Tag Archives: Marijuana Industry

Colorado, Testimonies

Legalization invites black market, lawlessness into state

Black market growers of marijuana destroyed my Colorado retreat

Whenever you listen to or read dialog from the pro-marijuana crowd, they say that legalizing marijuana will make the black market go away.  This statement is a blatant lie.  Rather, legalizing marijuana invites criminal organizations into your state and allows them to grow pot illegally under the guise of running a legal operation. 

I am the owner of a summer home in rural Colorado with beautiful mountain views.  In the midst of this beauty, a Chinese group purchased a ten-acre parcel with a house near my home.  Within a year, they had cleared a section of the indigenous vegetation, which is so important to the survival of the local wildlife, and illegally grew thousands of marijuana plants. Continue reading Legalization invites black market, lawlessness into state →

Addiction, Testimonies

Parent Gives Riveting Congressional Testimony about VAPINg Dangers

My name is Tiffany Barnard Davidson. I moved to Washington DC six weeks ago. Prior to that, I was a resident of the state of Connecticut for 19 years. I sit before you today to speak about the impact that vaping high-nicotine content JUUL pods and high-potency THC oil has had on my family. I would like to begin by expressing my condolences to those families who have been much less fortunate than mine as a result of this escalating vaping crisis. True to what I have learned this past year, stories endlessly more tragic than mine often go untold because families are often too traumatized.

On December 9, 2018, my eyes were forever opened to marijuana addiction and its deleterious consequences. That evening, my then-17-year-old son lay in my arms sobbing uncontrollably. I would soon learn that he was struggling with marijuana addiction. Continue reading Parent Gives Riveting Congressional Testimony about VAPINg Dangers →

Drug Policy, Medical Marijuana

Cutting Edge Therapies Treat PTSD, Pain Without Marijuana

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Best Treatment Strategies for PTSD

A study of soldiers with PTSD by Wilkinson and others at Yale University showed that marijuana made them more violent and made their PTSD worse. *   Nonetheless, under intense pressure, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently signed a bill allowing veterans to get marijuana for PTSD.   We published stories from two parents whose children — as veterans — used marijuana with tragic results:  Who Said No One Ever Died From Marijuana? and Help Save My Son for Himself and Others.

Cutting edge treatment for PTSDs include Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Since 2004, it has been recommended by the American Psychiatric Association,  World Health Organization, SAMHSA, the International Society of Stress Studies and the Veterans of Foreign Affairs.  It can often bring about symptom relief more rapidly and more effectively than any other type of therapy.  It is described in detail in The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, who has been working with trauma patients for about 40 years.  As van der Kolk explains, trauma results in the fundamental reorganization of the way we manage perception.  It is not just an event.  It imprints on mind, brain and body.   Most of all, traumatic events affect the body and live on through the body.

EMDR therapy appears to link into the same neurological processes that take place in REM sleep and clean up the brain.  It reintegrates brains that have been dysregulated during adversity. This work can lead to rapid reduction in episodic memories of traumatic events that are stored in the hippocampus.   The International Society of Stress Studies categorized EMDR as an evidence-based level A treatment for PTSD in adults.  (There are professionals who advocate for Cognitive Behavior Therapy over EMDR for PTSD.  The search to  find any professional association that certifies that marijuana works for PTSD has proved fruitless.)

EMDR is important for not only the mind, but for the body processes by which it heals.   EMDR can be used as a treatment for chronic pain, too.   It is a mind-based pain treatment, which once again goes against the purpose of those pushing medical marijuana.

Neurofeedback, Mind-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), yoga, acupunction and acupressure also may reverse the course chronic pain or PTSD — without medication.   As with all therapies and medical procedures, there are differences in the skill, experience and training of practitioners who use these techniques.bigpharma

Pain strategies should take away the need for “medicating,” by treating the root cause of the pain.   A good book to describe how this happens is The Last Best Cure, by Donna Jackson Nazakawa.

Cynical Games to Mislead the Public

The marijuana industry is currently playing a cynical game of telling the world that addiction to pain pills should be replaced by another addictive substance — marijuana.   Yet — Colorado — known for its marijuana consumption — also leads the country in consumption of opiate pain pills, heroin and alcohol.   It defies common sense to replace one addictive substance for another.

At the moment, the marijuana industry is using pain, PTSD and seizures to aggressively advocate for marijuana legalization.  They’re exploiting veterans to get new users.  In addition to EMDR, yoga and dogs are other excellent treatments for those suffering from PTSD because thy facilitate connection.   The pot industry stands in the way of letting the public know about EMDR.   They stand in the way of letting about other mind-based treatments for both pain and PTSD.   These are  treatments that don’t involve permanent illness and disability.  The marijuana industry wants chronic “medical” users because addiction will keep Big Marijuana profitable.

Marijuana advocates claim it’s a plant from nature. However, poison ivy, hemlock and rattlesnakes also come from nature.  If more people knew the truth, the public wouldn’t need its medical marijuana.   It was planned as a ruse from the start.

*2,276 veterans were studied between 1992 to 2011.  An example of a veteran using marijuana for PTSD who became violent is Eddie Routh.  Routh shot and killed Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield when he became paranoid and thought they were going to hurt him.  He is now serving time in prison.

Medical Marijuana, Politics

On Marijuana Oils and Misleading Promises

Is the Marijuana Lobby Trying to Buy Your Legislature and Your Votes?

If marijuana has a medical application that can be proven, Merck and Pfizer will probably see the benefit of getting into the 4.2 billion dollar business.   Marijuana companies, like pharmaceutical companies,  contribute heavily to politicians and lobbying efforts.  Unlike the pharmaceutical industry, they don’t go through a rigorous testing and approval process.  The marijuana industry uses pesticides, even banned pesticides, but it promotes itself as organic and natural.

Medical marijuana “caregivers” have no accountability and liability, and their lobbyists know it.  We think it is wrong when the marijuana industry lobbyists give parents with very sick children false hope.

Marijuana lobbyists should not be seen as having pure and “compassionate” motives, as they pretend.*   The public has a right to know that CBD for epilepsy does not always work.

The Press should investigate how much the marijuana lobby spends to advertise and go on TV on behalf of passing “medical” marijuana laws.

Treating Cancer with Marijuana Oils?

A few of the children treated with an artisanal CBD (cannabidiol, the derivative of marijuana used for epilepsy) have died,  and some of the children treated with cannabis oil for cancer also died.

In Montana a few years ago, Cashy Hyde’s father was featured on TV, saying his son had been cured of cancer using cannabis oil.  Sadly,  the boy eventually died, sometime after the startling announcement that he had been cured.  The constant nurture and love from his parents probably helped to extend his life.

A man in Iowa who advocated for marijuana also died of cancer.   In Australia, a little girl whose father had been treating her neuroblastoma with cannabis oil died in May.   Receiving constant love, attention and kind wishes from others sent good vibes into the world, but no medical professional thought it had an effect on the cancer.

It is understandable why some parents with little hope for their child would prefer such oils over harsh chemotherapy.

We do not criticize the parents for trying alternative treatments. However, advocacy for these parents should not be used to further the agenda of legalization.

When reading about the remarkable claims advocates of medical marijuana propose, please remember the placebo effect.  We don’t know why placebos cure some people and not others.   It could be the power of belief, or the result of a person’s own immune system having the ability to fight the disease.

Parents Opposed to Pot objects to the tactics of marijuana lobbyists because:

  • They give partial truths, attempt to sway public opinion while hiding essential facts.
  • They engage in unfair defamation of character and advertising. Two years ago Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Andy Harris were targeted with cruel and slanderous attacks because of their votes regarding medical marijuana.  Rep. Wasserman Schultz recently voted to allow veterans to be allowed marijuana — although it makes PTSD worse.
  • They outpsend the opposition to marijuana legalization and target youth with their advocacy, while pretending to be grass roots.  Smart Approaches to Marijuana was founded after the vote to legalize in Washington and Colorado.
  • They intentionally use the term “medical marijuana” when they mean cannabidiol (CBD), which lacks the psychoactive qualities of regular marijuana.  The confusion justifies teens who “dab” with highly potent Butane Hash Oil BHO) because they believe it’s harmless and even medicinal.

(Read Part 1)

*The 1996 ballot in legalizing marijuana in California was called the Compassionate Use Act and people were led to believe it was only for terminally ill people with cancer and AIDS.   In reality, only 3-5% of the marijuana has been used for these conditions.