Keeping Pace
by Al Graham
P.A.C.E.
My friend Casper always says” if you’re sitting on the couch waiting for legalization to happen then you ARE part of the problem”. With that in mind always remember “don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution” and become people advocating cannabis education.
Recently I was asked by a person, what my goal was with P.A.C.E.? For me that was quite simple, to educate people about a natural whole plant medication that has worked for me. To have them learn for themselves what the cannabis plant can do, not only medically, but also for its fifty thousand other uses. It’s not about building a large organized group but about helping others understand the benefits of cannabis and to get them to speak up and spread the truth onto others.
When I was raised and when I raised my children, little non harmful lies could be tolerated but out and out lies, that made a victim of someone, were not accepted. Back then that was what got us grounded; it is now what par- tially drives me to keep educating people about cannabis. I was no different than anyone else. I listened to the mis- truths throughout my youthful years and then years later come to find that it would be the longest medication that I would be taking. My goal is to get others like you and me, people that are from the grass roots, people that are my friends, people that your friends and even loved ones to speak up and spread the truth. The more people that are educated the better off we’ll all be.
Helping others help
One of the ways we do this is through the P.A.C.E. Cannabis Educational Series that I have written about many times before. This series allows regular people a chance to hear directly from the researchers, the doctors, the historians or those in authority such as judges and lawyers. We do this by touching on the science to the prohibition of cannabis. No one knows it all but P.A.C.E. has found a way to bring these educated people to you through these movies and documentaries. This is education that the people who are against cannabis do not want you to see or hear.
Remember they say it doesn’t exist and hasn’t been studied enough yet, which these shows prove otherwise. While some of it can get technical most of it is done on a level that people can understand.
The recent addition to our educational series, our live Skype interviews has been a success and such a bonus as they have allowed P.A.C.E. to go where we never thought we could. Since doing this we have touched base with peo- ple on the east and west coasts as well as many places in between. It has been very informative to be able to talk with people such as the former Deputy Police Chief Steve Downing of the LA Police Department to Ontario based patient advocates such as Storm Peschel. In my interview with Steve he shared with us his experience of enforcing prohibition in the City of Los Angeles’s while Storm, who at the age of fourteen was the youngest person to be involved in Canada’s medical marijuana program, talked to us to about his cannabis use and explain his medical condition. To learn much more about Storm you can read his story in issue #29 of Treating Yourself. If you don’t have a copy of it you can find it at the “Past Issues” page at treatingyourself.com
We were also able to talk to a terrific lady by the name of Dr. Lynnice Wedewer. I was able to get a hold of Dr. Lynn after a friend of mine; Fourtwenty Deb posted an article about her on my Facebook page. Shortly afterwards I con- tact Dr Lynn and told her what P.A.C.E. was about and how things were done.
At that point we started communicating a little bit before agreeing on a day for her to be our guest, which happened to be the same day that we presented Len Richmond’s film What if Cannabis Cured Cancer.
When I got to interview Dr Lynn I was able to find out that she has suffered from some form of cancer since her mid-teens. She has gone through numerous attempts of radiation and chemo but her body rejects it. With her having to battle not one or two cases of cancer but Dr Lynn, who is closing in on her third PhD in religion is presently in her eighth, that’s correct her eighth battle against this nasty disease.
As we spoke she told me that all but one of her battles has been won because of cannabis with the other one being surgically removed.
To learn more about this terrific and strong lady please go to her website at http://www.lynnicewedewer.com
As I write this report we have arranged for a return of Casper Leitch from time4hemp.com for our History theme. The month of April is when we lost cannabis hemp advocate Jack Herer because of this we plan on showing a documentary about Jack and his life. Casper worked alongside Jack so we feel it’s only fitting to have Casper join us while we celebrate a man, who was determined till the day he died, to prove cannabis hemp could save the world.
During our grow op tournaments
we are with like mind- ed people
but that doesn’t always
mean that they are com-
pletely
educated on the subject.
Just because someone has consumed it for
a number of years it doesn’t
mean that they understand what is actually happening and why.
These tournaments allow us to help educate
these people and also allow advocates a chance to get together. At our last tournament which was held back at Glen and Cindy’ brought out some new people in
William and Anjo, a cou- ple
who have been attending the movies
for some time. It was
great that they chose to join us and
give the game a try. It allowed them
to met other advocates and to start new friendships
as they did with Scott, who
himself was out playing
the game for the first time. It also brought back
one of our former champions in Dan, who by the way
won again.
You can also reach out to businesses or the owners of places that support the uses of cannabis whether they’re cannabis related businesses or not. Being able to have a brochure or some kind of information handy for their cus- tomers is yet another way of spreading the truth. Before you know it you have built up a good relationship and you can possible build things up from there. This was what P.A.C.E has done for the last eighteen months and it has allowed us to spread the education onto people that we’d never know we’d touch. It has also allowed us to grow from one location to three with number four knock- ing on our door. Before you know it you’ll have a place like The Studio in Belleville who distributes our movie posters onto other businesses that visit them. It’s great to know that these places request our poster but it’s also nice to know that something like this can spread where you don’t expect it.
Being able to reach out to people at the trade shows that we attend through Treating Yourself is something that I feel every patient advocate should experience. Its one thing to stand at a booth at a cannabis event but it’s another to talk to people that don’t expect to see you. While a majority of them do support what we are doing there are some who don’t. A perfect example would be when we were at the National Home and Garden Show in Toronto. We had a lady come to the booth in her electric scooter shaking her head at us. When she spoke all she said was “no no no, all you’re doing is spreading radiation from person to person” then she made her way along.
Not only do we participate
in these public shows with Treating Yourself
but we also attend
to other events such as the Peterborough
420 rally where P.A.C.E. will be
a sponsor. This year P.A.C.E. participants Jen and Sharon will be attending this 420 Rally while I’ll be off doing
another event. During this rally the two of them will be doing the same thing that we do at the larger shows, edu- cating the public about cannabis, handing out TY maga- zines, TY Expo flyers and our brochures.
Another way to reach out to people is through your local papers. It can be something as simple as an ad promoting an event or how about an ad that just promotes the bene- fits of cannabis? A well written letter that’s fewer than 300 words can explain things in layman terms and will most- ly likely get a chance to get published. I have found through my experiences with our local papers than none of my letters have ever had a negative response to them. We also run ads in these papers for our movies which includes our email address that helps to bring people for- ward.
In the end my goal is to get more people involved in speak- ing up and becoming advocates, to get more people ques- tioning what they have been told by those who control the message, to release the cannabis plant from the terrible grip that some have imposed on it but most of all so that the people and the planet can become a much healthier place because of it. My friend Casper always says” if you’re sitting on the couch waiting for legalization to happen then you ARE part of the problem”. With that in mind always remember “don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution” and become people advocating cannabis education.
