabis industry conference in San Francisco, said he created the games to change the perception of cannabis and those who use it for athletics, helping them come out of the closet in the process.

Raised in Northern California, McAlpine grew up in Atherton, California, but now makes his home with his wife and kids in Marin County, just across the San Francisco Bay via the Golden Gate Bridge. McAlpine said he first used cannabis in college, not to get high, but to focus.

“Cannabis kept my mind right to write papers in college,” McAlpine explained. “It was how I motivated myself to work and go to the gym. I realized it was my substitute for drugs like Ritalin for my diagnosed ADD; and it helped me focus as an athlete. I realized I used cannabis as a wellness tool, even then.”

His hopes for the 420 Games are grand, envisioning a global take-over, if you will, for the greater good.

“I’d like to keep growing the games and scale it into a massive, global event – like Tough Mudder or Spartan Race,” he shared. “I’d also like to bring it to conservative states like Tennessee and Texas - states that are less progressive, where we can really help to move the needle toward positive change.”

420 Games in Los Angeles

The starting line of the 4.20 mile run along the Pacific Ocean from Santa Monica to Venice Beach and back again, had hundreds of toned, healthy-looking athletes stretching, warming up with yoga, and medicating (outside the venue) before the run.

Ironically, due to the venue sitting squarely in a State Park zone, there was no partaking of cannabis at the event.

“It’s always so nice to see everyone obey the rules and get the mission we are out to achieve,” McAlpine said. “If someone lights up inside the event there are tons of people around saying, ‘come on, man, just go outside the event to take a toke.’ It’s a very respectful atmosphere, and that makes me proud.”

Cannabis events have never had a reputation for being rowdy, as with other sports events where alcohol is consumed. And though, Lagunitas Brewing Company sets up shop for beer tasting at each game, drunkenness is never an issue.

The Santa Monica Police Department were on hand, just in case, but the games concluded without a hint of trouble, and the police in attendance were dubbed, “Santa Monica’s finest,” in a nod to a favorite weed slogan.

“The Santa Monica Police and the narcotics task force of Los Angeles were both great to work with,” McAlpine said. “They were all good people who treated us equally to anyone else. I was very pleased to find how cool and accepting they were – both before and after the event, and have nothing but good things to say.”

Athletes and Patients Defending the Plant

Former NFL player Kyle Turley (New Orleans Saints, St. Louis Rams, Kansas City Chiefs) took to the stage after the race to share his own stories of healing. Turley was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s at 34, with a black spot on his brain from ten years of constant concussions playing professional football. After being consumed with prescription pain meds and outbursts to his family, Turley switched from pharma to cannabis.

Turley’s success in the transition inspired him to create his own strain, Saint Jack, a hybrid from his favorite strain, Jack Herer – named after an equally inspirational activist. After founding Gridiron Foundation, in support of fellow athletes, Turley also launched CBD oil company, Neuro Armor, demonstrating the plant’s neuroprotectant properties (as detailed in U.S. Patent No. 6630507 on CBD, the non-psychoactive cannabinoids found in hemp and cannabis).

Another former NFL all-star, Reggie Williams (Jacksonville Jaguars, Seattle Seahawks), shared his story of switching from pain-killers to cannabis, after myriad surgeries turned his leg into an unrecognizable mass of scars several inches shorter, rendering him disabled for life. He too is on the cannabis wellness wagon, now pitchman for Pure Ratios, a CBD oil company that makes chewable tablets and oils.

 Lastly, Eben Britton (Jacksonville Jaguars, Chiago Bears), took the stage to testify, sharing he had never had a good experience with prescription pain killers – using cannabis both for pain and emotional healing. Eben has openly admitted to playing for the NFL while high, something Turley confirmed takes place in the locker room regularly before games; with Eben stating some of his best games were played while medicated.

“It’s been amazing to have professional athletes now calling me to get on board for the games,” McAlpine shared. “I’ve had Hall of Fame athletes in multiple sports asking how they can be part of this mission to educate on cannabis and sports.”

Tracy Ryan, founder of Los Angeles-based Cannakids, an education-based non-profit supporting treating children with cannabis for serious ailments, shared her daughter Sophie’s journey with cancer, cannabis, recovery, and hope. Ryan, who is also a friend of McAlpine’s, said she couldn’t be prouder of his success, not just with the games, but in his efforts to normalize cannabis as medicine.

Changing Image of Cannabis

Stock Pot Images’ Ophelia Chong of Los Angeles set-up a playful photo booth within the 420 Village at the games, designed by Illustrator Ann Pickard, with acclaimed photographer Josh Vogel on-hand to take photos. Chong’s company has been a leader in changing the image of cannabis around the world, as her stock site hosts intelligent images from the industry. Kyle Turley and family proudly stood together for a photo, with his wife, Stacy, commenting how nice it was to be able to bring the kids.

McAlpine said his family couldn’t make the Los Angeles games, but they’ve been to several others.

“I love having them there,” he said. “Particularly, so that my kids can see and perceive cannabis as something very positive for society, and not a street drug that stoners use. My kids know, just like with alcohol or coffee, that cannabis is not for kids, only for adults – unless, of course, the child has doctor’s approval for a certain illness, like epilepsy or cancer. I am proud to be teaching them from a positive perspective, and not with scare tactics, like the ‘Just Say No’ campaign from the 1980s.”

Aside from medicated, healthy participants attending the games, McAlpine has been pleased to see so many high profile athletes come out to support cannabis and sports.

“There were so many athletes hiding their cannabis use,” McAlpine surmised. “I think the games have helped them come out of the canna-closet in a way that works for them. We get emails from people around the country thanking us and asking us to come to their state. It’s been extremely rewarding.”

Power Plant Fitness

Of McAlpine’s many achievements, the most ambitious project to date is his goal of opening the first cannabis-friendly gym in Los Angeles.

“Power Plant Fitness has been a dream of mine since I was 18 years old,” he said. “We have had some bumps in the road in terms of location, but things are on track to be open by the end of 2017 or early 2018. We are still in the process of raising funds – and that is the least fun part.”

McAlpine said he and his team are close to closing its round for investors, but welcome additional capital and anyone interested in partnering.

“When President Trump was elected to office must of the verbally committed funds from traditional groups backed off, due to the uncertainty with cannabis within the current administration – and particularly with Attorney General Jeff Sessions,” he added.

Uncertainty or not, the future of cannabis in the United States and beyond looks bright, with the latest Quinnipiac poll showing 93 percent of Americans on board to legalize cannabis as medicine as a country, and 71 percent opposing continued Federal persecution.

“What has helped the most in changing the perception of the games are the moving and strong messages from the athletes now coming forward,” McAlpine surmised.  “It’s easy to see that they are strong, athletic men, but to watch them speak and see how articulate and intelligent they are, has been really fun for me to see. Listening to advocates like Tracy Ryan talk about her daughter Sophie, and how cannabis has helped her through cancer gives me hope of finally doing away with the lazy, stoner image for people like me, who medicate for all the right reasons.”

Future 420 Games are planned in Portland, Denver, Boulder, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. The next games are scheduled in Portland, Oregon on June 10. For more information visit, www.420games.org. For information on investing and partnerships in Power Plant Gym visit, www.powerplantgym.com

Willie Nelson

An American Original

Within the cannabis community, as within any culturally diverse community, our life stories and lessons learned make up who we are. It’s what makes up a community. Our differences through struggles, coming together for the greater good, with the artists of a community telling our stories through personal and creative expression.

American musician, singer/songwriter and activist, Willie Nelson, has told a thousand stories from his culturally diverse life that began when he was just a child. Born in rural Texas in 1933 during the Great Depression, raised by his grandparents, he and his family picked cotton beside immigrants and offspring hailing from Mexico and Africa.

When discussing his fellow laborers, Willie quickly corrected, “They were Mexican American and African American,” with an emphasis on the soil on which they worked together as equals.

From his auto-biography, “It’s a Long Story: My Life” (Little-Brown 2015), Willie writes of a tenacity learned in the fields, “I loved to compete. Winning was important. Winning felt good. I wouldn’t call myself a sore loser, but I did all I could to avoid defeat. Even though I’d get into fights now and then, I got along with everyone. It felt natural, for instance, to be living across the street from a Mexican family. We accepted them and they accepted us. Our Mexican neighbors worked out in the field right alongside us.”

Within this richly diversified world of cultural cornucopias, Willie never learned discrimination, rather the experience founded the basis for his musical and philanthropic endeavors.

“I loved listening to the black workers making music of their own, Willie said. “They weren’t singing songs of complaint. They were singing songs of hope driven by a steady beat and flavored with thick harmonies made up on the spot. I couldn’t help but sing along.”

Willie had a clear understanding they were all being “exploited with tiny pay for heavy labor. And yet they sang.”

He penned his first song at the age of nine; and played in a polka band for money at the age of 12 - much to his Bible-loving grandmother’s disappointment.

“The band name was ‘Rejeck,’” he clarified, “led by John Rejeck. They were a Russian Bohemian Polka band.”

Mama Nelson believed that smoking and drinking, associated with life in the barroom, would send her grandson straight to hell. But in the end, she surrendered to the music, as the eight dollars made from one night of playing polka equaled one week’s worth of hard labor in the fields. Her love of the Lord couldn’t complete with practicality.

In 1954 fellow musician Fred Lockwood handed Willie a joint while sitting in a bar slamming whiskeys, watching Senator McCarthy grill suspected communists within the entertainment industry.

“We’d probably get happier faster if we blew some tea,” Fred queried.

But Willie wasn’t yet ready and downed another Whiskey, accepting the joint for later. When he finally smoked it, he didn’t inhale and the moment was lost. Drinking, smoking cigarettes, and chasing women were his vices, until lung issues and a bad case of pneumonia put the brakes on his two to three pack a day.

“It’d take years before I’d understand the beneficial properties,” he penned. “In the meantime I stuck to my two habits: cigarettes and booze. I was too young and dumb to see the harm they were doing.”

The songs he wrote during that time reflected his state of mind. “I Gotta Get Drunk” needs no Cliff Notes; and “Bloody Mary Morning” was written as he played two women, admittedly changing the facts to suit the rhyme.

 “The song had me running fast,” he explained. “The song had me looking for a way to deal with a hangover. I was hung over from too much liquor and too much running. It all made sense to give up booze. I was a lousy drunk, a foolish drunk, a fighting drunk, a drunk who did himself much damage.”

During the 1960s his own kids convinced him to take a look at Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, and Creedence Clearwater Revival – as “Pop” laced with folk sensibilities were giving people another way to express their frustrations with the politics of the powers that be.

“I liked what I heard on the radio,” he said. “Most of it came out of the blues. I heard Led Zeppelin as a blues band. Janis Joplin sure as hell was singing the blues.”

With this new mentality also came the drug culture, but Willie wasn’t interested. He was, however, inspired to do away his vices.

“About the same time I adopted the song ‘Whiskey River,’ I threw whiskey out of my life,” he shared. “Any fool could see that booze was bad for me. Booze made me say shit I shouldn’t say and fight guys I shouldn’t fight. Booze made me headstrong, violent, and dumb as dirt. Booze jacked up my ego and drowned out my humanity. On top of that, I still had a two-to-three-pack-a-day cigarette habit. The combination of liquor and tobacco was slowly killing me.”

Willie began smoking cannabis during the 60s, but said he used it only as a supplement, initially.

“As I moved closer to the Woodstock Nation, as I bore witness to their music-loving, life-loving, peace loving ways, I saw the key role played by pot. Pot was a communal experience. Unlike cigarettes, you didn’t smoke a joint alone. You shared it. You passed it around. Pot was a plant, a natural substance whose positive uses, I would soon learn, were varied.”

Realizing that our country’s very constitution was written on hemp paper, had this former cotton-picking Texan thinking.

“In short, I fell in love with this lovely, leafy plant,” he declared. “As time went on I quit tobacco and booze entirely. As the years went by, as the growers of the crop learned to cultivate an increasingly satisfying product, my appreciation increased.”

Willie said just as he loved robust coffee beans and the strong “buzz” felt by the brew, he felt the same way about cannabis.

“It pushed me in the right direction,” he continued. “It pushed me in a positive direction. It kept my head in my music. It kept my head filled with poetry.”

Today, he’s even more entrenched in the healing world of cannabis, creating his own brand in “Willie’s Reserve,” inspired from the many post-concert hang-outs by his bus, “Honeysuckle Rose.”

“Cannabis has been a positive thing in my life for a very long time,” he shared from his home in Hawaii. “I finally replaced alcohol and cigarettes with smoking weed.”

Recently Willie was lambasted, then redeemed, as he shrugged off detailed questions of the plant in an article in New York Magazine. But the surprise that he didn’t know the differences of Indica from Sativa was ultimately judged as refreshing in the age of snooty cannabis connoisseurs.

“As long as the bowl is full, I’m happy,” he joked.

But, the larger question remained, did he medicate or get stoned, while burning a few on the rooftop of friend and former President Jimmy Carter’s White House, prior to giving concerts?

Even the most ardent stoners insisting there is no medicinal value to cannabis may find comfort and relaxation in medicating before or after a stressful event. An artist’s third eye could be opened up before a performance, making the experience more meaningful for all. And then there’s the spiritual connection to consider.

“We do it for a lot of reason,” he simply surmised, in true Willie form. “I don’t know if you are aware, but cannabis is mentioned in the Bible. It’s been used in spiritual ceremonies for centuries. It’s been around for a very long time.”

Willie’s longevity may be credited to his belief in staying positive, but his legacy is heavily laden with lessons learned, as he writes, “born out of experience and genuine grief,” shared with us through his music.

Tommy Chong

Cannabis oil & Cancer, no laughing matter

Iconic weed funny man Tommy Chong has been an outspoken proponent of cannabis since he first hit the stage with partner Cheech Marin in the late sixties in Canada, (his home country), as duo “Cheech & Chong.”  Marin was there evading the U.S. draft, Chong had been playing guitar in bands.

Together they looked the stereotype of pot smoking characters right in the eye, forcing the world to take a closer look as well. They put the fun back in to smoking pot at a time when it was being demonized the most. They made us feel like it was alright to partake in the face of persecution. They also perpetuated the “stupid stoner” stereotype, which many say we are still fighting against today.

Stereotypes fade in time with truth, and the lazy stoner character Chong played so well is in stark contrast to the highly productive man he is (pun intended). Chong is a musician, a writer, an accomplished comedian, and business man. He co-wrote all the films he and Marin co-starred in, and directed several. He’s also a craftsman, content on working in his woodshop in his later years, making lovely bamboo pipes.

Many were surprised when he not only showed up on “Dancing with the Stars,” but aced it, with the audience unaware he had mastered the Tango years prior. When he wants to do something, he does it, with nary an unproductive stoner in sight.

A longtime cannabis patient, Chong revealed in an interview he was the first to have a medical card when California became the first state to vote good medicine in. As he tells the story, he and the late, great Jack Herer (The Emperor Wears no Clothes) printed it up, complete with a doctor’s signature after a full exam.

Like most stoners from the 60s and 70s Chong is still alive and kicking after many in his industry succumbed to more damaging drugs – including legal prescription meds and alcohol.

A nine month stint in prison in 2003 over a bong export business brought him to the conclusion that being without his favorite illicit drug, cannabis, actually weakened his immune system.

In his mind, abstaining from the herb (offered to him repeatedly in the pen, with drug testing after each offer) combined with a bevy of high sugar, salt, and starch foods, caused him to have a bad case of Gout – an inflammatory ailment of the feet said to be brought on by high levels of uric acid in the blood.

Originally known as “the rich man’s disease,” Gout is said to be brought on by a lack of nutrient rich foods and consumption of fatty foods with little plant-based compounds that combat inflammation and infection. The privatized prison’s plethora of empty, cheap foods is the perfect proving ground for such ailments, with Gout a red flag of deficiencies in the diet.

While in prison he said he also presented with Prostate symptoms which, according to Web MD, can include trouble urinating, blood in semen, pain in the pelvic area, bone pain, and erectile dysfunction.

By 2012 he was diagnosed with Prostate cancer. Shunning traditional therapies, he announced he was 99 percent cancer free after using the strong cannabis oil, RSO, or Rick Simpson Oil, re-created by Canadian Rick Simpson more than 15 years prior (Dope, July 2015).

Now, at 77, he’s staring down cancer for a second time in three years, this time reoccurring in his prostate and presenting in his rectum, otherwise known as rectal cancer – the same cancer that took actress Farah Fawcett’s life in 2009.

Maintenance dosing is crucial after putting cancer into remission with cannabis oil. The protocol for treatment is 60 grams in 90 days, with a maintenance dose of oil the size of a piece of rice, daily, for life.

Tommy admittedly slacked on his maintenance, but he also went without using cannabis at all through three months of rehearsals and production for “Dancing with the Stars.”

“I wanted to show everyone I wasn’t addicted to pot,” he explained. “I didn’t smoke at all through the entire thing, and I stopped doing the oil altogether.”

When the cancer came back his wife Shelby was squarely against him doing the traditional therapies of chemotherapy and radiation, and wanted him to do the oil again. But doctors and naysayers warned of a lack of proof, and a chance the oil would be tainted with solvents, a necessary element in the process.

It takes one pound of cannabis bud, stem and leaf to make one treatment of 60 grams of the strong oil which tests around 85 percent THC or higher (Dope, July 2015). The process is a rinse in solvent, striping the flowers of its terpenes, or essential oils, where the medicine is stored. The solvent is then cooked down into thick, dark tar-like oil that can be taken orally in a specific step-up regiment, as the patient gets used to the high THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient of the plant.

If the oil is made right there is no toxicity from solvents, but that’s not always the case. With laws and ordinances restricting the use of concentrates in some regions, this means there is also no oversight in making good medicine. Simpson suggests making your own, ensuring it’s clean, but it’s a process not many have the wherewithal to do.

“I’ve had so many people approach me with so many alternative therapies, it gets confusing,” he admitted. “And then you have the doctors telling you all the horror stories. It’s hard to know what to do.”

Much to Shelby’s dismay, Tommy began chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

“I went through a few treatments, and then I had to travel for work and missed a flight, missing an appointment for therapy,” he said. “I never told anyone, but it felt like I missed the flight for a reason, like I shouldn’t be doing this treatment.”

Tommy has reason to think twice about traditional therapies. According to The American Cancer Society (cancer.org), the side effects of chemotherapy include the destruction of healthy cells along with the cancerous ones, including blood forming cells in the bone marrow, hair follicles, and cells in the mouth, digestive tract, and reproductive system. Other cells that some chemo drugs affect are the kidneys, bladder, lungs, and nervous system.

The Society also reports most forms of leukemia can be caused by past radiation exposure, specifically “Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a bone marrow cancer. With many developing five to nine years after exposure. They go on to state that tumors can develop 10 to 15 years after radiation treatment, with secondary cancers found in the same regions as the previous cancer.

A paper published in the National Institute of Health’s U.S. National Library of Medicine site, submitted by the Urology Department of the General Hospital of Veria in Greece in 2010 titled, “Secondary malignancies following radiotherapy for prostate cancer” reiterates the findings.

Radiotherapy for prostate cancer has been linked to the late occurrence of second malignancies both in the true pelvis and outside the targeted area due to low-dose radiation scatter. Secondary malignancies following prostate irradiation include predominantly bladder cancer and, to a lesser extent, colon cancer. Those secondary radiation-induced bladder tumors are usually aggressive and sometimes lethal. Care should be given to the long-term follow up of patients under radiation therapy for prostate cancer, while the indications for its use in certain cases should be reconsidered.

As for chemotherapy, the treatment also has its share of secondary cancers, namely myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), and Acute lymphoctytic leukemia (ALL), stating “sometimes MDS occurs first, and then turns into ALL. The footnote is as disturbing as the warnings, stating, “Chemo is known to be a greater risk factor than radiation therapy in causing leukemia.”

Pouring salt into the wound, the site goes on to state that “chemo drugs themselves interfere with a cell’s DNA in a certain way,” stating the drugs alone can cause MDS leading to ALL.

Some say cannabis opens up the “third eye,” allowing a person to see beyond the basic reactions of fear and doubt. Tommy says Shelby is naturally intuitive, helping him through many a tough spot over the many years they’ve been together. He says she is why he has what he has today – a home, career, and family.  Others close to him are more than a little upset he’s shunning traditional therapies and going for the oil, which is a common scenario in the cannabis world, whether you are just a stoner or a full-fledged patient treating real illness successfully.

“I’m not saying I won’t do the chemo and radiation, if I need to,” he said. “But I’m going to give the oil a try again first.”

Taking the oil orally sends the medicine through the digestive system, and is a valid and productive method, but many with prostate or rectal cancer use suppositories, getting the medicine of the plant directly to the cancer. This delivery also puts the medicine directly into the blood stream more quickly than through the digestive system. It also does away with any “head high” felt by the strong oil – something that dissuades many from trying the treatment.

When the interview was over Tommy said he was going inside and doing a suppository. While we were chatting he put in a call for leaf, doing double-duty treatments with the plant, promising to continue maintenance for life when the treatment is over.

Shelby is all over it, requesting a Magical Butter machine, promising to infuse everything she can in the kitchen to keep the medicine of the plant in his system.

While the cannabis community is confident of the plant, others remain skeptical waiting for more scientific evidence.

Tommy has long been the poster child for pot. His voice is loud and he is proud. When the cancer is once again put into remission, Tommy said he’ll be slowing down a bit, content to tinker in his woodshop – making pipes for pot, of course.

References:

American Cancer Society (ACS) www.cancer.org

Paper published by the ACS: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/cid/documents/webcontent/002043-pdf.pdf

National Institute of Health (NIH), U.S. National Library of Medicine www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Rick Simpson www.phoenixtears.ca

Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears no Clothes” http://www.amazon.com/dp/1878125028/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=4162127375&hvqmt=p&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_7pzfprpwin_p

Magical Butter Machine www.magicalbutter.com

Kyle Turley

Fortune & Pain

Just a few months ago former NFL player Kyle Turley was sick from injuries from a ten year career playing professional football. Diagnosed with early onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s, struggling with emotional issues, sever light sensitivity from the meds, paranoia and anxiety - while still in pain. Turley said at 34 he was half the man he used to be, with a cornucopia of prescription meds at his fingertips, and little healing in sight.

“I was a mess nine months ago,” Turley shared from his home in Southern California. “My hands were shaking, I had all these things going wrong. The meds I was on were supposed to help, but unfortunately the pills, over long time use, really bring out the negative symptoms.”

Turley can be seen in a video on You Tube expounding on his situation. “You know, you hear a doctor that’s got all these credentials and accolades, and he’s a doctor in the National Football League, and you tend to believe him,”

Turley further explained the draw to the world’s most dangerous game, “Running out of a tunnel with about 80 thousand people screaming wildly for you, and you are about to participate in one of the most primal sports there is – as an alpha male, it doesn’t get any better.”

Matter-of-factly, Turley said if you played the game hard enough, you get hurt. And Turley got hurt. More than once, with little protection or support from the very organization he was out there risking his health for.

Playing with the NFL since 1998, in 2005 Turley missed a season with the St. Louis Rams due to sciatic nerve damage that atrophied his right leg. He tried to recuperate from a herniated disk, but by 2005 he went in for back surgery.

Atrophy happens when there is waste away from non-use of tissue or organs. Turley’s muscle mass decreased by 65 pounds from his usual 300 pound frame.

After surgery early retirement was discussed, or a switch to tight end. After regaining his prior weight Turley signed with the Kansas City Chiefs as right tackle. What wasn’t discussed were the drugs he needed to play. By seasons end in 2006, he had missed most of the games due to reoccurring injuries.

“As a person who has a real high tolerance for pain, you know, when you have issues that need medication, you know that’s easy to look at a doctor and go, ‘he’s handing out those shots right now, and I really need this if I’m going to make it through today.’”

Vicodin, Percocet, Viox, it was all available to the players and more. When Viox was banned in the U.S. for causing heart failure, Turley said he already had a bevy of the meds at home.

“I had to give my dog Epicot one time because he ate one of my bottles, and I had to make him throw up,” he said, sadly.

The main focus on those who may oppose cannabis as medicine in the home is harm to children. But Turley said he never feared his kids getting into, or becoming ill from, cannabis. He said he absolutely feared the kids getting into the prescription meds he had in the house needed to do his job.

A League of Hypocrisy

“I had stockpiles of this stuff, that’s how easy it was to get,” he continued, regarding the vials of Viox still in use after the ban. “As much as they want to punish ‘this guy and that guy’ for performance enhancing drugs, they are using performance enhancing drugs. ‘We’ll pump up you guys full of this stuff, so you don’t feel nothing when you are out there.’ A fix for the interim and in the immediate to keep you on the field.”

Turley said he was the first one to “dig deep” and be there for the team. “Pushing through” injuries is common practice, and he was a team player.

“When it comes to the serious injuries and the ones that these doctors know shouldn’t be out on that football field, that’s where it should be taken out of the player’s hands. It’s not a doctor’s decision, it’s ‘can you go?’ That’s the question asked, ‘Can you go?’”

The words “can you go” when put on a player by a team doctor in an oftentimes traumatic injury situation, Turley feels, is a failure on the NFL to keep its players safe over the goal of winning.

“I was complaining of a lot of pain in my leg,” he explained. “And so I allowed the doctors on the team to advise me that this really wasn’t that big of a deal. That you must have something with your hip that’s a problem. Here, let us shoot you up with this, this will take away the pain and numb that and continue to allow you to play.”

Playing through a Traumatic Brain Injury

Aside from the chronic neuropathy pain, Turley feels he suffered through hundreds of concussions, while given only an ice pack and a whiff of ammonia on the sidelines, and put back in the game, repeatedly.

In 2007 he was knocked unconscious, taken off the field, and put in what he refers to as a “closet” in the locker room. His wife was called in to take him home.

“I should have been in an ambulance on my way to the hospital,” he said. “My wife was like, ‘he’s 300 pounds; how am I going to get him home?’ She took me to the hospital, where regular doctors were very concerned – they were worried something was seriously wrong.”

When the NFL found out he had been taken to the hospital, its own doctors went and had him removed, stating they would take it from there. Turley said he was back in practice and back in the very next game.

“No big deal, they said, ‘Oh, you have a headache? Don’t worry about it, keep playing, you’ll be alright,’” Turley shared, disgusted at the memory of what was really happening to him at the time.

From Gladiator to Broken

Turley agrees the gladiator reference for football players is real. At any cost is the unsaid mantra, with much at stake. “Give them gangs and kegis,” he jests. “Even moreso in the stands. Fans want blood. If someone is down on the field with an injury, everyone cheers. It’s the biggest soap opera on television – and the NFL loves it.”

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE is caused by repeated injury or trauma to the brain. It’s common in contact sports, a deadly game-stopper for football players, and ended Turley’s career.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is the U.S. federal agency responsible for research and recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness, including professional sports injuries.

In 2002 NIOSH examined 3,349 NFL players, and found the risk of death from neurodengenerative disorders was approximately three times higher, with the risk of death from Alzheimer’s and ALS four times greater in the players.

The kicker is, new technology is allowing us to see the injuries, where the damage would have only been found post mortem in the past.

“After I retired in 2007 the vertigo was really bad,” Turley shared. “I was vomiting all the time and didn’t know what was wrong. There is no one from the NFL to help you once you are out of the game. I presented to the emergency room shaking, in seizure – it took four nurses to hold me down for the MRI.”

Turley said he was hospitalized for four days, with neurologists and cardiologists trying to figure out what was wrong.

“They said I was one-hundred percent healthy and then they looked at my brain,” he continued. “They showed me a big blurred mass, and I said, Oh, I’ve seen that before - back in 2003. That’s when I finally had the understanding of what was going on in my brain.

Open Letter to the NFL

In June of 2014 Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Assoc. Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and longtime advocate of cannabis as medicine, sent an open letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell urging the league to stop testing its players for cannabis use, stating it’s benefits.

“I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the growing specter that many of these athletes will pay the price of developing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) to a greater or lesser extent as they grow older,” he states. “The skull is nature’s way of protecting this most important organ, the brain.”

Grinspoon went on to explain how, over the past two decades, the “interest, knowledge and use of marijuana has grown exponentially.” He shared how “cannabinopathic medicine” is neuroprotective and free of toxicity, with its cannabinoid (CBD), he states, having non-psychoactive, anti-inflammatory and an anti-oxidant properties.

He went on to list the challenges of funding for research in the U.S., the politics involved, then urged Goodell and the NFL to decrease the instance of CTE by using its “deep pockets” to fund a “crash research program to determine the right combination of CBDs to THC to protect its players.

Pot, Politics, and Sports

Turley reports cannabis use is alive and well in the NFL and in the locker rooms.

“I wasn’t tested for street drugs until my second year in the NFL,” he shared. “It’s only done once a year and you have enough time to prepare. It’s no secret. Everyone has always smoked pot in the NFL – coaches do it, owners do it, players do it. This is not something unique to players or the guys in the hood. Across the board, this is going on in the locker room.”

It wasn’t until Turley moved his family to the legal state of California a year and a half ago, that he became a legal cannabis patient.

“When I was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and dementia nine months ago, that’s when I finally sat down and said I believed a lot of the prescription meds I was on were contributing to my ailment. And if I’m wrong, I have a bigger problem than I’m recognizing here, but I have to give this a shot.”

The meds he was on were causing severe mood swings, suicidal thoughts with thoughts of violence.  He decided to go cold turkey and use cannabis to get off the meds.

His favorite and most consistent strains are “San Fernando Valley,” and “Jack Herer.” He bought good supplies of both, and hunkered down at home replacing the meds with smoking cannabis and ingesting medibles.

“SFV to this day I call my spiritual strain,” he explained. “It’s a hybrid sativa with indica and it’s very calming. When I’m out of SFV I also keep a good supply of Jack Herer on hand. It’s my back-up. I’ve tried all kinds of ‘Jack,’ but just “Jack Herer” is best for me.”

Gridiron Cannabis Coalition

In an effort to help the National Football League (NFL) understand the healing benefits of cannabis as medicine, Gridiron Cannabis Coalition was founded, with former player and Coach Mike Ditka sitting on its board of directors, and many former NFL players coming forward in testament.

Committed to “the evolution of the natural healing elements of the cannabis plant,” the coalition acknowledges the game is “plagued with multiple ailments and diseases currently void of non-addictive treatments or cures.”

The coalition is “dedicated to the advancement of medical cannabis in the modern age,” with Turley adding, “Medical Cannabis will save football.”

“At the end of the day, for me and my life, I smoke the plant,” Turley surmises. “It’s been proven over thousands of years to be medicine – and no one has died. That’s my thing, I don’t want to die from my own hand. And I don’t want to die from this disease. And I sure as hell don’t want to die from taking medicine – that’s why I got off the pills.”

As for the rest of the population believing the misinformation on the plant for the past few decades, Turley said he really doesn’t care about what anyone thinks about cannabis being his medicine.

“I’ve already been through the fire,” he insists. “I’m a grown-ass man and this is America. Research tells us cannabis won’t kill you, it won’t give you lung cancer, and it won’t cause upper respiratory disease. I read a story about a lady in India – she’s smoked weed every day and she’s 125 now. That’s my inspiration,” he laughed.

As for his young son and his wanting to be like dad and wanting to play football, Turley pauses.

“No, I don’t think we will let him play football unless things change, and I think they will change – they have to for the game to survive.”

Reference List:

Brain Injury Institute/CTE: www.protectthebrain.org/Brain-Injury-Research/What-is-CTE-.aspx

Gridiron Cannabis Coalition: http://www.gridironcannabis.com/#/about-us

Shadow Box:

When Turley left football, he started Gridiron Records, recording country-rock songs that reflected his journey.

Fortune & Pain

They say it's the glory,

They'll all scream your name,

They put you on shoulders, and walk you to fame,

You'll get all the money,

Drive them fancy cars

All the people love you, 'Cause you're going far,

Life is for the dreamers,

'Cause they have all to gain,

It's never quite over,

'Til it all feels the same,

You pick your own poison,

Dig your own grave,

Down in the valley,

Of fortune and pain,

So pour me another,

and roll me a bone,

'Cause when it all over,

You're all on your own,

and all my friends are dying,

and all I feel is pain,

Sitting here broken,

Never dreamed it this way,

Come down the mountain,

Watched it slip away,

Down to the valley,

Of fortune and pain,

I remember like yesterday,

Then its gone away,

It's taken me over,

'Til there’s nothing to say,

The trophies and boxes,

Metals on the wall,

Memories of a dreamer,

They beckon the call,

Life gave 'em service, and placed under name,

Buried in the valley,

Of fortune and pain.

-- Kyle Turley

Dr. Carl Hart

A neuroscientist’s mission to level the playing field

As the story goes, Dr. Carl Hart was living a good life as a successful black man when his past came back to haunt him.

And that’s where this story begins. Why did I use the descriptor “black” when he is clearly a successful man? In more than one story researched online his tag line came with the color of his skin.

One can easily speculate it’s the very same reason our prisons are lopsided with black non-violent offenders, when statistics show the same amount of people, white or black, consume and sell the same amount of drugs, and all the amount of money thrown on the failed War on Drugs isn’t changing the discrepancy many simply call discrimination.

To begin again, Dr. Carl Hart is a neuroscientist, a best-selling author, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at Columbia University. His first effort to explain the failed War on Drugs and the misinformation surrounding it, “High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society,” is at once a memoir, a book on drug policy, and a primer on the science of drugs. The work also won him a PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award – one of the most prestigious awards given for physical and biological sciences today.

John Tierney of the New York Times called High Price, “A fascinating combination of memoir and social science. Wrenching scenes of deprivation and violence accompanied by calm analysis of historical data and laboratory results.”

Hart compiled the painful facts from his own life, but also to explain the failed War on Drugs from the black perspective, coming himself from a poor neighborhood of color in South Florida. The work’s accolades focused on his “empirical evidence,” impossible to deny, ripping U.S. policy public perceptions to shreds in the process.

“High Price reminded readers that some of our most respected members of society were (and perhaps still are) pot smokers, including the last three occupants of the White House,” Hart said from his home in New York. These and other data are helping to change the perception of the typical pot smoker from the ‘Doritos-eating’, lazy, couch potato – to you and me, responsible citizens.”

His memoir recounted the morning he was presented with a paternity suit by a woman he had fathered her 17 year-old son with, now leading the troubled life he once fled from in his old neighborhood. It had been a one-night stand and he remembered the young woman sneaking him into her bedroom window, in lieu of her mother’s watchful eye.

He had been studying drug addiction from a neuroscientist’s perspective from his seat at Columbia, and was now facing that world in a very personal way. He learned his son had dropped out of high school, fathered several children with different women, sold drugs, and allegedly shot someone. With two small children already at home, the newly appointed Associate Professor at Columbia had his parenting work cut out for him.

From his website he writes, “I’d wanted to teach my children everything I hadn’t known as I grew up with a struggling single mother, surrounded by people whose lives were limited by their own lack of knowledge. I wanted them to go to good schools, to know how to negotiate the potential pitfalls of being black in the United States, to not have to live and die by whether they were considered ‘man’ enough on the street. I also wanted to illustrate by my own example that bad experiences like those I had as a child aren’t the defining factor in being authentically black.”

He began questioning his own path. How did he go from a black kid on the street with “learning difficulties” in elementary school to being an Ivy League professor?

He admits to doing all the wrong things - he barely studied but to pass high school; he carried guns, and deejayed in Miami within the ranks of Run-DMC and Luther Campbell, dodging bullets with the best of them; he witnessed “drug related homicides” at 12, losing a friend to gun violence; he witnessed his cousins stealing from their mother for crack – watching his neighborhood fall to addiction in the early 80s. How did he make it out?

“I had five sisters – all older than me and they functioned as surrogate mothers,” he explained while on PBS’s The Tavis Smiley Show. “I had a grandmother that was really strong who doted on me, who wanted to make sure I didn’t go off the beaten path – even though I did, I didn’t want to disappoint my grandmother or my sisters in any major way.”

Sports also played a role, not via a scholarship, but with the added incentive of keeping up at least a 2.0 GPA enabling him to play basketball, subsequently allowing him to graduate. Hart said mentors were everywhere, but a supportive counselor in high school saw his potential and encouraged him to join the Air Force.

“In the Air Force I served all my time overseas in Japan and England,” he shared. “Being in England was critical because it was an English speaking country with a social critique of the U.S., particularly regarding race issues. I had to go to England to learn about race relations in the U.S.”

Empirical evidence points the longest finger to the discrimination that follows the failed War on Drugs, with the only winners in the war law enforcement budgets and privatized prison profits, according to Hart, with poor neighborhoods suffering and wealthy ones seemingly left alone.

Former U.S. Marshall and Drug Enforcement Agent (DEA) Matthew Fogg infamously appeared in a video clip produced by documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, stating the wealthier demographics of most raids are purposefully avoided.

“I started noticing that most of the time we were hitting urban areas,” Fogg explained.  “I would ask, ‘well, don’t they sell drugs in Springfield and places like that?’ Statistics show they use more drugs out there than anywhere. He said, you know, if we start messing with them we’d be in real trouble – those are doctors and lawyers, they know people. If we start locking up their kids they’ll start jerking our chain. He said, they are going to call us on that, they are going to start shutting us down, and there goes your overtime.”

One strong piece of evidence the failed War on Drugs targets those less fortunate is the very law supporting the convictions of both crack cocaine and powered cocaine. As a scientist Hart said the two substances are the same, yet penalties are much harsher for crack, found in lower income neighborhoods.

Tavis Smiley offered up the adage, “Crack on the streets, cocaine in the suites.”

A vast majority of blacks being arrested for crack cocaine, and Hart said if the vast majority of cocaine users who look like members of congress start getting arrested for cocaine, the law would change.

“The law itself isn’t racist, the enforcement of the law is,” Hart continued. “If we place law enforcement in neighborhoods of color you are going to catch people committing crimes – whether you are talking about crack or cocaine. I live in a relatively upscale neighborhood in New York. If you place law enforcement in my community, particularly when it’s time to take the kids to school, you’ll catch them breaking the law every time – they speed, they sell drugs, but they aren’t getting caught because law enforcement is not there.”

But the crux of the problem, Hart says is not in the drug use itself, or even in the manufacturing and selling of it.

“In this country we are led to believe it’s the drugs that cause communities to be how they are,” Hart said. “The vast majority of people who use crack cocaine – something like 80 to 90 percent - do so without any problems. They work, they pay taxes. So when you have this small percentage of people who have problems, you can’t blame the drugs.”

So what’s the problem, you ask? Why the disparities between crack and coke? Why are there more black men behind bars for pot than whites? If it’s not the drugs, what is it?

“As a scientist, you are asking me to think like an idiot,” Hart laughed at the ridiculous prospect of even trying to answer the question intelligently. The disparities are as glaring as the discrimination, from a scientific view point. “The War on Drugs has not failed. The U.S. would not have stayed with a policy for more than 40 years if it were a failure. The policy has been hugely successful – law enforcement has, and continues to, benefit handsomely. Each year we spend more than $25 billion in this effort and most goes to law enforcement.”

The same can be said for the privatized prisons, prosecutors, and drug treatment providers, with Hart adding media, researchers, politicians, filmmakers, and even comedians to the mix of those benefiting from this war on drugs.

“The only groups not benefiting are drug users – especially if they are black – and the people who love them,” Hart concluded.

Currently the professor is on sabbatical from Columbia working on his second effort, a book on decriminalizing and managing drug use, rather than incarceration. Programs that register and manage heroin addiction have been running with great success in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. With more than 20,000 people a year dying of opiate overdoses alone in the U.S. each year, something has to give.

When asked if he feels President Obama’s recent visit to a privatized prison will make a difference in drug policy, he didn’t even have to think about it.

“Emphatically, no,” he said. “This visit was largely symbolic. You can’t eat symbolism, nor can you make love to it. We have had enough of symbolism. It’s time for substance. It would have to be more beneficial – more substantial – for the president to sign federal legislation decriminalizing the possession of all drugs, as they’ve done in Portugal and the Czech Republic. In this way, we would immediately decrease 1.2 million arrests each year – or the total amount of people who are arrested for simple possessing a drug.”

References:

Dr. Carl Hart: www.drcarlhart

“High Price” (Amazon) www.amazon.com/High-Price-Neuroscientists-Self-Discovery-Challenges/dp/0062015893

E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation: www.eowilsonfoundation.org/tag/pene-o-wilson-literary-science-writing-award

World Health Organization (substance abuse) www.who.int/substance_abuse/en

Brave New World/YouTube Matthew Fogg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ImeWd5gFTo

ACLU Report “The War on Marijuana in Black & White: www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf

SIDEBAR

Statistics in Black & White

2001-2010: 8 Million Arrests

88% for possession of drugs

Cannabis arrests, 52% of arrests

Cannabis possession, 46% of arrests

2010, one cannabis arrest every 37 seconds

States spent combined over 3.6 billion on enforcement of possession

Black person 3.73 times more likely to be arrested in every region

Blacks & Whites use cannabis in similar rates, wealthy or poor

In more than 96% of counties with more than 30K people where 2% are black residents, arrests are higher for blacks

From the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) report,

“The War on Marijuana in Black & White” June, 2013

Melissa Etheridge

A voice for people, patients, and the plant

Musician Melissa Etheridge dodged the bullet of hard core drug use during the 1970s and 80s. While fellow artists were grappling with addiction, Melissa was coming to terms with her sexuality in an industry dominated by homophobic men.

“I’ve always felt issues with the Gay rights movement and the cannabis movements are so similar,” she said from her home in the hills outside of Los Angeles proper. “Both movements are based on stereotyping, fear, and misinformation and people need to come out from both closets and talk about it.”

The path Melissa took to advocacy may not have always been a choice, but it was paved with inspiration and knowledge from her father who taught constitutional law to high school seniors.

“He really helped me to understand at a very young age what our government is about,” she shared. “Our founding fathers based the constitution on the way the existing tribal nations resolved conflict – how they made peace between the tribes in the new world. The way it’s all set up with checks and balances works, it really does.”

In January of 2014 Melissa released the single, “Uprising of Love,” in response to Russia’s tough anti-Gay laws and the LGBT community’s request to boycott the 2014 Olympics in Russia. The song is a call to arms for brothers and sisters around the world still drowning in disrespect while American Gays are gaining ground.

My eyes are wide-open recognizing change

It feeds the fires of the fear

Where human love seems strange

I’m gonna rise above

I believe that love is love

I’m gonna raise my hands

With every woman, child and man

I’m gonna start an uprising of love

Proceeds from the song named after the Russian advocacy group by the same name were donated to the “Russia Freedom Fund,” aiding the cause on Russian soil.

Melissa said she was confident the democratic process in America would allow Gay marriage in time. Cannabis, on the other hand, has been the harder stigma to squash.

“Both the Gay rights movement and the movements to end cannabis prohibition are based on misinformation and fear,” she said. “Children are being taken away from their parents for being cannabis patients, and children in extreme gender conflict are being thrown out of their homes by their own families.”

The contrasts are startling, with performer Miley Cyrus’ non-profit “Happy Hippie Foundation” siting 16 million youth are made homeless each year, with 40 percent identifying as LGBT and family rejection at the top of the list for reasons why (Laganja Estranja, Dope Magazine, Sept. 2015).

With or without Child Protective Services ever getting involved, families continue to discriminate against their pot-smoking, cannabis ingesting family members, with rhetoric rivaling that of a national political campaign.

In 2004 Melissa was diagnosed with breast cancer and began the grueling traditional treatments of surgery and chemotherapy, successfully putting the cancer into remission. As widely reported, she also endured great physical and emotional suffering, causing her to up her cannabis use during the process with great success.

Fellow rock star, friend and surrogate father of two of her children, David Crosby, suggested she smoke cannabis to quell the nasty symptoms from the chemo and the meds that accompany the traditional treatments.

“Medicating with cannabis saved my life,” Melissa explained. “The side effects of chemotherapy are horrible. Going through treatment was the most eye-opening experience I’ve been through. The medications you must take during and after the treatments have awful side effects and really damage your body. I had no energy whatsoever, could not eat – and cannabis helped with all of it.”

Melissa said she ended her traditional treatments early due to how bad the medications made her feel once the cancer was gone, with cannabis making a huge difference to her well-being, both physically and emotionally.

The greatest fear she had wasn’t in using the herb, but what others would think – specifically Child Protective Services, who are notorious for removing children from the homes of real patients in legal medicinal states or otherwise. During her Key Note Speech at the 2015 Cannabis World Congress Business Expo, she announced to chuckles she was thankful her kids were still with her today.

The beneficial effects of simply smoking cannabis for pain and nausea alone while undergoing chemotherapy or radiation have been proven to be widely effective, as discovered with work done with AIDS patients in California.

Dr. Donald Abrams gained approval and recognition for his clinical trials with AIDS patients in San Francisco between 2003 and 2005, documenting a 30 percent reduction in pain by smoking cannabis while taking prescription pain killers.

Other studies show secondary cancers and other serious ailments such as stroke and heart attacks presenting directly linked to the use of chemotherapy, chemo drugs, and radiation (Dope Magazine, Tommy Chong; August 2014).

Because of the damaging side effects of longtime conventional therapies Melisa said she won’t go down the traditional trail if or when her cancer comes back.

“I’ll definitely ingest the cannabis oil if I need to,” she said. “I’m a firm believer in its benefits, and was sorely disappointed when Angelina Joile made the decision to get a double mastectomy out of fear.”

Melissa said out of all the highly debatable subjects she’s been involved with, from Gay rights to enlisting David Crosby as surrogate father to her babies, her speaking out against surgery as prevention for cancer hit her with the harshest criticism.

“People can do whatever they want with their bodies – your body is yours,” she offered. “If you fear something so much you decide to cut healthy tissue off, by all means, go ahead. But don’t present it to the public as if it’s a courageous act, when it’s based solely on fear.”

Those in the cannabis community are always shaken when hearing of anyone in a high profile position choosing traditional therapies when they could get educated on the plant and make a difference for many. That said cannabis causers are also painfully aware they are ahead of their time when it comes to knowledge on the plant – specifically in putting cancer and serious ailments into remission.

The recipe for making “Rick Simpson Oil” or “RSO” is actually an old recipe re-created by Canadian Rick Simpson more than 15 years ago, after he was told there was nothing more to be done for a terminal case of skin cancer.  Since his success, the recipe and protocol have been shared via word of mouth only ( helped by social media), and involves ingesting orally, or delivery via suppositories, 60 grams of the strong oil in 90 days, with some of the most invasive cancers being reported gone in less time (Rick Simpson, Dope Magazine, July 2015).

While Mellissa admitted she doesn’t enjoy ingesting, she said she’s open to learning more about it – especially where cancer prevention is concerned. She’s working with a former Iron Chef, teaming up with Greenway Compassionate Relief of Santa Cruz in California, creating a variety of infused products, to include a delicious hot, sweet mustard; honey sticks in three varieties, “sunny, funny, and honey” – representing sativa, hybrid, and indica, respectively; “Balmz Away” topical salve; and small batch wine in association with Coup’ Vineyards in Santa Cruz.

Her “Know Label Private Reserve” branded bottle of “tincture” can be compared to a “tonic” from pre-pharmaceutical days of apothecary (see companion story in this issue), and is literally label-free, with the varietal and her name written in gold ink along the base of the bottle. The word play in the brand is purposeful, alluding to knowing about the good medicine inside the bottle. Each bottle is valued at a humorously denoted $420 each.

“We are infusing wine with cannabis in a cold process with green bud and plant material that doesn’t activate the THC,” she shared. “The feeling is a warm, full body high. People who don’t want to smoke or have issues with the psychoactive properties of THC like this option – especially if they already enjoy wine.”

Markets to distribute products developed include the legal State of Colorado, teaming up with Starbuds dispensaries in Denver, giving her an edge on the Rocky Mountain High state.

“We are still working out legalities of production with alcohol, distribution across state lines, and testing to be in accordance with each city, county, and state ordinance out there,” she advised. “That’s something I’d really like to get involved with – helping to implement smarter ordinances locally in cities and counties. The main thing is, it’s all truly medicine and California is about to go recreational. We need to keep the state at the forefront of cannabis as medicine, where it’s always been.”

With the Department of Agriculture’s change of heart giving cannabis products measuring in at less than 0.03 percent THC a “Hemp” moniker, she may be able to ship the wine across state lines soon. This writer would not mind being in a “bottle of the month club” with that brand, as alcohol infusion is one of my own personal favorite deliveries of the plant.

On another note, the artist is currently using her voice and her notoriety on the project of her life, helping to integrate cannabis as medicine with traditional therapies, in negotiations now with a national cancer treatment center chain.

“I’ve joined forces with nine actual oncologists who know, at the very least, that this plant is good medicine,” she offered. “We will be creating places where cannabis will be integrated into traditional treatments.”

While Medicine Man of Denver hints at a relationship with a pharmaceutical chain, and President Obama’s nod to real research on U.S. soil, the plant just may have a chance helping the masses do away with many of the real illnesses and disorders plaguing our country and world today.

“As I see it illnesses are getting worse and the medical community is up against a wall for options on how to treat everything” she surmised. “Then you see documentaries, like Sanjay Gupta’s ‘Weed’ on CNN - because he gets it. Doctors are starting to realize something is not right, that this plant may be a viable option. The future is about health and truly understanding a more holistic approach for each of us. We are responsible for our own bodies. We need to know we have a health system that is poisoned and taking one pill won’t fix it. That’s the next big paradigm shift that needs to happen.”

References:

Melissa Etheridge www.melissaetheridge.com

Greenway Compassionate Relief, Santa Cruz www.greenwaysantacruz.com

Starbuds dispensary, Colorado www.starbuds303.com

Happy Hippie Foundation: Miley Cyrus www.happyhippies.org

Phoenix Tears/Rick Simpson www.phoenixtears.ca

U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health (NIH): Symptoms of nausea/cannabis www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23902479

U.S. National Library of Medicine (NIH): Cannabis as breast cancer cell inhibitor www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20859676

Journal of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics: Cannabis and breast cancer cell growth www.jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/early/2006/05/25/jpet.106.105247

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. (PNAS): Cannabis and human cancer cell proliferation www.pnas.org/content/95/14/8375.full.pdf+html

Dr. Donald Abrams, Prof., Dept. of Medicine, UCSF www.cancer.ucsf.edu/people/profiles/abrams_donald.3795

Journal of the American Academy of Neurology: Cannabis & pain management trial, Dr. Donald Abrams www.neurology.org/content/68/7/515.abstract

Jimi Hendrix via Leon Hendrix

Alive in Music

Purple Haze all in my brain,

Lately things don’t seem the same,

Actin’ funny but I don’t know why

‘scuse me while I kiss the sky.

-          Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)

Jimi Hendrix’s iconic and self-described love song, “Purple Haze,” is often thought of as a nod to a psychedelic trip on acid, inspiring an entire genre around the young musician, dubbing his sound, “Psychedelic Rock” during the late 1960s.

He had been fingering the unmistakable opening riff for a while, writing down lyrics and allegedly finishing the melody in the dressing room of a London club in 1966, recording the song with his band, “The Jimi Hendrix Experience” in 1967.

Later he would say he wrote the song from a dream that found him walking under the sea.

“Purple Haze… it had a thousand words, I had it all written out. It was about going through this land – this mythical land. … You know, like the history of the wars on Neptune,” he trailed during an interview.

Branding a Legend

Today, Jimi’s brother Leon Hendrix is partnering up with Andrew Pitsicalis of HendrixLicensing.com, forming “Purple Haze Properties, LLC,” in an effort to license and market merchandise under the iconic name that is already a brand.

Multiple platforms are being laid out in the U.S. and globally, marketing a line of merchandise under “Jimi’s Cannabis Collection;” with cannabis products, such as medibles via infused lavender macaroons, under “Jimi’s Edibles;” while further defining the “Purple Haze” strain, and more, in pre-rolled joints in packs, with “Jimi’s Genetics.”

The farmer involved in the California operation is Scott McThail of “California’s Finest,” already doing well sourcing for packs of pre-rolls since 2012.

“Purple Haze” lounges are planned in Las Vegas with Pitsicalis in association with the Hard Rock Café and House of Blues; with one building in the shade of Capitol Records on Sunset Boulevard in acquisition as this story goes to press.

When discussing keeping his brother’s name alive via branding, Leon scoffed at the concept.

“He’s already a legend,” he said. “He’s the greatest guitarist that ever lived. There’s nothing I can do to improve on that. It’s done and he’s not going away. He’s here to stay like Mozart or Beethoven,” he said, during a phone conversation from his home in Los Angeles.

Sleeping under the Stage

Leon, who is four years younger than brother Jimi, idolized his older brother. When Jimi first began playing guitar with Ray Charles at 16, Leon was there.

“We drove my dad’s old Plymouth 30 miles out to “Spanish Castle” and slept under the stage at night so he could play.”

Jimi would later write a song about the historic castle-like venue outside Seattle proper. But Leon remembers being a wide-eyed young man, proud to be in the shadow of his talented brother.

Leon was in prison while his older brother became a rock star. He was ironically serving time due to going AWOL in order to be with his brother as he toured.

“When he played the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ the prison warden was so angry at what they called the disrespecting of the song, they treated me very badly,” he remembered. “I must have peeled 15 tons of potatoes after that.”

His brother’s notoriety made him famous in prison, much to the warden’s dismay.

“The warden called me into his office and told me, ‘there’s only one General here, and that’s me,’” Leon remembered being put in his place. “But everyone loved my brother.”

When his brother passed, he said he felt all alone, though many in prison shared his grief.

“They called my name over the loud speaker, told me to go to the Chaplain’s office,” he said, stating it was the longest walk he ever made. “Everything stopped for me then.”

Leon has fought with his own demons over the years. While Jimi worked his out with music, Leon turned to drugs, alcohol and women, with his problems worsening after Jimi’s death.

Obsessed with Music

Immediate rumors of Jimi’s demise were that he died of a heroin overdose like his tragic counterparts, Joplin and Morrison. But a little known fact is that the young woman he was dating, and with the night of his passing, was actually the daughter of a prominent pharmaceutical company owner in Germany. Jimi over did it by taking nine prescription sleeping pills she provided with alcohol, with the cause of death asphyxiation, as the pills stopped his heart.

Jimi was not a heroin addict, nor was he a drug addict. The only addiction his brother said he had was playing music on his guitar.

“Jimi was obsessively, compulsively, addicted to playing his guitar,” Leon laughed. “He would go to sleep with it on his chest, and when he woke up in the morning – before brushing his teeth – he’d play his guitar.” 

The path to addiction and/or obsession often lies in a family’s lineage, and the boy’s father was a known alcoholic, making Jimi and Leon what are called “Adult Children of an Alcoholic,” with a whole set of a lifetime of dysfunctions to overcome.

Leon has been in recovery for 15 years now and has come to terms with his pratfalls and weaknesses. He attends Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) meetings regularly, but he won’t give up the herb.

“I have to smoke a joint just to get in the door – to go into those meetings,” he laughed. “I know it is medicine and good. It relaxes me and takes the edge off. There is no way I would ever compare it to alcohol or any of the other drugs I played around with over the years, and I’m sure my brother would agree,” he surmised. “Jimi loved the herb. Oh yes he did.”

Take two leaves and call me in the morning

Amanda Reiman is manager of marijuana law and policy at the Drug Policy Alliance. Reiman lectures on the successes of studies on “harm reduction,” where alcohol, prescription medications, and street drugs are replaced by ingesting and/or smoking cannabis.

During her lectures, Reiman sites many studies on the subject, explaining how withdrawal symptoms from drug and alcohol addictions are quelled with the beneficial effects of cannabis in an often smooth transition to sobriety. Studies sighted include patient’s accounts of the efficacy of cannabis as superior to many drugs prescribed by a doctor for real ailments.

California physician Dr. Mikuriya led many studies on the subject and came to the conclusion that 12 Step programs under AA would be advised to incorporate cannabis as a beneficial substitute for alcohol and other addictive substances.

In other words, Leon, you are on the right path. Keep smoking that joint before and after meetings, it’s all good.

Leon continues to tour, playing his brothers songs and more on the road. He is bent on doing good work for the greater good, and making his big brother proud - including continuing the tradition of helping others in their hometown of Seattle. This past Thanksgiving Leon teamed up, as per usual, with the food bank of Seattle, delivering turkey sandwiches to the needy in Pioneer Square.

“He’s still here with me,” Leon concluded. “I can go anywhere and his music will be there with me. He tells me to ‘bend them strings’ when I’m in trouble on stage.”

Purple Haze Properties, LLC, www.purplehazeproperties.com

Rick Simpson, an average guy

changing the world one plant, one person at a time

Since 1946 the American Cancer Society has spent more than $4 billion dollars on cancer research, and, as stated in its Web site, playing “a role in nearly every cancer breakthrough in recent history.”

There is one breakthrough, however, the society has not been involved in; the research, development, distribution, and protocol for putting cancer into remission by ingesting cannabis oil. For that, we have Rick Simpson and an army of enlightened and educated activists to thank.

Those like me who have used the oil, putting cancer and other serious ailments into remission, look at the society’s fundraising numbers in disbelief, as the cost of a 60 gram treatment of oil can be had for the cost of a pound of bud, some solvent, and a few hours’ time.

Even more appalling are the treatments literally unchanged since the 1950s that seemingly do more harm than good, when the protocol for oil is so very simple - Ingest 60 grams of oil in 90 days with a step-up dosing system to get used to the strong THC. Patients report some of the most invasive cancers and serious ailments gone in less time than it takes to ingest it, and most say they feel better in weeks.

 “In reality, I am only the messenger,” Simpson writes from India. “The bigger shame is that the public had to wait so long for an uneducated man such as myself – with no medical background – to bring them the real truth about the true healing powers of this plant.”

Simpson is clearly frustrated with the powers that be who have kept this good medicine from so many, but is also sympathetic, understanding why.

“There are so many others with the required training and knowledge in this field, who actually should have done this years ago,” he continued. “But when you look at all the restrictions which were put in their way, one can hardly place the blame on them. For if they tried to do so, the corruption of our governments – and the rich elite who control them - would have done everything possible to destroy their lives and careers. “

Simpson speaks from a place of knowing, having been persecuted in his home country of Canada and the U.S. He travels now, a citizen of the world, spreading the good word on good medicine as he goes.

His story is an elusive one. Most know about the skin cancer that prompted the use of topical oil in the first place, but his health issues and need for the strong oil began in 1997 with a head injury on the job.

“My injury left me with a condition called Post Concussion Syndrome, causing me to have a very loud ringing noise in my head 24 hours a day since that time,” he explained. “The noise prevented me from sleeping and drove my blood pressure up to dangerous levels.”

Vertigo became an issue, with falls common. For five years Simpson said he took “every drug the medical system threw at me,” worsening the condition. After a year of suffering he tried smoking cannabis to see if it would help.

“To my surprise it worked much better than any of the medications they gave me,” he continued. “I then started asking doctors for a prescription, so that I might use this plant legally to help treat my condition. They all refused, saying that cannabis was still under study and that using it would pose a danger to my health.”

Simpson said he had worked within the hospital system in Nova Scotia for many years and trusted the system blindly, continuing to take “all the addictive and dangerous chemicals and poisons the doctors were dishing out,” even though they said they did more harm than good.

“Smoking provided some relief, but I still could not get the rest I required, so in 1999 I asked my doctor what would happen if I were to produce a concentrated oil and ingest it as medicine,” he shared. “He suddenly got a very strange look on his face, and admitted it would be a much more medicinal way to use the plant.”

Simpson said he went home and made a batch, but was fearful to take it, initially.

“It was very strong and I was still thinking about the danger to my health that the doctor had told me this plant could pose, so I continued on with the use of the pharmaceuticals,” he admitted. “Then in 2001 my doctor told me there was nothing more he could do for me, since he had already tried all the medications at his disposal.”

Having nowhere else to turn, Simpson said he began to ingest small amounts of the strong concentrate.

“As I increased my dosage, it began to have remarkable effects on my health issues,” he shared. “Although the extract didn’t take the horrible noise away, it did allow me to get the sleep required, enabling me to live with this condition – which has caused many others to take their own lives.”

By ingesting the strong oil, Simpson said it allowed him to deal with the effects of his injury in a rational way, lowering his blood pressure, while quelling the pain of arthritis – another ailment he was dealing with at the time.

“In early 2003 I used the extract to cure the skin cancer I was suffering from, after going through what I know now was an unnecessary and unsuccessful operation,” he said. “From then on, I guess you could say, ‘the rest is history.’”

Simpson insists the gift of healing he stumbled upon, now working myriad medical miracles for many, is from nature, not him.

“If people would just take the time to do a little simple research for themselves, they would see what I’ve discovered isn’t so astounding,” he said. “All I really did was take what was always known to be one of the most medicinal plants on earth and extract the resins, which contain the healing cannabinoids, from the bud material of the plant.”

A little backbone, Simpson said, is all that’s required to reject the absurd laws restricting the plant and take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing. The way he sees it, big pharma won’t be doing this for us any time soon, because the profit margin on plant-based medicine just isn’t there.

“Although continuing this crusade has brought more stress into my life, I still feels the issue is so important that if I were to back off a bit, I would find it hard to live with myself,” he admits.

For the past three months Simpson has been in India, continuing to educate on the plant, with great progress.

“With so many using the extract now, successfully ridding themselves of cancer and other horrible, serious conditions, I think it’s safe to say we have gotten the attention of governments everywhere,” he said. “Now the only challenge is to force these governments to relinquish the strangle hold they have on their own people, allowing everyone to have free access to this natural, safe, non-addictive medicine.”

Simpson believes the plant will not only heal the world and its people, he feels the very truth of the plant itself will end the very corruption keeping it from the masses in the first place.

“This plant belongs to all of us, and don’t let anyone tell you different,” he surmised. “When we set cannabis free, we will rid ourselves of the manipulation we have endured for decades. I would like to welcome everyone to this new and better way of life, knowing its use will give us a much brighter future.”

For more information on “Rick Simpson Oil,” or “RSO” visit, www.phoenixtears.ca