[420 Girl]

As a Federal Medical Marijuana License holder who is also married to one, and as a spiritual user of cannabis, I feel I can speak with some authority about marijuana use.

I will start by saying that most of what you have probably heard from both sides of the marijuana argument is at worst lies, and at best, hyperbole. Marijuana is neither a miracle cure or a dangerous narcotic - it is simply a herb with many medicinal properties.

Its safety and efficacy as a painkiller, antidepressant, anticonvulsant, antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory, aphrodisiac, appetite stimulator, and nausea stopper are well-documented, and before it's prohibition in 1923, cannabis-based medicines were among the most prescribed in Canada's pharmacopeia. No one has ever died from a cannabis overdose, or from chronic use.

Recent laboratory studies even show cannabis to have properties that fight Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS, and even cancer. Even when smoked, the benefits of using marijuana outweigh the dangers, but it can also be eaten, vaporized, applied to the skin as a salve, or even inserted as a suppository.

The marijuana that my wife and I use comes from specialty gardens, so we know how it was grown, and can therefore estimate it's potency at about 12 to 15 per cent THC. But THC isn't the only active ingredient in cannabis. There are other elements called cannabinoids ( CBD ) which act on the body's Endocannabinoid system which regulates a long list of bodily systems, including mood and appetite.

Each "strain", or species of marijuana has different ratios of THC to CBD, giving them different medicinal properties and side effects. One strain may help with bodily pain, but do little for anxiety, another will stop anxiety but do little for nausea, and so on.

My wife and I medicate every three hours as part of our physical and spiritual healing, and use a volcano vaporizer. This device heats up the cannabis but doesn't burn it, so we experience none of the dangers of smoking. Since none of the medicine is destroyed by fire, this device delivers about four times the medicine as the same amount smoked.

If cannabis were dangerous, we would both be dead many times over.

Cannabis is safe, but the marijuana that the general public comes into contact with, especially teens, is often contaminated with grow fertilizers, bug spray, fungicide, fungus, dead bugs, and bug feces. This is the result of prohibition. Medical growers grow for quality. Commercial growers grow for profit, and the product only needs to be passable. They pass the savings on to you.

These chemicals and toxins can cause lung infections, and a long list of other health problems. Just because it stinks, doesn't mean it is "good pot".

Russell Barth

Russell Barth is a Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder, member of Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis and co-author of Mommy's Funny Medicine, with his wife Christine Lowe.


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