...from seed to weed and bud to buzz; cannabis is the crop to love! This blog is all about the cultivation, science, facts, knowledge, and information about the versatile, and endless uses of the cannabis plant.
Marijuana is not a harmful drug, it is non-toxic and does not lead to cancer or brain damage. There has never been one conclusive study that has linked marijuana to cancer. Research has found pre-cancerous cells in the lungs of those who have smoked at least one joint a day and an average of three joints a day for ten years. Those individuals also had an elevated risk of bronchial infection but not as high of a risk as cigarette smokers.
There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that smoke in general causes cancer. Some cite that smoking is a counter-intuitive mod of self-medication. This is not true. These individuals are usually making the comparison of marijuana to tobacco cigarette smoke.
Just because tobacco cigarette smoke causes cancer doesn’t default all smoke to doing the same. The fact is that there are all sorts of added chemicals to manufactured cigarettes including rat poison. Tobacco, the plant itself is toxic. It must be rotated with other crops because it depletes the soil of its nutrients and leaves the ground infertile.
40-60 mg of nicotine will kill any adult human. However, marijuana is non-toxic, has never killed anyone and is physically impossible to over dose on.
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If one wants to understand how criminalization of drugs is working toward the opposite goal of reduced drug use one only has to look at the case with marijuana. The use of marijuana by teenagers is higher in the United States than most countries that have decriminalized the use.
The Dutch, who have decriminalized and started to legalize marijuana have lower use rates than the United States where the drug is illegal. 47.3 percent of young adults in America compared to 45.5 percent in the Netherlands. 3 Older teens, 38.2 percent in U.S. compared to 29.5 percent and 13.5 percent in contrast to 7.2 percent of younger teens in the Netherlands.
Source: Zimmer, Lynn Ph.D., and John P. Morgan M.D. “Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts” The Lindesmith Center, 1997. p. 51
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The problem that Rosenfeld correctly addresses is that America is locking up sick patients that need marijuana as a medication. Before Rosenfeld, Laura Barber from Traverse City sat in front of the Michigan board and stated her devastating testimony. She told the board members about how she was the caregiver for her husband with the same disease. He has died but her son, who has the disease as well, lives. She talks about she has lost houses, cars, promotions, and jobs because she continually must buy marijuana illegally so that her son can live.
No natural substance has as many medical benefits as marijuana. Its chemical diversity rivals that of chocolate and wine. Marijuana is not only, literally, a life-saving drug but has also been used for centuries to relieve headaches, nausea, and menstrual pain. To illustrate how important medical marijuana is Irv Rosenfeld from Florida came to Michigan in 2006 to try and educate Michigan law makers on the benefits of medical cannabis. The following is his testimony:
"I appreciate coming to the great state of Michigan. My name is Irv Rosenfeld and I am the longest surviving federal medical marijuana patients in the United States. There are five patients currently in the country and their will only be five because the Bush administration shut the program down in 92. I have a severe bone disorder… [which] causes bone tumors to grow outwardly all throughout my body growing into the muscles and into the veins.
As a teenager I had many operations using all kinds of drugs and I was an advocate against marijuana in the late sixties. Why would a healthy… person use and illegal drug when here I would hold up my baggy with all my prescriptions and say ‘look at me, look at what I have to take, be thankful your healthy.’ I went to college in Miami, in 71 and… because of peer pressure I tried marijuana and it did nothing to me. I didn’t get high. It did nothing. People around me were getting high. I thought they were self-inducing it.
By the tenth time I did it I sat and played chess for thirty minutes and I hate chess. As you can see I have trouble sitting and I sat for thirty minutes which is the first time in five years I did that. Now I had morphine… any needed prescription I had it prescribed. It dawned on me I hadn’t taken a pill for about six hours. Well why could I sit there for the first time in five years? Then they past me the garbage, marijuana, to me that’s all it was, pure garbage. That’s the only thing I did differently was this garbage.
Well I have an analytical mind, my family is in medicine, my great uncle was head of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins [University], my uncle taught pediatrics at Yale, my sister is head of nuclear medicine at Duke; here was the garbage that might have medical value. So we researched it and low and behold guess what, marijuana was used in this country from 1860 to 1937. It was manufactured by Eli Lilly, Merck, [and] all the major pharmaceutical companies. It was used for… muscle relaxing, anti-inflammatory, and pain.
That’s just what its doing for me and I’m not getting high from it. I gotta have this. Well the federal government outlawed it. You mean I have to take on the federal government to get the medicine I need? My doctor can prescribe morphine to me but he can’t give me marijuana? I didn’t like being label a criminal so I took on the federal government. Okay, it took me ten years but in 1982 I won and I am now using this medicine legally under the federal government for now starting my 25th year.
I have used marijuana, 10-12 marijuana cigarettes a day for 35 years. Now I’m married, been married for 33 years, I’m a stock broker; I handle millions of dollars on a daily basis. All my clients know that I use medical cannabis. They applaud the fact that I took time off of work to come here and hopefully educate the people in Michigan. That this (shaking the marijuana cigarette in his hand) is not the hysteria people make it out to be.
Now you ask has the FDA done any studies? Well they’ve given me this marijuana for 25 years almost. Have they done any studies on me? No, because they don’t wanna know how well it works. Myself and 3 of the other federal patients had a complete evaluation done privately in Montana five years ago. They did brain wave testing, IQ testing, repertory, blood work, you name it, we tried to look at everything aspect to see what harm this’ll cause us because again, when you have debilitation disease that you didn’t ask for, we did believe what the governments rhetoric was saying, this could harm us.
So we did this testing assuming we’d find some problems. Well guess what, all four of us were just perfectly fine. So now the federal government says ‘well you’re an anomaly.’ You’re the only four people in the country that marijuana doesn’t harm. That anyone else it would harm. Well you know something, that’s just not the case. They don’t wanna debate us, they don’t wanna study us, they don’t wanna know, and that’s sad because there are people in this country that are sick and didn’t ask for it. They didn’t wake up in the morning and… say ‘you know what if I could just catch AIDS then maybe I can use that marijuana to take away nausea.’ Nobody asked for it. They also don’t ask to be labeled criminal and that’s what happened in this country.
I’m legal okay (holding up his 11 ounce tin of pre-rolled joints) I can go anywhere in the United States in U.S. territories and I am not breaking any law. I’m a federal patient, I’m using marijuana, but that woman (pointing to an old lady in a wheel chair right behind him) she’s a criminal. She is breaking your state law, she is a criminal, okay. She should be locked up and put behind bars. I don’t know about you but I would sure sleep better at night knowing she’s locked up behind bars. (Some chuckles can be heard) Wouldn’t you?
That’s the problem we have here. It’s the hysteria, its people being scared, okay. It’s not a harmful substance. Marijuana is one of the most benign substances known to mankind. We had D.E.A. hearings for two year from 1986 to 1988, Judge Francis Young their own D.E.A. law review judge did these hearings which I thought was bias, their picking their own judge. He took one year to make his decision after the hearings. His decision was that it is one of the most benign substances known to mankind and it should be made schedule two along with Morphine, along with Cocaine, meaning it has medicinal value but it could be potentially harmful. Well what did D.E.A do after two years of hearings from all the people on one side and all the people on the other with this decision? They said ‘we don’t like that decision,’ and they got rid of him and he died in disgrace.
The federal government does not want to know. Their not gonna do anything about this subject… which is unbelievably sad because it’s federal program. I go to a pharmacy and pick up my tin can, 11 ounces of marijuana, I smoke every 25 days. 11 ounces every 25 days with no euphoric effect, no ill effect, my lungs… are 108% above normal. I am in favor of getting medicine to the patients. That’s the most important aspect. Now that’s the only way that… [their gonna] pass laws and the federal government is not going to enact a federal policy so other people can pick up a prescription. Well if their not gonna do that the state are left on their own, the states have gotta do what they can.
Take the crime away from these sick patients. There’s no need prosecuting people who are sick and it is wasting your resources; putting people in jail. I know myself in Florida we have overcrowding, when they arrest a non-violent criminal they may be putting that person in jail with a violent criminal and all because of a weed that has been around for generations and centuries and centuries.
Nobody [has] ever died off of marijuana. No one has ever gotten lung cancer off of it. Doctor Tashkin a government doctor, this is a main doctor in the country for research for bad things with marijuana. He just came out with a study, a ten year study, from California that he could not find one patient that had lung cancer due to marijuana. That he found a lot of lung cases with cigarettes. What he also couldn’t explain was that people who smoked marijuana along with use cigarettes had less cases of cancer, but he wasn’t sure why.
The point being is this. I’m a living subject, I’m the proof. The government can stand up here and say how bad it is. Other people can stand up here and say how good it is. I can stand up here and say I use it. I’ve used it for 35 year. I am a productive member of society. [I’ve been] married for 33 years. I have no children because I could pass down this disease and I wouldn’t do that. I teach disabled people how to sail in Miami. So I am a very productive member of society because I have the right medicine. I don’t’ take morphine, I don’t take anything; I haven’t taken any other drugs now for 19 years. All I use is medical cannabis. So what does this mean to me? If I were still alive, most-likely I would’ve died of hemorrhages or something like that. I would not be a productive member of society. I would probably be hummed down on disability and that’s not what I want to be."
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Smoking pot draws the active ingredient delta nine tetrahydrocannabinol or THC into the lungs and onto the brain. There, it suppresses the neurons causing a distortion of perception in time, a lack of coordination, (maybe) paranoia, and sometimes uncontrollable hilarity. Within 4 seconds of the first drag, muscles relax, eyes redden, pulse rate quickens, and a feeling of euphoria and a heightened sensitivity arise in the user. Many describe the experience as surreal or exciting. Some would argue that the substance "makes you think"--which may explain why people become self-conscious and feel paranoid or act goofy. While others advocate it brightens the user's mood and reduces pain, because marijuana is medicine.
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The history of cannibus in America is one of irony. The founding fathers, specifically Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were plantation owners who cultivated hemp as a cash crop. They understood the versatility of hemp, recommended its growth and use, and grew it themselves for commerce and industry.
The history of America and marijuana is cloaked in lies and propaganda. The laws against it were born out of an entanglement with immigration. And, the hemp crop was successfully made illegal with the help of William Randolph Hearst (who had invested in the timber companies--and whose competition was hemp).
During the 1920’s America wanted the Mexicans (who smoked marijuana)... out of Texas. So to stigmatize this cheap labor force propaganda was spread through headlines and newspapers about how marijuana induced violence in Mexicans; the scare lead to harsh penalties for marijuana possession. The southwest states (Texas, Colorado, California, and Arizona) wanted a federal law against marijuana and they pushed until they got it.
Harry J. Anslinger became the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (now the FBI). Anslinger did not originally want to make marijuana illegal. However, being the bureaucrat he was, he changed his position to the leading warrior against marijuana after receiving such a position. Anslinger started fear-mongering and made massive propaganda campaigns (such as Reefer Madness) to demonize marijuana.
The presidencies of Regan and Bush II further criminalized marijuana. Today, medical marijuana prohibition sees patients as criminals instead of sick. Marijuana is still being classified as a schedule 1 substance, meaning the government endorses the claim that marijuana has no medical value and a high potential for abuse. (Heroin and cocaine are schedual 2 drugs). Yet, American pharmaceutical drug companies (such as Eli Lilly) used marijuana as a medication. Regardless, THC has long been available as a prescription medication.
The real history of marijuana is full of medical benefits and early American cultivation. Production of the plant has been suppressed by the government and mainstream media. There is no justifiable reason for marijuana to be illegal and its illegality is based on discrimination. In any real sense the War on Drugs is Orwellian new speak for 'the wealthy elite's assault on your civil liberties.'
"What was done with the seed saved from the India Hemp last summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sewn again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have disseminated the seed to others; as it is more valuable than the common Hemp." -George Washington, Writings of Washington, Vol. 35, pg. 72
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Irv Rosenfeld is a 28 year marijuana patient. Marijuana helps relieve the symptoms of a rare bone disorder Rosenfeld suffers from. Multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses, is the name of the disorder and is marked by bony protrusions in the body’s long bones. Marijuana relaxes Rosenfeld’s muscle tissue so that he can move and function without pain. Marijuana has been the only successful treatment.
(Source)
There are about ten federally recognized medical marijuana patients including Irv Rosenfeld. Individual states have legalized and decriminalized the use of marijuana but the federal government refuses to recognize and reverse it’s own hypocrisy.
Most like to ignore the fact that THC is fat soluble (so you can take the drug without smoking it) which is often why it is opposed as a medication.
Marijuana was used in patented, perfectly legal medicines starting during the 1860’s until 1937 when the first federal laws were enacted against the herb. The medicines were manufacture by all major pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly and Merck. Its uses included alleviation from pain, muscle relaxing, and anti-inflammation.
Study finds that there is no link between marijuana and cancer.5 Study shows that cigarette smokers who also smoke Marijuana are less likely to develop lung cancer.6Studies find marijuana stops the spread of cancer.
The versatility of hemp is only matched by its durability. Hemp can be used to make nutritious food, cosmetics, housing materials, fuel, clothing, textiles, paint, paper, and medication. The following will take you through the (secret and suppressed) properties of hemp (albeit medicine which has a separate blog post).
Hemp seeds contain all essential amino acids and essectial fatty acids. 1
Hemp seeds can be made into oil or eaten after being cooked (similar to the sunflower seed).
Hemp seed oil (similar to olive or peanut oil) contains Vitamin E and Omega-3, 6, and 9. Hemp seeds contain fiber (12%), a high level of protein (33%), and other essential fatty acids (EFAs) 2
"Cannabis' seeds - traditionally called 'hempseed', contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. No other single plant source provides complete protein nutrition in such an easily digestible form, nor has the oils essential to life in as perfect a ratio for human health and vitality. Hempseed is the richest source in the plant kingdom of essential fatty acids." - Lynn Osburn, researcher 4
Fuel:
Hemp is the perfect crop to produce non-toxic diesel fuels. Hemp has more biomass than any other plant species, it can grow in a wide range of climates and locations. Hemp has the propensity to become a major source of ethanol fuel.
The uses of hemp in current industry are broad and high in number. Hemp is the standard for fiber worldwide. It is regarded as one of the strongest and durable plants. Hemp can be used to make rope, paper, and clothing among 5,000 other textile products. Hemp products also include cellophane, fine laces, and dynamite
The capability and durability of hemp has been trusted by religious leaders, explorers, and 18th century Americans, and event he founding fathers. The first Gutenberg bible and American flag were made from hemp. The Declaration of Independence was signed on paper made from hemp. If it weren’t for marijuana Christopher Columbus would have never made it to the new world for his ropes and sails were made of hemp. Hemp was widely used in the American colonies because it could make so many products (such as paper, rope, sails, and clothing). Marijuana was a cash crop and helped earn a living for both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. 3
"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country" - Thomas Jefferson
Cosmetics:
Mineral oil is a petroleum derived (waste) product. It is used as the primary oil in facial creams, baby moisturizers, cosmetics, shaving soap, and body butter. However, there is an alternative! Hemp oil is a natural alternative that can replace mineral oil and even provides skin with omega-3, 6, and 9 nutrients.
Paints and Cleaners:
Hemp is used to create non-toxic paint, varnish, and detergent. Hemp oil was used in all quality paints due to its natural drying properties until 1937
Paper:
Hemp paper is finer, stronger, and lasts longer than wood-base papers. Today, hemp paper is still used for bank notes and archives
Building Materials:
Hemp can be use to build a house. Hemp products produce roofing, plywood, plaster, reinforced concrete, particleboard, flooring, insulation, fiberboard, paneling, and cement.
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Many individuals use Marijuana to alter their state of mind or “get high” in the comfort and privacy of their own home.
Cannabis is non-toxic and is physically impossible to achieve over-dose. Aspirin, Cigarettes, and Alcohol, taken independently, kill more people every month than Marijuana ever has.
Marijuana is not physically addicting! There are no withdrawal symptoms (unless you need it as a medicine). Marijuana can be mentally addictive. It’s not that an individual CAN NOT stop using marijuana, it’s that some individuals DO NOT WANT TO stop using marijuana.
Smoking marijuana posses little threat to damaging lung tissue. The average marijuana smoker only smokes on occasion. Heavy marijuana smokers show no signs of obstructing of the lungs small airway. This shows that those who smoke marijuana are not likely to develop emphysema. There has never been a causal relationship found between smoking marijuana and emphysema or lung cancer.
There is no convincing evidence that shows marijuana causes psychological damage or mental illness. Marijuana does not cause profound lasting changes in the behavior of users.
The Emperor of Hemp is a documentary that exposes the secrets behind hemp and marijuana prohibition as seen through the eyes of Jack Herer, author of 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes,' the best-selling cult classic that ignited a Hemp Revolution around the world. In his book and through his years of public activism, Herer has worked to disseminate accurate information about cannabis to counter decades of government-sponsored anti-marijuana propaganda. What began as Herer's singular battle has turned into a massive movement to educate America about this environmentally friendly plant. While his work has made Herer a hero of the movement to re-legalize cannabis for adults, this film story of his struggle is significant for all of us.
"Emperor of Hemp" reveals that there are governmental and big-business interests efforts to keep the plant illegal. It shows how the government attempted to change history in order to hid the truth about hemp from the American people. It also outlines the racist lies that formed the basis of marijuana prohibition by exploring important facets of the corruption that maintains the modern-day "War on Drugs.) In effect, this film takes you to the forfront of the pro-hemp movement!
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