Tuscon in the Spring

It will still be very cold in Canada but April in Tuscon, Arizona is when “POT will be Hot.”

By Al Byrne
Patients Out of Time

As a state Arizona worked long and hard to see a medical cannabis bill reach the stage of a referendum, upon which the public voted up or down for the proposed action.

In Arizona a positive medicinal cannabis question was voted on twice successfully.

Initial actions to make law reality saw a reasonable effort by state authority but soon the “feds” showed up in town. In fact a lot of towns. It was a showdown and still is in Arizona and other US states whose citizens have passed laws allowing the medical use of cannabis under health care supervision.

The US federal government has many misgivings and prob- lems with medical cannabis. Some are real most are now quite dated, tired to extreme notions, dis-proven. No mat- ter how many ill informed words on the issue are made into sentences it’s the content that matters. Is it really that way? Who says so? Who agrees with the statement?  An  old adage of mine is to “consider the source” (universally) of information, of communications. After doing so, putting in relatively little time or even less if you want to believe me you will find the US federal agencies responsible for dis- seminating accurate drug knowledge, relating to therapeu- tic cannabis, do not.

The White House is the personal and symbolic home of the President of the United States. As a icon of the country it stands as a place where the imperfect humans that work in the building perform labor, with their individual and col- lective missions fully described to the masses, and then per- formed as described.

The White House Office  of Drug  Control  is not  excepted. A reading of the fine print of this office’s mission is not nec- essary. The work to be performed is clear. These folks are to get up every day and go to work with a mission, defined

by law, to deny medical cannabis to any citizen of the US (four citizens are exempted from federal law – four). To do this they are expected to lie and they do.

One classic method of disingenuous verbiage used  in the US by all sorts of government types is to not tell you what they know. I do make an assumption by writing that sen- tence. I have assumed that the US drug czar in order to per- form his duties must be current on what his chief enemy, knowledge, is up too. In order to create a counter to say  the discovery of the endocannabinoid system in all living things you have to know it exists. Then what? This is a tough one for a cop to deal with because he does not have medical training so he decides the best thing to do is to never ever say those words. Ever.

This works for the federal government because what is called the MSM (main stream media) in the lower 48 don’t do anything but copy what the other guys write or some- body says in a press conference. Understand how it works

– if the czar does not tell the MSM what he found out in order to be able to not tell MSM what he learned then the MSM does not know and does not write about the discov- ery. It’s a whole lot like Catch-22.

The most straight forward approach the czar and his folks use is the bald faced lie. Let’s take a really egregious exam- ple. All of us that can read know that the federal govern- ment of the US holds two patents on the therapeutic use of cannabis compounds for neuro-protection and as anti-oxi- dants. The drug czar can read – another assumption. As I write the feds are offering one company an exclusive man- ufacturing contract to produce cannabis compounds syn- thetically for the medical uses identified in the patents. The buzz in cannabis circles is deafening.

While that contract negotiation proceeds the White House and their drug man tells all listeners, media to maid, politician to pollster, to the 99 and the one percent that cannabis has no medical use.

If the expert quoted answers to “your honor”, carries a gun or badge, also answers questions on TV about sex mores of the US, does not use the word endocannabinoid, thinks CBD is a power drink, mentions addiction “marijua- na” and smoking in the same sentence, never says vaporizer, has on a military uniform, or has any other claim other than being a Registered Nurse or hav- ing earned a Medical Degree – and even then be wary – they are fools display- ing their ignorance in public.

That is my definition of a lie.

It’s an untruth and  you  know it when you say it.

Consider the source.

So what is a person to do? Who do we go to for the ther- apeutic cannabis information that is current, originated by scientists, peer reviewed and published in professionally managed journals of various health areas of expertise?

As you may guess I have a suggestion. Rely only on a med- ically trained individual knowledgeable in the therapeutic applications of cannabis. This is a narrow  field  from which to pick your wisdom.

It’s easy to eliminate most of the trades that are sought out by the MSM and politicians, like recovering drug addicts and lawyers, whom they like to use to decide cannabis protocols for the ill, if any; to decide what medical safety measures are needed; which strains and dosages are required; to write the warning of interactions with other substances.

If the expert quoted answers to “your honor”, carries a gun or  badge,  also answers questions on TV  about  sex  mores of the US, does not use the word endo- cannabinoid, thinks CBD is a power drink, mentions addiction “marijuana” and smoking in the same sentence, never

says vaporizer, has on a military uni- form, or has any other claim other  than being a Registered Nurse or having earned  a  Medical  Degree  – and even then be wary –  they  are fools displaying their ignorance in public.

The trick is to ignore such  folk  and let the MSM, politicians and interest- ed citizens hear, read and see the real empirical science that exists and is available to all in this electronically communicative world. Google it!

Google what? I have a suggestion or two. Use these key words: “therapeutic cannabis”; “Patients Out of Time”; “medicinal cannabis.”

Note the word cannabis vice marijuana. The proper med- ical term is cannabis and so when looking for medical information cannabis is the key to that educational door. Once open the doorway leads to a web site, www.medical- cannabis.com, it lets the investigator view dozens of high quality lectures and interviews of the world’s leading cannabis researchers on YouTube and Google video, and links to other important web sites and cannabis informa- tion locations that the federal drug agencies have forgot- ten to mention out loud.

If you agree with me that a legitimate discussion of the use of cannabis medically requires medical and/or nursing education I would hope that any future action the reader of this essay may take would involve the denigration of unsuitable “talking heads.” Respectfully, of course, let the producers of such empty space know that you demand expertise not vacuous rhetoric. Tell the editors to get real, get informed like you.

Let Brian Williams and Wolf Blitzer hear your critique of their shallow show of slick video sucking a joint when vaporizers, with clean cannabis and the best taste yet, are what rules.

The MSM is a copycat  bunch.  The writers  and journalists I encounter during my work week ( notable exceptions are actually numerous but yet a tiny fraction of the whole – you know guys like Marco) even if they are willing to encounter and then pen a piece about a world class dis- covery (think endocannabinoid system) their editors puck- er up, I suppose fearing something bad will happen. Why else would an editor slam a story?

Correct me if I am wrong but there is no traditional med- ical or nursing education offered, in the US and Canada or anywhere, that teaches the medical/nursing student that there is an endocannabinoid system.

If the MD’s and RN’s do not know that such an amazing health discovery has been made then maybe I should go easy on the MSM, politicians and the uninformed yet brazenly cannabis negative talking heads? Nah.

They are all in a state of denial. The web page of Patients Out of Time (POT) has a list of dozens of professional health care organizations that answered POTs’ call for them to produce a written document, a statement of the organization, that it supported the use of cannabis,  now, by the ill under medical or nursing supervision. Dozens.

The American Nurses Association has a written resolution that calls on every US Nurse to become educated about  the clinical applications of cannabis. Nurses are required by their oath to protect and educate the patient. Regardless of what nitwits think there are millions of folks in North America using cannabis, medically or recreation- ally, every day and nursing and medical responsibility, and their oaths, demand they carry such knowledge with them to the patients side.

While the Deans of Nursing colleges and medical schools ignore the reality of their neighbors lives, clinician experts, like the ANA, have not.

Led in each case by doctors and registered nurses with years of clinical experience working with cannabis patients, including the four surviving US federal cannabis patients (also non existent in cannabis claptrap and Fox news type programming) these nursing and medical pio- neers have formed two professional organizations dedicat- ed to the education of their peers in all areas of clinical cannabis treatments. They will soon become the primary source of future clinical cannabis education in the US.

POT is now and has been since 1995 when formed, the first and only non-profit or for profit entity to have earned the gravitas needed to provide accredited cannabis educa- tion to MD’s and RN’s under the authority of the

American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association in the US. Since May 2000 POT has conduct-  ed six national forums, with international faculties, focus- ing on the clinical use of cannabis on patients from the age of two through hospice.

This education is and has for three years been available for any health care professional from any country to avail themselves through the continuing education office of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine – on-line at www.medicalcannabis.com.

“The Seventh National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics” will be held on April 26-28,  2012  in Tuscon, Arizona.

If you are a patient let your medical team, the whole clin- ic or office, know that this education is available and you want your RN to go.

Request your MD get up to date on cannabis, “go to the lectures while your husband plays on the championship golf course.”

Ask them about the endocannabinoid system. “What’s that?”

You really need this conference doc it’s theme is: “ The Endocannabinoid System: Clinical Implications for Health Care.”

When your local newspaper calls cannabis “pot” or mar- ijuana and quotes some federal hack – bitch. When the TV station you watch for local weather interviews a cop or lawyer about medical cannabis call the station and ask why they are endorsing and promoting the dispensation of medical advice by people without a license to do so. If the talk radio host lets the cannabis motor mouth of myth dominate the airwaves overwhelm him with unfavorable comments on his ability to identify certified cannabis experts as guests. Then recommend doctors or nurses if appropriately educated or refer them to POT.

The Tuscon week end is the epicenter of medical cannabis state of the art science, international and national in  scope, that will dominate all future decisions by state and federal agencies in the US and by extension most of the non Asian continents. “Will” is a  big  time  prophecy  but I’ll stick with cannabis’ future as a medicine built on the foundation of science that has already occurred not con- sidering the amazing stuff that researchers and clinicians will codify into medical and nursing educational curricu- lum’s at an astonishing rate, equal soon to the White House drug chiefs nose growth.

The White House, any federal Senator, any front line DEA agent, any US Republican presidential nominee, any US Coast Guard Admiral, your Bishop, your dog does not know that raw cannabis, optimized by individualized phytogenetics is a dietary essential.

You  did not know either.    I bet your spell check went tilt on phytogenetics. It’s OK because William Courtney MD does and he will tell us all about it. “Us” of course is everybody that is there, in the audience, listening.

Let’s say you are one of those rare folks these days that has stress in their day, even once in a while. Matthew Hill, PhD will be there talking about the role of the endo- cannabinoid system in regulating human stress, mood,  and anxiety (if any at that applies to you.)

Kathy Jordan will speak about cannabis and ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Like Mr. Gehrig ALS patients die rather quickly after diagnoses. Five years would be long. The dif- ference is that the dead ALS patients did not utilize cannabis in a medicinal way, Kathy has for over 20 years. If I had ALS I’d sure want my physician to hear what she has to say.

There’s lots of other subjects: ECS and addiction; the ocu-

lar endocannabinoid system; CBD; cannabis as an exit drug; cancer care and cannabis; breast cancer and cannabis; a whole bunch on cannabis and Post Traumatic Stress (PTS); cannabis and Alzheimer’s and more.

Final day, final panel will be interesting. Patients Out of Time has asked Dr. Julie Holland MD (author, The POT Story); Clint Werner (Moderator and author, ; Melanie Dreher, PhD, RN, Dean of  Nursing,  Rush  University, author, researcher ; and Andrew Weil MD author, scholar to present their ideas of our collective medical future with the newly discovered endocannabinoid system and it’s looming interface with and implications for health care.

The faculty and attendees have a good time when not being wowed by the new data and success clinically at the silent and live auctions, the benefit dinner, cocktail parties, Greta Gaines the featured entertainer (and attendee with her mom) and the resort itself which is world class, very dog friendly, has all rooms open to the sun and has a room charge not a people charge. Tuscon is truly a destination location. Beautiful place.

Consider the source and if it’s not POT they are not hot.